Facing Heart Disease: Fear, Hope, and Gratitude
Devastation and Consolation
The Diagnosis
Last Friday, I read the cardiologist’s second letter to my GP and felt devastated: ‘multivessel coronary plaque’, ‘heavily-calcified plaque’, ‘significant luminal narrowing’, and a very high Agatston score scared me.
The Agatston score indicates the amount of calcium in the coronary arteries, and helps predict the risk of heart events, like a heart attack. His letter followed the results of the CT scan.
My worries about whether my health insurer would pay for my angiogram faded away: it was clearly medically necessary.
Processing the News
I cried with Ruth after I’d read it. I remembered the tear from my father’s eye after his massive stroke, his sunken face, his inability to speak, his pinprick pupils — until the moment of his death, weeks later, when they were full and beautiful.
I cried too when Rosie, a secretary at the angiogram scheduling department, spoke to me. She said I was doing everything right. I was proactive in looking after my health. She said I wasn’t in the same situation as my father.
The Angiogram
My father died on 9 September 1981. On the same date, 43 years later, I had my angiogram. It was painful and unpleasant. The vein in the wrist through which the catheter was pushed was narrow. I nearly blacked out during the procedure.
‘There is disease there,’ said the doctor who had pushed the catheter through my wrist, apologizing for the pain, and again when they had to make my heart beat faster.
Living with Heart Disease
After some hours of rest and observation following the angiogram, the lead doctor talked to me. I think he said that it may be best to treat the disease with medication and lifestyle changes but he would be discussing my case with the cardiology team the following day. I’m now waiting to hear the outcome of that discussion.
He also said I could continue cycling but moderately. I was to avoid getting my heart pumping too hard.
Gratitude Amid Sadness
‘I feel subliminally sad,’ I journaled the day after the angiogram. ‘I’m grateful for Ruth, our home, our marriage, our children, our health, our dog, our garden. I’m grateful for the life I’ve lived, the life I still have. I’m so happy I faced my fears and left the Marists. So very glad I married Ruthie—the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’
The Power of Friendship
I told someone about my diagnosis with heart disease. I saw his eyes moisten. It was affirming that my life meant something to him. I rang another friend, who has had his own health challenges. He phoned me with his bad news some years ago and has lived to tell the tale. Friendship and love are the only things that matter in the end.
A Significant Dream
I had a striking dream yesterday morning, Thursday, 12 September — always a significant date for me as it was the date I took my first profession in 1981, the day after I buried my father, and the date of my final profession in 1987.
I wrote the dream down. My home, representing my body, was being attacked by a massive pendulum. It was threatening to crash through our landing window. Banisters near the landing, which in waking life are strong and supportive, were thin and fragile in the dream.
Recounting the dream to Ruth, it was upon mentioning the thin banisters, like the fragile weak wood of fruit boxes, that I broke down.
A Meaningful Encounter
Last night, Ruth and I attended the book launch of ‘The Breath of Consolation: Finding Solace in Cancer Literature’ by Josephine Brady. It was timely and apt, as all that was said was as meaningful to me as a heart patient as to anyone reading the book who has cancer.
It was launched by Brian Keenan, an author-hero of mine, whose book ‘An Evil Cradling’ made a lifelong impression on me since its publication in 1992. I brought along my cherished hardbacked copy with the naked man on its cover, hoping I might have the opportunity to talk to Brian and ask him to sign it.
We did talk. I thanked him, as I put it, ‘on behalf of humanity’ for his magnificent memoir of his years of captivity and isolation after he was kidnapped in Beirut in 1985. We hugged, and after I’d parted, I was honoured that he called me back to reinforce something he had said to me. His inscription reads: ‘To Joe, Hope you enjoy this night in the dark place. Brian Keenan.’
Listen to our song So Glad I Married You on Spotify or YouTube, sung by The Rayne.
Listen to our song Every Moment, sung by The Rayne.
Joe’s acclaimed first memoir In My Gut, I Don’t Believe is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, Hardback and Audible editions. His second memoir Saved by a Woman is available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardback editions.
