December 2008 – "Wakeup Call" – Part 6

The Cardiologist:

The next morning David drove me to the office of Dr. Ruben Zito. We got there about twenty minutes after seven, and to my very great surprise, not only was the office was staffed, but they were expecting me. Two tests had been scheduled for me. The first was an echocardiogram and the second a stress test. While I had rather expected that I would probably not see Dr. Zito until all the testing had been completed, I was pleasantly surprised when he sat down with me first thing that morning and discussed my history and what was going to be done that day. I couldn’t help but laugh quietly to myself at his response when I told him that I had open heart surgery nearly twenty-four years previously and had not seen a doctor in twenty years. He just could not get over that and kept saying, “Twenty-four years.” It may be that there was a question mark there and not a period! He then met with me again after each step was completed, and I don’t think that I could have been given better care than I got that day. I still laugh that he kept saying “Twenty-four years?” over and over during the course of the morning and finally told me bypass surgery in mid-1980s was generally only good for about ten years. He just could not get over the fact that it had been twenty-four years for me.

Once the tests were complete, he sat down with me to go over the results. The most critical was data from the echocardiogram. It showed that my heart was only pumping about 32% of the blood from the left ventricle. The normal heart pumps out about 50-55%; which meant I was functioning at about 60% of normal. Not a good thing. He suggested that he perform an angiogram the next morning to get more information. I had to think about that one for a few minutes, and finally declined. There were a number of considerations. First, I just did not want to be having any sort of surgery the day before Christmas. Second, I really wanted to find a cardiologist at home where we could perform the surgery and develop a long term plan for my care. That was not going to be possible therein Utah. He understood both of those reasons and advised me most strenuously to make contacting a cardiologist in the Dallas area a top priority once I returned home. He also made sure that I had copies of everything that had been done over the previous two days. Armed with prescriptions enough to keep the fluids flushed from my system for the next several days, I was ready to enjoy Christmas with my family. Event number three was just hours away.