Did Covid Save My Life?

All my life I’ve struggled with my weight. I was always on the “bigger” side as a kid, but I never let it bother me because I was still somewhat athletic, and it didn’t affect my health. When puberty hit full force around 14, I stretched a bit and grew into my weight. I was still a little bigger than most of my friends, but overall, my appearance had slimmed down.

In my 20s and early 30s the weight fluctuated, but between bouts at the gym, going out to clubs dancing, and some. . .well. . . other stuff, I yoyo’d a little but pretty much maintained a decent weight.

Then I got married and had kids and life really kicked in. Working to support a family, stress, trying to make ends meet, and many other factors took its toll. Yes, I tried to stay active. Had more bouts with the gym, took martial arts classes, but as I got older it took more and more to maintain a decent weight. At some point I just stopped trying. . .it was easier.

By my mid 40’s, my BMI got totally out of whack and by medical standards I was officially “Obese”. You think that would bother me enough to make changes, and I did periodically, but it was always just easier to do nothing. Work got hectic, bouts at the gym became shorter and shorter, and my belly became bigger.

I started to get some ailments mostly attributed to weight issues, but I was “managing” them. Then more issues started to crop up. Yes genetics had a lot to do with this, but it was exacerbated by the excess weight.

Prior to Covid taking over the world, I’d been getting back to a good routine. I was eating better and walking over two miles in the morning. I even had a life coach as a benefit from work. Then, covid happened. We were told to work from home and my life coach benefit got “unbenefited”. My motivation waned, I had no more commute, and even the number of steps from my desk to the bathroom went down from about 250 to 25.

After two and a half years, people started returning to their offices. Like many, I’d been so sedentary during the pandemic, I put on the “Covid 19” (probably more like 25). I found another job within my company that would now take me into Philadelphia at least three days a week. That means a short drive to the train station, and a 6-block walk in Philly, much needed exercise twice a day, as well longer walks to the bathroom! However, something wasn’t right.

I started to notice, when walking up the steps from the train platform to the street, I got a little more out of breath than I used to. I figured that I’d put on some weight and my cardio declined so it was sort of normal. I also noticed that sometimes I had a pain in my left shoulder, but I thought it had something to do with my backpack. I still felt ok and didn’t really think much about it as once I “warmed up” during the walk it went away.

Then, I got Covid. My wife and I got it at the same time. My main symptoms were a bad cough and what felt like a long-lasting sinus infection. It lasted a little over two weeks in which I was way more sedentary. Oddly enough, Covid didn’t affect my appetite and I just kept eating.

Once I felt better, I decided I was going to get my ass moving again and start walking. It was the day before Thanksgiving, but it wasn’t very cold out and I decided to go for a walk. I got about a quarter of the way around the block and started to get out of breath. Then, I started having pain in my upper left chest and a shooting pain down the back of my left arm. I was thinking, “This can’t be good!”. Halfway around I started getting light-headed but slowed my pace enough to where I could make it home. It was a half mile but felt like 10 miles.

My wife, who is a nurse, was home and I told her what was happening. However, as soon as I stopped the exertion I felt better. Breathing returned to normal and the pain went away. I thought I was good to go and that maybe it was just some weird covid crap. Just to be sure, I called my doctor’s office and told them what happened. They suggested I go to the emergency room to get checked out just as a precaution. My wife and I discussed my options and I decided that an ER visit would be ok, so I took myself to the hospital.

Just in case you didn’t know, if you walk into the ER and tell them you’ve been experiencing chest pain, they get you right into triage. The receptionist made a quick phone call, and I was escorted to the triage room where they quickly hooked me up to an EKG and took my vitals. My blood pressure was through the roof because of everything that had happened over the past couple of hours, but my EGK looked ok and I wasn’t in any pain.

They took me back to a room so they could do some bloodwork, monitor my heart, do some other tests, and talk about my options. The ER doc was great and explained what was going on. He wanted to admit me overnight so I could get more tests in the morning.

At this point I was feeling fine, tests were coming back normal, and the EKG hadn’t fluctuated. However, I knew that there was potentially something wrong and I should probably get tested, but it was the day before Thanksgiving and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be getting tested the next morning. I told the doc that I didn’t want to be admitted over a holiday and that I’d be back after the weekend to have the tests done.

Thanksgiving went on as normal, and I felt pretty good. Monday came around and my doctor’s office called me to follow-up. I told them the sequence of events and they strongly suggested I go back to the ER, get admitted and have the additional tests. I heeded their request.

I got into a room that day and promptly got fitted with a portable heart monitor. The next morning, we started testing. Eco-cardiogram went well and didn’t really show anything abnormal. With my recent history of shortness of breath and pain with exertion, the cardiologist wanted to do a nuclear stress test but decided to chemically induce it instead of putting me on a treadmill. It was weird just sitting there, having them put something in my IV, and have my heart start beating faster with no activity. A little unsettling but it was a controlled environment. It lasted about five minutes and then he reversed it.

The tests really showed nothing, echo looked good, stress test was ok, they seemed to think this was some kind of post covid nonsense and that it would resolve with time. Given my lack of history with cardiac issues, this only made sense.

Over the next few weeks, I would follow up with my primary doc as well as the cardiologist. I also talked to my uncle, my father’s youngest brother, who had his own experience in the cardiac problem arena. He told me that all his tests also looked good initially but when he went to the catheterization lab, it was a different story. Someone else told me the same thing so naturally, my mind started to race.

When I checked in with my primary and told him about my uncle’s experience, he said that they have seen quite a bit of this behavior post covid and that I was probably four to six weeks away from feeling better. He still wanted me to discuss my options with the cardiologist. The pain when walking had gotten better but I was still getting short of breath and had this weird feeling in my chest during any exertion. The only way I could describe it was feeling “unwell”. Something wasn’t right and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I felt like I knew something else had to be done.

I followed up with the cardiologist and he said the next steps were a CTA which was a CT scan of the chest with dye injected for contrast. He said the cath lab would give the best picture but if I needed a stent then I would have to be on aspirin as part of the treatment. The last time I took an aspirin I was nine years old, and my lip swelled in an allergic reaction. As aspirin was still part of the treatment, if they found anything in the cath lab they would have to stop what they were doing, desensitize me to aspirin overnight, then take me back to the lab and insert a stent.

Ultimately, all the tests were inconclusive, and my only option was the cath lab, so we set it up for a Friday morning and got prepared. Mind you, I’ve had my share of procedures done over the past ten years, and I’ve come to rather enjoy anesthesia, but they don’t put you out for a cath, they just give you some happy juice. I was ok with that!

First, I want to commend the hospital. I was at Cooper in Camden, NJ. When I walked in, I thought we were going into a hotel, the lobby was big and bright. The rest of the place was not as nice, but I’ve been in worse. The staff was fantastic. My first nurse who spent the whole first day with me was Brittany. Absolutely the very best person I could have had other than my wife taking care of me. She was there before and after the procedure and I can’t say enough great things about how she took care of me. The second nurse was Mike, he was tasked with taking care of me overnight which included the aspirin challenge. My wife has stayed overnight with me during previous hospital stays and wanted to stay with me during the challenge as well. However, Mike was with me on a one-to-one basis and was going to watch me all night. Again, he was just great, good enough where my wife decided it was ok for her to go home and get some sleep while Mike did his job. That’s very high praise! Needless to say, the care I received was second to none, we were very impressed.

Ok, back to the cath lab. When they do a cath they would traditionally go in through an artery in the groin area, but now they do it through the wrist if they can, and the groin as a secondary spot if needed. The doc said I had a good wrist pulse, and they could go in that way. As they prepped me, I was told what was going to happen and then the guy with the happy juice did his job. I asked him three times during the procedure for more and he did accommodate me. . .what a guy! Even with the happy juice I was awake and aware during the whole procedure and the docs were talking to me. It wasn’t long before he gave me the news. I had one artery that was one hundred percent blocked, and one that was sixty to seventy percent blocked. He said he had to intervene to see if he could unblock the one that was completely blocked, if he couldn’t I’d potentially need bypass surgery. Luckily, he was able to intervene, open the artery, and insert a stent. I still needed to go through the aspirin challenge, so he left the other artery to be addressed at another time. As of this writing I still must go back and have that done. However, this time will be on an outpatient basis.

Once completed, they took me out of the lab and back to my room. I still had to be desensitized to aspirin. I was moved to the Cardiac Care unit to do the challenge as a precaution. The challenge started with a 50mg injection of Benadryl, which got me higher than the happy juice!

The aspirin challenge turned out to be nothing, thank goodness. They started with low dose liquid aspirin and then upped the dose every fifteen minutes, until I was given an adult dose as the final dose. There were a couple of times that I felt flushed, but the feeling passed quickly, and I had no other reaction. Apparently, I’m no longer allergic to aspirin.

Overnight there were more blood tests, additional medications, and I actually managed to get some sleep although my monitors kept going off. I almost immediately felt better after the cath lab and have been recovering nicely. I’m going to work from home this week and look forward to taking the train again soon, driving and parking downtown has been costing me a fortune!

I know my life has changed but I feel very fortunate to still be here. I asked the doctor, “How am I still standing here?”. He said the body does some amazing things to keep itself running. I know mine has been working overtime. Had I not gotten covid I probably would have ended up in the same spot, but without those symptoms during that walk it could have ended very differently. Maybe covid exacerbated those symptoms, maybe it was coincidence, but it appears to have saved my life.

If you’re reading this, here is my advice. Especially as we get older it becomes more important to take care of ourselves. Listen to your body, you know it best. Do your best to get some exercise and eat right, it is important. I’ve known this all my life but somehow convince myself that the ice cream is ok and I’ll just work it off. I never do. Overeating on the weekends is fine, I’ll work it off, but I don’t. I’ll start exercising tomorrow, but I never do.

I really have been eating well, but not well enough and now I need to make a concerted effort to do the right thing or suffer additional consequences. I may not be able to reverse the damage I’ve already done, but I can ensure I minimize that damage moving forward and put myself in a better position to be healthier. I’m asking you to do the same thing. If not for yourself, do it for your family and friends that love you. We all want you hanging around a while longer.