My Experience with Heart Disease

My Background

How fast can you lose your fitness level?  What? Not me! That could happen to other people...but not me!

Exercise and heart disease were always mutually exclusive in my mind! It never occurred to me that I would have to learn to exercise with heart disease.

Although I was born with a slight heart murmur I never once thought I had heart disease. In my case it was a leaky Mitral Valve. It was never a problem nor was it serious, but in January 2016 I had a bad lung infection which turned into my third bout of pneumonia. This dragged on and on and seemed to last for months. My energy levels dropped so low I pretty much stopped doing any significant work outs.

Sleep became something I used to do. My shortness of breath and my cough had become extremely bad, and I had less than zero energy.

Fitness routines were always a part of my life so working out had always been part of who I am. When I couldn't exercise and didn't even want to, I knew something serious was wrong. I hadn't seen a doctor in several years because mine had retired. Time just zipped by and I never thought I needed one.

When I tried to find new doctor in May and June of 2016, many weren't taking new patients and some were the bottom of the barrel. One of those referred me to a respirologist (another bottom of the barrel guy) who after one brief breathing test, said I had COPD and it was incurable. Inhalers were with me for the rest of my life he said. A month and half later I returned minus my chest infection but still coughing and demanded another test. When I passed it he said it didn't matter, I still had COPD.

I couldn't get away from his office fast enough.

Surprise, surprise!

My cough was getting worse and the shortness of breath was so bad I couldn't sleep. I was almost afraid to sleep. Those two symptoms along with my total lack of energy turned out were obvious indications of a heart issue. Turned out the murmur was now screaming and yelling! I had not yet found a doctor I respected, but one I just met told me flat out." Go to the emergency ward at the hospital, NOW". So I did! That was at 2 pm on a Thursday.

After a 12 hour wait, it was now 2 am. Finally, I was seen by a doctor who thought he recognized my problem and called a heart specialist. He took a look at me, checked the test results, and said, "this is so serious I am admitting you to the hospital right now, and we will schedule surgery in the morning".  My symptoms were so obvious, the others should have seen it, but didn't. I had been explaining this was the problem to other doctors but nobody listened until now.

A few days later, I underwent open heart surgery to repair the valve. My 'heart event' (as I found these things are called) occurred on Sept 15, 2016. My loss of fitness actually began eight months before my surgery. And of course I couldn't do any activity other than light walking for six weeks after the surgery. My level of fitness had declined tremendously. Fortunately I still had the mental and muscle memory of exercising.

What I had learned so far was to never, never trust someone just because he/she is a doctor. Always, always get multiple opinions on serious things.