He won't be happy when he hears of it. It's hard to believe. The friday before thanksgiving he played 6 games of squash. The monday before thanksgiving he had his stress test. A week after thanksgiving he has a double stent put in.
Gawd I hope he doesn't give up the hard work.
My brother has been, I'm guessing, in denial about the whole thing. We all spoke with my Dad over thanksgiving about this issue, except for my brother. Everyone was emailing about it, except for my brother. Everyone was in phone contact, except for my brother. If I find out he didn't call our father by the time he went to bed tonight, I'm going to be pissed.
Littlek,
I so glad to hear everything went well! Hope the information I gave earlier was helpful in better understanding what to expect.
Littlek, I'm glad the day went so well. I hope your dad takes the news well. When will they tell him?
I'm glad it went well. Does your Dad do crossword puzzles or enjoy certain types of books? He probably won't have a terribly long recovery time, but it's nice to have something to do.
Marty Barker - it did, thank you.
I dunno, Jes. He went home this morning and I spoke a little with my mother. Dad was asleep. He is allowed to go to the gym on monday for a light work out! Amazing.
Wow, that's great, littlek. Amazing that he can be home and back to the gym that fast.
It sort of blows my mind. Week one - squash. Week two- lay low. Week three - surgery. Week four - back to the gym.
That is crazy....glad to hear it went well though.
Thanks for stopping in Slappy.
Jes, didn't see your latest post. My dad was the one who turned me on to astronomy (in our limited way). I left my national geographic with him at the hospital - it's about Saturn (and, hmmmm, something else good). He's at home and my mother, though she isn't all that good at caring for anyone unwell, will help him.
I've nabbed a bunch of articles about stents and arteries and yada yada lately. Willl try to gather them up for you as package.
But, as opposed to plastics, I'll just murmer... walnuts, quietly.
Well, never mind that. What I see is that people no longer think plaque is all related to cholesterol. (I didn't think so either, from the mid eighties, but never mind).
I'll see if I can get you a compilation of recent saves, for review and perhaps throwaway.
So. He's been to the gym. He worked out lightly, but was surprised to find he couldn't get his pulse above 90. It's the BP meds, he says! What about flexing your arteries, I says? <shrug>. He spent most of the visit with his cardiologist trying to figure out which of his meds is giving him dire rear. He sees his primary doc this friday, he will spend most of THAT visit trying to figure out which meds are giving him dire rear. <shrug>.
LK, my wife takes atenolol, a drug that keeps her pulse pretty low. Is that your dad's med?
I hate to point out to you that recently there's a lot of talk about a new downside for stents. A doctor friend of mine who has the "old" kind of stent says that his do not CONTRIBUTE to heart attacks or strokes (I've forgotten which) but says that many people may want to have them removed.
Oh littlek, I just came upon your thread. My thoughts are certainly with you and your father.
If he starts wondering if all his exercise and staying with a healthful diet has been worth it, just think of Jim Fixx. Yes, he died while running, but the consensus was that he would have died much sooner if he hadn't been a runner. Was this an awful thing to bring up? Gawd I hope not.
So much disease has a genetic component and yes, that is a strike against you right away, but doing all the right things and keeping close watch are the very best ways to keep going and to enjoy a life of good quality.
{{{{{ littlek }}}}}
JLNobody wrote:LK, my wife takes atenolol, a drug that keeps her pulse pretty low. Is that your dad's med?
I hate to point out to you that recently there's a lot of talk about a new downside for stents. A doctor friend of mine who has the "old" kind of stent says that his do not CONTRIBUTE to heart attacks or strokes (I've forgotten which) but says that many people may want to have them removed.
i don't understand how a stent can possibly be removed. The inner lining of the artery grows into the stent. So the only thing I could imagine is that if the artery re-stenoses at the stent an option could be to bypass the artery itself. If I had the option of a stent vs. open heart surgery I'd take the option of the stent with the knowledge that surgery may be needed some time down the road. Bypass grafts have been known to fail too.
martybarker, I don't know how it can be removed either, but I had a conversation this morning with an individual who recently received a stent or two at a well-known heart center. He said that the doctors felt little concern about recent findings regarding chemically treated stents. He said that the statistically increased chance of blood clots was not big enough to off-set the gains from the stent. That's better, LittleK.
Let's see if this helps.
FDA Panel Gets Set for Drug-Eluting Stent Safety Hearing
GAITHERSBURG, Md. -- There are more questions than answers on the eve of the
start of a two-day special FDA advisory panel on drug-eluting stents, such as
whether they are safe, who should get get them, and who should not.
http://broadcaster.medpagetoday.com/t?r=2&ctl=C14:D2C2720D46AD9D7398010175C74A7B0D
I've been reading that stent stuff recently too. Depends, I think, on the stent..
Not that I know.
I've also been following stuff about plaque building for years, too bad I have no memory. What I can say offhand is that it isn't all tied with cholesterol. Related to thymine and homocystine.. and vitamin B 6 (?) - but that has recently been brought in question too.
I'm sure I've got a thicket of links on two computers, some even recent.
The other thing I have to say is WALNUTS - eating some a day is (apparently) related to artery elasticity.
If I drag up some links I'll post them here - or would you rather I opened a separate thread, littleK?
Some of my links are saved to my archives (damn computer) and so I can't just link but would cut and paste.
WALNUT WORLD
I've gotten into making a walnut bread with cranberries soaked in apple juice and raisins with a bunch of cocoa added in. Yummy, except this last batch I forgot the (er) butter. It was still edible, but not as delicious.
I should stop the butter on that and use canola.
See, in my magical world, olive oil cancels out butter, so I often add a little if and when I do choose butter, or I could add some walnut oil. They could fight it out for sites to attach to..
This is going to sound wacko, especially from someone essentially pro allopathic medicine, regular old research medicine, with all of its double blind studies.
I don't mind alternatives, have been known to listen, but I want to see serious testing, preferably not funded by drug companies. There's the rub.
So, at least two decades ago, I read an article in that prestigious medical journal, Atlantic Monthly. Something about the Myth of Cholesterol.
I saved the article for years and it may still be somewhere in a box.
Hard for me now to explain the theory, but it involved the matter of why eskimos didn't have heart trouble (at least then) when they ate all this fat...
well, it had to do with raw meat (at least then). In cooking meat, various items were lost, and I'm just guessing now, thymine, homocysteine? were among them, and perhaps B6 - or maybe B6 = thymine.
Anyway, it made sense to read. Since this was missing, something else could happen, having to do with platelets, in the formation of plaque.
Well, this guy was hooted out. I think he was from Harvard/associated hospital in the first place, but I may misremember. In any case, people didn't go for the study, and didn't go for him writing in Atlantic after they didn't go for it.
I gather he was rehabilitated with agreement decades later, a little late for his career.
And now that is probably questioned again. Just saw something lately that taking B6 did not help - think it was on Slate.com.
Wow, a lot of action here!
I have been trying to keep up with the stent news. The idea is that the new, drug coated stents may upisk of sudden death. But, this is a complicated issue. Your rates for complications are higher if you're already high risk and if you don't take plavix (right name?) for a year after the stents are put in. That drug causes your platelets to be extra slippery <shrug, I dunno what that means either>. His cardiologist, the surgeons and his primary all agree that they are better than they are worse than the old stents - the benefits outweigh the risks, at least for my dad who is very healthy otherwise.
Sorry to rush through, but I have to get my **** together for my class this weekend. Will report on my dad further after I see him..........
Oh yes, you're a teecher now. I almost forgot.
