There were a few months, last year, when I couldn’t walk for a hundred meters without losing my breath.
It didn’t really matter what type of exertion I did—even going up the stairs at home or crossing the street to head to a restaurant were triggers—my body just couldn’t keep up with the level of activity I was doing. The symptoms would start benign: first, I would start to pant, then quickly I would have to stop to catch my breath, and then my breathing would accelerate, marked by shallow gasps—it often sounded like I was hyperventilating—and sometimes wheezing, and then finally my entire chest would feel a crushing pain that shot down my side. It wasn’t rare to see me clutching me chest as I came back from dropping…
There were a few months, last year, when I couldn’t walk for a hundred meters without losing my breath.
It didn’t really matter what type of exertion I did—even going up the stairs at home or crossing the street to head to a restaurant were triggers—my body just couldn’t keep up with the level of activity I was doing. The symptoms would start benign: first, I would start to pant, then quickly I would have to stop to catch my breath, and then my breathing would accelerate, marked by shallow gasps—it often sounded like I was hyperventilating—and sometimes wheezing, and then finally my entire chest would feel a crushing pain that shot down my side. It wasn’t rare to see me clutching me chest as I came back from dropping Zoya off to the bus stop in the morning; the short walk up the hill was enough to have me doubling over in chest pain.
I did what you were supposed to do: I told my doctor and went for a battery of tests, all of them coming back negative. (One doctor, who performed a stress test on me that came back normal, said I was “an unhappy patient” after he said there was nothing wrong with me and I told him that clearly something was going on because I couldn’t breathe. I will never return to that doctor again.) Nobody seemed to have any answers.
It was my friend Steve, after seeing me clutch my chest after crossing the road, who encouraged me to get an angiogram. He was not convinced by the prevailing theory—the inconclusiveness of the tests left my doctors thinking I had long Covid—and was sure that there was something going on with my heart. On his recommendation I asked my family doctor for a referral for an angiogram, and luckily, I was able to get one just weeks later.
Angiograms are magical things; they send some tubes into your wrist and they are magically able to reach your heart through that small opening. I was awake and conscious for the whole procedure, and was able to watch the screen as the camera made its way up my arm and into my heart. I didn’t quite understand what I was looking at, but it was impressive all the same.
About fifteen minutes into the procedure, the doctor came to me and was very direct: I had a 99% blockage in one of my coronary arteries, and it needed to be fixed immediately. Leaving that blockage for any longer would have been catastrophic. I, of course, acquiesced and watched the screen as a balloon was blown up in my artery and a stent installed to keep it open.
(An aside: it is truly shocking to watch all these things happening inside your body while not being able to feel anything but a tube poking into your wrist. Modern medicine is nothing short of magic, and I am grateful for having free access to it every day. I can’t imagine what all this would have cost without universal healthcare.)
After my heart was fixed (it feels very strange saying that) I was wheeled back into the recovery room, given some medications and instructions, and allowed to go home a few hours later. I had emerged a new person, and I felt like I had a new lease on life. My body didn’t feel any different at that time, but I knew that this procedure had saved my life in its small way.
The first time I noticed something was different was when I went for a walk a few days later. I didn’t gasp or pant; I didn’t feel any pain or need to clutch my chest. Yes, I was out of shape after not being able to do any physical activity for months and got tired quickly, but the heaviness in my heart had disappeared. I felt lighter, freer, newer. A few days later, I was able to chase Zoya across the park—it was the first time I had been able to run for a long time. I felt jubilant.
Let’s be clear: the angioplasty wasn’t a quick fix that solved all my problems. I was put on a new cocktail of meds and I’m in the middle of a months-long stint at cardiac rehab. I have to make significant changes to my lifestyle, and I’m still out of shape and need to build up my stamina and energy levels.
I still worry. I worry that I’m not doing enough to prevent this from happening again. (With my family history, it’s a very real concern.) I worry that I won’t be able to catch it soon enough if I do get another blockage. I worry that I won’t ever trust my body again after it rebelled against me so drastically. I worry that I won’t be able to stop worrying.
That small procedure saved my life, but it’s up to me to keep saving it day in and day out.
Last year, after the procedure, I wrote a little bit about coming to terms with the fallibility of your body:
We all know we’re going to die one day, but we don’t always have to face our mortality in our everyday lives. Having a reminder that, if you don’t get the right medical (and non-medical) interventions, your life could be in danger, is sobering and a bit devastating.
So that’s my headspace right now: coming to terms with my fallibility, my mortality, and my need to take steps to stay healthy. It’s a weird space to be in, but I’m taking solace in knowing that, for now, I’m safe and doing okay. And that I’m surrounded by people who remind me that being alive is a wonderful thing.
I’m still carrying that “weird space” into this year, as I imagine I will for the rest of my life. I am getting stronger by the day, but I will never forget that I’m not invincible.
I’ve never been one to set resolutions at the start of a year, but I have been known to pick guiding words or set intentions as we move on to a new set of months. If it isn’t obvious, this is a year I will be focusing on my health—not just in a generic sense, but specifically on making lifestyle changes that will help my heart health.
The first big change will be increasing my physical activity. I stopped going to the gym after Zoya was born (I used to go quite regularly before that) and while my step counts are always high, I’ve lacked the motivation to do any real workouts for a very long time. Recently, I’ve been hopping on the treadmill for half an hour a day, and that’s helping with my cardio levels, but I still feel sluggish and weak.
My hope is, by the end of this year, I’ll feel strong again. I’m not measuring this by how much I can lift or the definition of my muscles, but instead want to feel like I can move and engage with the world without feeling constrained by the limits of my body again. It will be an undertaking, but I’m confident I can take the right steps to get there.
The second big change is perhaps the harder one: I need to change my diet.
There is a litany of things my dietician has told me I need to do:
- eat more vegetables
- eat more legumes and less meat
- eat out less and cook more meals
- be more conscious of my portion sizes
- cut out simple sugars
The list goes on.
If you know me, it’s no secret that I love food. Restaurants are my happy places, and when I have the time and energy, I love cooking good meals too. And while it’s possible to reconcile a love of food with a need to eat healthier, some of the things I need to do (vegetables, ahem) will be harder to achieve than others.
This is where I will need the most help, and I’m lucky to have an amazing family who are committed to helping me along this journey. Already, L is sending me new recipes; we will have a lot of new dishes to try together. And while weight loss isn’t the goal here, I think eating better will help with getting my body in shape too. I’m excited to see how this slow, gradual change to the way I eat will bring good changes to my life.
All that to say, if you do see me over the next year, ask me how my journey towards better heart health is going. It won’t be easy, but I know it’s worth it. Like I said earlier, that small procedure saved my life, but it’s up to me to keep saving it day in and day out.