Over these past several days I’ve put the finishing touches on my first book entitled “The 21 secrets to Amazing Health.”  I passed the first draft on to my husband who’ll give it a close read before passing it on to our editor.  My “21 Secrets to Amazing Health” is a comprehensive guide that is months in the making and will take you on an amazing journey to help you achieve greater results in terms of weight loss, healthy living and longevity.
 
The need for these “21 Secrets to Amazing Health” was even more evident yesterday when I was sitting at the bedside of one of my patients, Mr. M, whom I had admitted to the hospital a day earlier.  For the past 2 days Mr. M had noted some chest discomfort but no “true” chest pain.  When he began to experience profuse sweating along with the chest discomfort he came to the emergency department to get evaluated.  As I was approaching his hospital room, Mr. M was walking towards me looking for his nurse.  He wanted a cup of water and quenching his thirst was his highest priority at the time, not the fact that he had severe chest discomfort and might have a blocked artery supplying his heart. 
 

During my interview and examination, I discovered that Mr. M had had a recent stress test several months earlier and was told by his doctor that the test was abnormal but he opted for medications only and didn’t want to have a cardiac catheterization to take a better look at his arteries.  He told me he had a “bad” experience some 15 years ago when he had his first catheterization and didn’t want to go through that again. 
 

Both I and the cardiologist I called in to see him knew that Mr. M’s symptoms were highly suggestive of a blocked artery and that a cardiac catheterization would be the most definitive test to perform but given his reluctance to undergo the procedure, he had a low level stress test performed yesterday.  To his surprise but not to ours, he again had an abnormal stress test but this time, the cardiologist was able to convince him to have the cardiac catheterization. 
 

I was called by the cardiologist immediately after the catheterization with the results.  Mr. M had a “widow maker” lesion along with severe blockage of 2 of his other coronary arteries and was being emergently prepared for open heart surgery within the hour.  The “widow maker” is a severe blockage of the left main coronary artery which supplies a significant portion of your heart muscle with blood and other nutrients.  Most people who have abrupt complete blockage of the left main artery will never make it to the hospital for evaluation and will die immediately, hence the name “widow maker.” 
 

Even though Mr. M was reluctant to proceed with a cardiac catheterization, we convinced Mr. M that he was here in the hospital for one reason and one reason only and that was for his health…to do whatever we needed to do to help him live many more years past the age of 67. 
 

Mr. M in his desire to enjoy the “golden years” of his life, ignored the signs of heart disease and wanted to blissfully enjoy living in ignorance when it came to his lifestyle.  He told me that he didn’t like doctors and really never bothered to follow up with their recommendations.  I explained to Mr. M that I wanted him to enjoy his “golden years” and that means doing whatever is necessary to make sure that his chest pain is fully evaluated and if that means opening up a blocked artery (or in his case, having open heart surgery to bypass his blocked arteries) then we’re prepared to do whatever it takes.
 

If you were in Mr. M’s position, what would you do differently?  Are you like Mr. M, are you ignoring certain warning signs that you need to get checked out by your doctor?  Do you want to enjoy your life but you’re unsure as to what it really means to live healthy?
 

This and many more questions and issues will be answered in my upcoming “21 Secrets to Amazing Health.”  Continue to visit http://www.thehealthandwellnessqueen.com for future release information and for general information on your health and wellness.
 

Take care,
Dr. Traci Ferguson, The Health and Wellness Queen
 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.