Len,
On Wednesday, January 10, 2007, during the rest period from a stress test, I was discussing my heading to the YMCA with my cardiologist when, at age 63, my heart stopped. On Thursday tests, Friday was carotid surgery, Saturday rest, Sunday quintuple bypass. I could focus on the incompetence of the cardiologist. Instead, I focused on being lucky: only 3% return from their heart stopping. I measured the times and if I had been in the clinic elevator, I could not have met the timetable: 3-5 minutes brain damage, 7 minutes, fatal. I was a walking time bomb, but I had not shared some symptoms I had experienced.
As a professor of business, and then as a lawyer, I saw my role as solving peoples' problems. Along the way I found the most important question was: So what? Applying it to my situation, I answered "So what" are my objectives? My answer was to do my best to rehabilitate back to as full a life as I was capable. "So what" would I accomplish by focusing on the why the doctor did not prevent my crisis? I identified the symptoms that I should use to self identify if they occurred again: besides that I moved on.
I should add that as a practitioner of a profession, I appreciate that not all doctors have equal skills and may, at times, be distracted by their own lives. For example, after my wife dying made me a single parent of three children under ten, I had to be careful to leave my life "at-the-office-door." Professionals are people, who also are "slave to," (to be a little crude), to the information provided by our clients/patients. If they do not share, then we are treating doctors like veterinarians. Our responsibility is to alert them, and then they may (should) ask for additional info: lawyers want documents, doctors want test results. I learned to be a better patient.
Brent Zepke
author: One Heart-Two Lives: Managing Your Rehabilitation Program WELL
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Brent Zepke
Santa Barbara CA
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-23-2020 11:21
From: mary hedtke
Subject: Let it go
Hi Len,
Sorry to hear you are having a hard time, just my 2 cents worth here
I had no symptoms, none, not even a blip in the tick tock of the heart after 65 years of wear and tear
I think maybe this is normal for most people that problems arise out of no where many times, and then with a good cardiologist and surgeon the problems are mended and we go on from that.
I try to focus on today and what I want to do in the future,
which is to continue my recovery from the Heart Surgery.
Good luck Len
Mary H
Original Message:
Sent: 5/22/2020 5:40:00 PM
From: len salem
Subject: Let it go
My name is Len and I am having a hard time letting my heart attack go. In January of 2019 I had blood clots in my leg and lungs. This brought a hematologist into my life and at one of my appointments she heard my heart skip a beat. This then brought a cardiologist into my life. After five appointments with a stress test I was cleared not to return on September 13 2019. The part I am have a hard time letting go is I had a heart attack on December 1st 2019. I had a quadruple bypass December 6th. I know the bypass was the end result but If caught by the cardiologist my family wouldn't have had to go through the heart attack. It could of been a planned bypass. Is this a one off or does this happen more often?
Thoughts?
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len
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