One Lucky Fisherman’s Heart

I had been feeling listless and napping for many months. I thought it was because of my type two diabetes and because I was getting older; and then I ran into three separate walls of angina.

The most worrisome occurred while wading across an estuarial river in Maine on my way to  fly fish the surf for striped bass where I felt paralyzed midstream and almost swept away  and barely made it across but after a few minutes rest, I made it and then on across the quarter mile of sands to the surf where I hooked a striped bass of 40 inches or more and in the brief fight before spitting the hook I learned that the tug truly is a drug.

If I could no longer cross the river then no more fishing for me and that was unacceptable so the day I returned to Key Largo I talked to my ARVN Jami Horvat at Advanced Primary Care where she made me submit to an EKG exam on Tuesday the 16th of July.

The irregularities in my EKG had her refer me to adjacent cardiologists Drs. Bruce Boros & Richard Berger and where ARPN Taylor Menendez sent me through a series of ultrasounds and Cath scans then meetings with my new cardio team and I wound up only a week later, in my own car, not strapped to a gurney in an ambulance , with wife by my side, driving from Key Largo to Mount Sinai on Miami Beach for a coronary arteriogram.

Here’s what they found:

Right coronary artery 100% occluded, left interior descending artery 90% occluded, circumflex artery 90% occluded.

The cardiologists recommended three stents in the first two but feel the circumflex artery will respond to the increased flow from the other stents and will not be a danger.

I was awake for the procedure and was dutifully amazed but kept wondering how could the heart of such a strong fishermen wear itself down and almost out?

The doctor (Behar) who placed my stents told me just before he placed them that high cholesterol and type-2 diabetes are teammates at building plaque in your arteries over many years.

He also told me my heart was more of a candidate for open heart surgery but that he believed they could get it fixed by placing stents though it would be full of risk and that he might decide once he was in there to back out and weigh the options. 

Further, he said there was a chance I wouldn’t make it and then he walked away and said when you’re ready let me know and I’ll start.

The cardiologist had told me this would be the doctor he would choose to work on himself, and I was confident he could get the job done and so I said “let’s go” before he could walk out of the operating room though I said it softly and a tall assistant doctor conveyed the message to him so that the doctor returned and began the procedure.

Before they started the procedure, I had the chance to settle with myself and realized if I didn’t make it I had no regrets. I was and still am all square with my life.

And then I thought of my wife and got a hold of my cellphone and transferred monies into her account.  I called her and told her, and she wasn’t concerned and encouraged me to go ahead.  I said I would and that I looked forward to taking her to dinner and said goodbye.

I was never under and watched them place the stents on a big screen TV though it looked to me like they were fiddling around drawing on a large etch a sketch from the inside of my heart.

When they were finishing up, I invited them all to fish with me in Key Largo, to which they all agreed. I was still loopy on the fentanyl they used to anesthetize me, and I told the entire team of three men and two women that I loved them all, that I will forever, and then started asking where they were from.

One tall young doctor said he had young children he was teaching to fish, that he was from Cuba where I thought I heard him say he’d been a dancer and I asked if he had been a flamenco dancer because my wife had recently been to a show in Miami with only Flamenco dancing and he said no that he’d been a surgeon in Cuba and at this point I told him that I loved Cuba, that I’d been fly fishing in The Gardens of the Queen where I truly believe I’d stumbled upon the fountain of youth but never got to drink the waters because it had been an aquifer pouring out of the earth feeding into the ocean and not an idyllic fountain as pictured in the by-now mythical tales of Ponce De Leon.

And that was that.  I never got their names, and I doubt any of them will fish with me in Key Largo though I would be glad to take them because they have given me back my vitality.

My wife picked me up Friday afternoon the procedure having taken place on Thursday after testing on Wednesday. 

Turns out my team of radiologists are the grand wizards who diagnose and schedule and find the right technician for the complicated procedure who, in turn, are placing arterial stents in increasing numbers.

I highly recommend you make certain your doctor gives you an EKG exam at your annual exam.  Only takes a few minutes but can add many years to your life as I hope it does to mine.

On the way back to Key Largo my wife guided me to best Nicaraguan restaurant ever (Madroño) for a fabulous steak and salad.

Resting today but feeling a new man. I’m still booked to visit Maine in early August for another chance at big stripers on the fly.  But before I go, I’m going to make certain my checking account is included in my trust.

Thanks to great doctoring and the miracle of modern techno-medicine I now have a whole new chance at life. These Doctors, this team; the entire process, is truly a fountain of youth.

May luck be with you as it was with me, Dave Wilson – July 28, 2024

Dave Wilson is a writer and financial advisor and can be reached at dave@notesfromasimplerlife.com & dave@owm.solutions