Friday, April 15, 2011

"Hey Look Me Over"

LEND ME AN EAR
From left to right: Peggy Reinertson, John Ing, Kathy Ing.

"Okay you three, sing it in unison now!"


"DOESN'T HE LOOK GREAT!"


I'm not sure at what age it becomes okay to intimately talk about your personal health half the day. Maybe its never okay. I don't know. But it's tough to hold back when you spend more time with DOCTORS and NURSES and PHARMACISTS than you do with your family.


Kathy and John, our friends from New Zealand, recently agreed to a pact (not legally binding) with another couple in our general age category. They promise among the four of them they will only be allowed 13 minutes a day to engage in verbal intercourse concerning health. Okay, here comes the IRONY.


We just got a call from John and Kathy last night. Yeah, they called from New Zealand. And what did they want to talk about? MY HEALTH!! Well, for the record? I feel great. I'm getting plenty of exercise, and eating like I'm on the verge of being a VEGAN! Most of you would kill for my cholesterol and triglyceride readings. My resting heart rate is in the 60s. My typical blood pressure is 114 over 75. I would like to say that took less than 13 minutes to share, but there were a few sidebars that needed to be flushed out.


Now to any students of pre-blog (aka ancient) journalism, you need to know that this might be considered a classic case of 'burying the lead." If you were in a stand up comedy audience? You would label it the PUNCH LINE! TAH, DAH!


You see, despite that glowing report card up there? I HAD A HEART ATTACK! WHEN? I don't know. They (my extended medical family) don't know. Seems I just had one sometime, someway, somewhere. The medical jargon for my condition is SILENT HEART ATTACK.


After sharing all the details of my 2010 THYROID surgery, I thought I'd fore go being the DRAMA KING. I would take the SILENT approach on this one. I'd just keep it in the family. With my family? Who was I kidding? AND, I've just decided it may be a bit of a public service to let everyone know that healthy living is not a guarantee of good heart health. Don't hold me to Journal of American Medical Association research standards here. But it is my understanding that age and DNA can be just as evil as all those bad habit heart risks.


So a stress test finds my heart attack. And then I go have an angiogram (not related to a telegram, or any other gram). Turns out one of my arteries is totally blocked, and the most important artery is 90 percent blocked from cholesterol most likely produced by my own liver (sneakly little devil).


Well, they find the weak spot in the key artery, and put in a STENT. Now my blood is racing into my heart like water through a fire hose.


And now here is a kicker I didn't expect. That totally blocked artery? It is building a whole bunch of its own little by-passes all on its own. And the Doctor's guarded prognosis is I may never have to have ANY open heart surgery of any kind.


Anyway, right now the system (medical) has control of my life, and for the first time that is a GOOD THING. I'm in this new fraternity of people with cardiac issues. We swap sports and heart tales, and work out at the hospital three times a week.


Right now? My various cardiac properties are operating near optimum. In a year? Put your money on me to finish in the middle of the pack in the local 5K. Now if you're a speed reader you got through this in less than 13 minutes. My apologies to the rest of you.


To John and Kathy? The next tofu salad is on me.


(ONLY READ THIS POST-SCRIPT IF YOU ARE FULLY AWARE THAT PAUL'S TONGUE LIVES IN HIS CHEEK. When talking about my cholesterol numbers? My ALTER-EGO was going to write: "they were to die for." Well let me tell you, I had a long severe chat with that ALTER-EGO. He won't be thinking THAT AGAIN anytime soon.)