So here I sit in a hospital waiting room.  This isn’t the first time in my life; not by a long shot.  Once again I find myself asking “why him, why us?”  What’s more disturbing are the thoughts of “why not him, why not them?”  After all, many of the faces I see on a daily basis fit the picture of heart disease more than we do.  

9 out of 10 heart disease patients present with one of the following risk factors (CDC):

• High cholesterol
• High blood pressure
• Diabetes
• Cigarette smoking
• Overweight and obesity
• Poor diet
• Physical inactivity
• Alcohol use

While it seems likely that most people who have heart disease or coronary artery disease (CAD) would have one of these risk factors, the truth is, 1 in 10 people will not have any of them.  10%!  That is actually quite significant.  Think of it this way.  A 10% rate of return on your investment is a good investment indeed.  A 10% chance of crashing in an airplane is enough to keep you from flying.

The point is, 10% is not insignificant.  You would not ride a roller coaster if you knew that 10% of the time it flew off the tracks.  So why do we ignore the 10% of the population who get heart disease and have no risk factors?  Well, they aren’t exactly ignored, but they are certainly misdiagnosed a great deal of the time.  When someone walks into a doctor’s office with one of the above risk factors, the doctor can quickly determine that their chest pain is from angina, a lack of oxygen to the heart muscle due to coronary artery blockages.

If however, an individual is an active person with low blood pressure, trim waistline and never smoked, the doctor may search and search for every cause under the sun other than CAD.  Even though CAD is the leading cause of heart attack, the person with the healthy lifestyle is often overlooked…sometimes to the point that they have to go into cardiac arrest (a stopped heart) in order to get any attention.

Heaven forbid we should see any more cases like Jim Fixx.  Fixx, an avid runner and author of “The Complete Book of Running” died of a heart attack in 1984.  He had a cholesterol level over 250, so granted he did have one of the risk factors listed above.  And he did live to be 52, which was much older than his father, who also died of a heart attack.  But to this day, our society and even the medical community, is in denial that even the most fit can be quite sick.

Fitness is not the same as health.  Athletes and active people can be capable of many feats of strength and endurance and have body systems, such as the cardiovascular system, that are very sick.  We’ve seen it with college basketball players who die suddenly mid-court.  Yet, we don’t believe it when it is a loved one.  I know I didn’t.  I still find it hard to believe that my husband suffers from coronary artery disease.  He runs, he eats healthy, he has low blood pressure, he has never smoked and he controls his weight.  He is the 10% that is all too often ignored. 

If it weren’t for his persistence and diligent logging of symptoms, I might never have found myself sitting where I am as I write this: in the waiting room in the hospital while he has coronary angioplasty.  I just as easily could have found myself in a far more difficult place.  I’ve been there, and don’t care to do it again.

That being said, I’m thankful we finally ended up here and he is receiving the help he needs at long last.  And one last thing:  if you don’t think 10% is significant, ask yourself if you might soon be part of the other 90%.  One in every 4 deaths is from heart disease.  Don’t think it will be you?  Neither did Jim Fixx.

Post Script:  My husband Gary is now recovering from coronary angioplasty and stenting of 4 coronary arteries.  Two of them were blocked greater than 95%.  I hate to quote a commercial but:  “Can you hear me now?”