Doc, my friend who is fifty-three had a heart attack last Friday. He has a very important job working to keep up mental health among the troops stationed at Ft. Campbell, KY. This keeps him away from home during the week, so he has an apartment near the base.

He woke up Friday early knowing he was having a heart attack.

He was only five minutes from a hospital, and in true guy-style, he drove himself to the hospital. (He explained if he would have waited for 911 he would be dead.)

Things he heard that I wouldn’t want to hear while having a heart attack:

• “I’m sorry, this isn’t the emergency entrance, you need to drive around to that entrance.” (hospital employee) But I’m having a heart attack.
• “Then you better hurry.” (same employee)
• “You are dying of a heart attack.” (Chief of Cardiology when Doc had his phone in his hand getting ready to text his wife that he made it to hospital.)
• “You have a 99% blockage of the widowmaker”

…the left anterior descending branch of the left coronary artery… This artery supplies a large part of the heart, particularly the section responsible for pumping oxygenated blood to the rest of the body (left ventricle). The reason it’s earned its name is that blockage of this vessel is a serious emergency that requires acting within minutes and happens more often in males.



• “Oh man, I’m making hamburger out of your heart dude.” (Roto-rooter operator as he was working to get catheter through blockage.)

What you want to see after a Heart Attack:

• Sudden appearance of lots of arteries on the catheter monitor that were previously invisible because of the blockage.
• Doctors “high-fiving” each other.
• Doc wandering around Sam’s Club five days afterwards.