Basketball Saved my Life...

A couple of Thursdays ago, I was playing in a basketball game at our church. It's a rec league of old guys trying to "relive the glory days" as my wife puts it. The game was going on and I really wasn't "reliving" anything, except that I felt off. In the 2nd half of the game, I was really feeling winded, so I took myself out of the game and sat on the bench. The dizziness then hit me and the next thing I know I am waking up staring up at my team. I had passed out on the bench.

I was convinced to go to the ER by a guy on our team who is a paramedic and had a teammate drive me home so my wife could take me to the ER. Once there, I was run through a ton of tests, was told I was in AFIB and had a heart rate of 170! After a few hours and some medication, my heart rate converted back to a normal rhythm at just the right time before they admitted me. An Appointment was made with a cardiologist for Tuesday.

At the cardio doc, I was again run through a bunch of tests and it was decided I should do a stress test. So that wasn't as hard or as scary as I had thought in my mind and really did not think much of it. So after that, was the ultrasound of the heart. I left feeling pretty good.

Wednesday, while at work I receive a call asking me to come back tot he doctor's office because there were some "abnormalities" in my stress test results. They lady on the phone could not go further in the explanation, which is not good for a guys heart!

So the doctor states that there may be a blockage in my heart somewhere and suggested we do a heart cath procedure, where they run a catheter up my groin to my heart and poke around or something. The Dr. did say there was a chance that the test produce a "false-positive" but they would not know until they got in there. So we scheduled it form 5/25/17.

***First of all, I thought this was truly a false/positive. There was no way I could have blocked arteries! I am active, I eat fairly good, I am not overweight...this has to be a mistake.***

Fast forward to 5/25. I will not go into the prep of the procedure (but there is a story about a turkey sammich I will share at some point). I am on the table, awake and talking to the doctor as he is looking around my heart. He stops and states that I have two blockages! one is 90% blocked and the other is 70% blocked.

Unbelievable!

I had a stent placed in the 90% blocked artery and will have another one in a couple of weeks. The procedure was painless and seems to be working. I do feel better and I am actually looking forward to getting the second one done.

I am just stunned though. As active as I am, or thought I was, and as whatever I though I was, blocked arteries was the last thing on my mind. The DR did say my cholesterol is out of whack and I will work on it, but if I had not passed out in that basketball game, then I would have never known about my issues. In a weird way, basketball saved my life!