Note from Audra – Adam is a good friend and I’m beyond glad he went to the doctor when he did, so that they could save his heart. He’s loved by many in Dunwoody and has saved more than one of you from computer crashes. So, I thought you may enjoy hearing about how a series of Doctors saved his heart from crashing!
by Adam Friedman of Dunwoody PC for The Aha! Connection
When I’ve been retelling this story to people, I tell them that I don’t smoke, I don’t have high blood pressure, I don’t have blood sugar issues, I’m not overweight. I’m just genetically predisposed to having clogged arteries and that’s why the story is such a shocker. Although I got in a discussion with a medical professional friend of mine that said if you don’t have a vegetable (mac and cheese IS NOT a vegetable) until you’re married and your wife shows you broccoli, green beans and carrots and you have a look of amazement that people eat those things, would that be considered being a genetic issue or bad parenting? Don’t get me started on kohlrabi or broccolini.
I hope you read this and make a doctor’s appointment if like me, you don’t go regularly. You’ll never know what they might find, and it just may save your life.
I’m 48. I’m invincible. I didn’t take any medicine. So, like an invincible “I’m still young” guy, I hadn’t been to a primary care doctor in a year or a decade or something like that. My wife and I self-pay our insurance because we are both consultants, so I look at going to the doctor as little as possible since our insurance is never the good “we cover stuff” kind. I’ve been to Dunwoody Urgent Care for certain acute issues. I decided that with my new health insurance this year I’d finally break down and get to know a family doctor. I decided that a year and a half ago when I posted on Nextdoor I was looking for a primary care doctor who had experience with cardiac who wasn’t too old or too young, since my dad had heart surgery when he was 48. I got a solid recommendation from one of my neighbors who is in the cardiac fix-’em business and “swiftly” made an appointment a year and a half later (it wasn’t a priority, don’t judge me…) for February 1st of this year.
I had some vague symptoms like shortness of breath and a dull chest pain. The more I thought about symptoms in hindsight I forgot that I also had what I thought was indigestion. I told the doctor this. He did a bunch of standard blood tests. He called me a few days later and told me everything was fine except my overall cholesterol was horrible at 288 and my LDL was no better at 216. He said, “you can become a vegan marathon runner, or I can put you on statins the rest of your life.” Next steps were a referral to a cardiologist. I was able to make an appointment and see a cardiologist on February 14th. They did a nuclear stress test with an ECG. At the end of the appointment, the cardiologist visits with me and says I failed the stress test. He said it looked like there wasn’t proper blood flow in the apex of my heart. I also failed the ECG with an abnormal rhythm of the ST Depression. He then said “We can mess around with some more noninvasive tests and probably not draw any solid conclusions or we can schedule you for an invasive cardiac catherization where they stick a tube into your heart and if they find clogged arteries they can stent them and hopefully take care of the problems then and there”.
So, on February 25th, I went in for a cardiac catherization at Northside Hospital. My wife and I were planning, and she said, “I bet there’s a 70% chance you’ll need a stent, which means you’re spending the night.” I was OK with that and had my overnight bag packed. About 15 minutes into starting the “cath”, the cardiologist pulls his equipment out and says he can’t stent anything, and that I’ll need surgery. Surgery? Yes, 3 of my arteries were blocked 90%. The good news is that I never suffered a heart attack and the EF% is 55%.
I said “OK, let’s figure this out” and that’s when he said “Figure what out? We put you into an ambulance and you go across the street to Emory St. Joe’s and get set up for a triple bypass, AKA OPEN HEART SURGERY”. So a few minutes later the nice people at Central EMS show up and take me across the street (Uber would have been $6 FYI and this certainly wasn’t – If you want to guess how much Central EMS sent me a bill for, add $2,000 to your number, it must have been an UBER surcharging rush hour to go that 1/32 of a mile). I get to Emory St Joe’s and that night they inform me that there’s a cancellation (don’t want to know why, hopefully someone forgot to not eat before their appointment…), and they can get me in the next day for my triple bypass, AKA OPEN HEART SURGERY.
And so, on Tuesday afternoon, after a successful surgery with a great doctor, I became the proud owner of a much-improved heart. Think of the 285/400 interchange if they were able to complete the process in 4 hours by taking Camp Creek Parkway and Lawrenceville Highway and moving them into Sandy Springs. That’s bypass.
Recovery in the hospital was quick (Emory St. Joe’s has fantastic nurses, FYI). I was released on Saturday, March 2nd. I have had a ton of friends stop by with good wishes and good food. I’ve gotten a ton of get well soon cards, phone calls and positive comments on social media. I’ve learned to despise the companies that make jigsaw puzzles. I’ve was able to escape outside of my home confinement. However, I couldn’t drive for a few weeks nor sit in the front seat of a vehicle in range of a potentially deploying airbag. I couldn’t lift things that weighed more than 10 lbs. I just went in for my post-op stress test. I asked the therapist how I did, and he said “Well, I didn’t run into the hallway yelling for a doc so there’s that.” Hopefully in a few weeks I will be starting my cardiac rehabilitation which less than 25% of recovering heart surgery patients do, but it’s about time I had some focus on my health so that I can overcome this and be a stronger person.
