Last week I thought that I’d been experiencing some indigestion pain – something that I’ve never had. When this indigestion pain woke me up on Sunday, I thought I’d see my doctor to see if there was anything that could be done. He checked me out and thought that I had indigestion as well, but thought that he should refer me to a cardiologist to do an Exercise Stress Test. This involves having a bunch of wires attached to your chest while you walk at varying speeds on a treadmill.

The results of this test were inconclusive so the Cardiologist told me that he’d like to perform a Coronary Angiogram on me the next day (Wednesday) and that I’d need to stay overnight in Hospital. I’ve never been a patient in a Hospital before, only ever been there as a visitor so I was pretty scared to say the least!

Wednesday morning comes around and I’m admitted and taken into the ‘Cath Lab’ for my procedure. If you haven’t followed the above link, the procedure involves making an incision in your groin and placing a catheter into your femerol artery. The catheter then travels to your heart and releases a dye into your coronary arteries which is then seen via x-ray on a TV like monitor by the Cardiologist. They found 2 blockages (known as Stenosis) – one 80% and one which was 90% blocked. They then inserted a Stent which is a small, expandable wire mesh tube that keeps the artery open and allows the blood to flow through at a better rate.

They placed one stent in me on Wednesday, and another on Thursday morning using the groin on the opposite side giving me a matching pair. This meant another night in hospital. I was released from hospital on Friday morning and have been resting ever since. Walking is painful due to the tenderness of my groin on either side.

The chest feels fine though which is the main thing. I’m now on a low-fat, low-salt, high fibre diet which sounds pretty boring but is better than the alternative! The Doctor tells me that I’ll fine again in another 2-3 weeks so I should be able to hit the gym again then. I’ve been going to the gym now since December and lost about 10 Kgs. It appears that my years of smoking and eating fatty foods and that sort of thing finally caught up with me – either that or following Richmond Footy Club for as long as I have is a health hazard!

The good news of course is that the problem was caught before it caused a serious malfunction – i.e. a heart attack. I guess the moral of the story is that if your body tells you something is wrong, going to the doctor is probably a good idea!

My thanks go to my GP Dr. Sweeney, my Cardiologist Dr. Hiscock, all the nurses and Staff of Epworth Hostpital who made my first hospital stay as pleasant as possible, and the most thanks go to my wife Suellen for looking after me and just caring.

Here are some scanned images that my Cardiologist gave me. These images show the state of two of my arteries both before and after the stents were inserted. I’m sure you’ll agree that they look much better afterward!

Artery One – Pre

Artery Two – Pre

Artery Two – Post