Mind of Murph - Ten Years or So Later

by

A few days ago, Stacy K re-tweeted the story of a woman who had suffered a major heart attack without experiencing any of the typical 'major' symptoms of heart disease. It made me recall my own similar circumstances of about 10-1/2 years ago which I have shared during a couple of webinars in which it 'recount my own love-hate relationship with QuickBooks.'

I write this today to simply tell you, whether you are a man or a woman, it doesn't matter, if you are 40 to 45 years of age and have a 'family history' of heart disease, or you have 'any' of the risk factors for heart disease (listed below) you need to get yourself what is commonly called a 'heart scan' (which maybe know by many different names depending upon the exact brand of medical device being used) but which produces what is referred to as a 'coronary calcium score.' 

The 'heart scan' is a specialized test that provides pictures of your heart that enable your doctor to detect and measure the calcium-containing plaque in the arteries that actually provide blood to the heart muscle. Plaque inside these arteries can eventually restrict or block the flow of blood to the heart muscle and when it does the result is either 'myocardial ischemia' typically resulting in 'angina pectoris' (chest pain) or in worst case 'myocardial infarction' (a heart attack).

The measurement of calcified plaque via the heart scan may in fact enable a doctor to identify possible coronary artery disease long before you have any signs or symptoms of coronary artery disease.

Now I already mentioned 'family history' but I wanted to cover some of the risk factors for heart disease, especially as they relate to 'our profession.' That's because we are prime for the risk factors that make us targets for coronary artery disease.

  • Stress & tension - what accountant, bookkeeper, consultant, or ProAdvisor doesn't have stress & tension in their lives at least on an occasional basis? And this is obviously compounded if you 'do taxes,' or you 'do payroll,' or you 'do audits or compilations,' or you try to balance 'work with family and children.'  Therefore, you are 'at risk.'
  • Sedentary lifestyle/inactivity - yep, we tend to sit in our chairs and do accounting all day, pour over reports, compile spreadsheets, and go over one thing after another. If we are lucky we have just enough time to get up from our 'QuickBooks Online' and run to the bathroom or into the kitchen to grab a bag of chips or some M&Ms or a Snicker bar, you know something 'healthy for lunch.' You think to yourself, I run all the time...I drive my kids to soccer that season, softball or baseball that season, football this season, swimming then, etc. and we are always playing in the lake over the summer. Who is fooling who when it comes to this 'risk factor.'
  • Poor Diet - need I say more. We tend to grab whatever is most convenient because we are so busy we don't have time to make ourselves something healthy to eat. We stop and feed the kids at the fast food place that has the shortest line because we are rushing to get to the next place we have to get them so we can open our lap top and get some more stressful work done. Yes, we have just paid $10 for another 'risk factor.' And when we do finally have time to have a good meal we sit down to a big chunk of red meat and wash it down with some red wine or a few cocktails. More risk factors then we can count here.
  • High blood cholesterol/triglycerides. Chances two of the three risk factors above mean you have either one or both of these two risk factors. Essentially the no good things we are doing to our body are building up inside us and revolting, and by building up they are starting to clog-up our arteries including those that supply blood to our heart. There are direct relationships between these blood serum levels and our risk of coronary artery disease, the higher these levels in our blood the more likely we are to suffer myocardial vascular disease. 
  • Overweight - right along with all of the above our body has decided that it would like to hang around, and hang around it does in the form of a lot of extra of it hanging in the form of 'fat'. All that stuff we aren't getting rid of is stored somewhere and it finds fat cells to keep it company they plump and plump and plump and plump. With each extra pound, the risks continue to rise. As the pounds and risk rise our blood pressure rises with them...o'h that's next on the list. 
  • High Blood Pressure - carrying around extra weight, and clogging up our arteries with gunk means our heart is having to work harder to push blood around, that means our blood pressure rises. It not only rises during the pumping phase, but during the resting phase, that means it doesn't get as much rest as it needs between pumps. It is literally being worn out from the extra pressure of pumping. Stress makes it worse, so does exertion, so what do we do, we do as little as we can and typically we sit around and may become depressed.
  • If we are a smoker, or we drink alcohol, we are simply compounding our risks.
  • Depression obviously aggravates our ability to change our situation.

But change is possible, it begins by recognizing the risks, and our situation, and that means asking for, or seeking out, a 'heart scan.'

In my case, about 12 years ago, I started on a road of diet and exercise to reduce my weight and actually lost about 50 pounds over a year before going for a routine check-up. While there my Family Doctor told me it was time for a routine EKG and during that exam he said I had an irregular 'squiggle' so he sent me to a Cardiologist for follow-up.

The Cardiologist said, 'well everything looks OK to me, but I think we will send you to the EKG lab for a treadmill-stress test.' I thought "this isn't going to be a problem, I have been walking like 4 miles per day, and swimming 2 miles every day." Sure enough, I passed the treadmill with flying colors. A day later the Cardiologist's nurse called and said, well the doctor wants you to go for one of these new 'Heart Scans' it only costs $50. I scheduled it for a few days later and when I was done the technician said my Cardiologist would call me.

The next day the nurse called and told me that the doctor wanted to see me that afternoon. The news was grim, my Cardiologist said that I had the 'highest Cardio-calcium score' he had ever seen. Two days later I was in the Cardiac-cath lab having a Coronary-angiography performed. The results of that were no better, it showed that I had three Coronary arteries that were so badly occluded that I needed to have Bypass-surgery.

Five-days later I was being rolled into surgery for elective Coronary bypass. It was elective because I had not suffered either Myocardial Ischemia or Myocardial Infarction, and still to this date, some 10+ years later I have not suffered either, nor had any coronary-symptoms. My Cardiologist takes very good care of me.

I might mention the fact that about 10 years prior to all of this happening to me, my brother had gone to a different Cardiologist and had a treadmill test and was told everything was just fine. Later that same day he suffered a massive Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack) which resulted in the loss of nearly 36% of his total heart muscle, and his having been a Chronic Heart Failure patient ever since. By the way, my brother now uses 'my' Cardiologist.

I attribute my 'saving grace' to perhaps either a 'little squiggle' on an EKG or a $50 'Heart Scan', I don't know which was more telling. But I am here to say...in most places, you can't necessarily control getting your own EKG, but you can typically walk into almost any hospital and many 'heart clinics' and sign-up for a 'Heart Scan' without any physician prescription or order. They have staff physicians to interpret the results which typically can be reported to you within 12 to 24 hours. The reality is that a 'Heart Scan' can save your life!

So once again, if you have 'family history' or 'risk factors', just 'get a heart scan' if you are 40 or more years of age.  Why 'risk it'?

Remember, 'your heart is at the heart of every matter in your life!'