Are You Crazy?

Well maybe I am.

I had hoped that I might be able to put the film of my cardiac cath on this post. But alas this wanna be nerd is not at all techie. In fact I'm technically disabled.

Back to the crazy question. Not a lot of people know this about me, especially those who read this post, and somebody in California. But I have been diagnosed as bipolar.

Now manifested as more depressive than manic.

Being on the depressive side, I worried more about heart attacks and when or if the next one would come.

This post probably relates to my first post "Did I Cause My Heart Attack"

Now my mother is the worrier in the family. My dad could leave for work or grocery store or just any where and if mom heard a siren she would say "Oh no I hope that's not your father". It's a good thing there were no cell phones in those days because she would be calling dad or me or any of my brothers to see if we were dead and lying on the side of the road.

My wife, Cathy, says I spend too much time serching the internet on heart disease. Maybe she's right. Here is a quote I found for people with depression.

“There is good evidence that if a person has depression after a heart attack, they are more likely to die from cardiac causes in the following months and years,” said lead author Jeff Huffman, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Now do I ignore this usless stuff. And pretend I did'nt see it. Or do I worry, and take my medication, the medication list grows by the week it seems.

Another quote: "Depression can double the risk of death or repeat heart disease in heart attack patients, according to two reviews of more than 40 studies that examine the link between depression and heart disease". ... > read more

So am I depressed because I read about depression. Or am I depressed because I had so many heart episodes in a short amount of time. Or did the depression cause the episodes following the first attack. Known as the widow maker.

At this point my PCP is controlling my mood swings. Two drugs, Seroquel and Lexapro.

Seroquel stops the voices and rapid thoughts at night, enabling me to sleep. And Lexapro deals with the depression.

So on Feb 25, 2005 I had the first attack resulting in the placement of two stents.

Three weeks later my PCP wants me to have a stress test before going back to work. So I told my cardiologist and he wanted to wait at least until four weeks out.

I had my first cath at a hospital out of network. So my cardiologist, Dr. Pascual, had not reviewed my cath.

I had been having chest pain and was ignoring it. So I scheduled an appointment with Dr. P.

He wasn't to concerned that the pain would be cardiac. But he scheduled a nuclear stress test any way.

About a week later a girl from his office called and asked if I could come in asap to see the Dr.

So I came in the next morning. Dr. P. said he had seen an area of concern and suggested another cardiac cath. This was on a Thursday and the next day was Good Friday. So we scheduled the cath for the following Monday.

On Monday the 24 of march I went to the hospital for the procedure. Dr. P was confident that they would find nothing.

So I check into the hospital and was rolled into the cath lab and transferred to the table under fluoro, and pumped upped with drugs so I don't feel the catheter inserted into the artery.

Every thing was going well when suddenly I had severe chest pain. I couldn't catch my breath.

Dr. P. put a stent in the CX and had inserted the wire into the OM when I had the heart attack. So we had gone from nothing to worry about to a full fleged heart attack.

Dr. Pascual found a 90% blockage of the CX circumflex and 75% blockage of the OM obtuse marginal. When Dr. P. inserted the wire into the OM some how it triggered the heart attack. So he and my wife decided to leave the OM alone it's not that big of a vessel to worry about. Easy for him to say. He isn't bipolar. And he wasn't raised by a Zemmiphobic mother. I'm not blaming mom for this. I just said this to be funny. Ha! Ha! If you look up zemmiphobia you'll know my mom has never seen a mole rat to be afraid of.

I think I've said enough for this post. "Let not your heart be troubled" I think the big one is coming

O'shea