Coronary Artery Disease… I was a happy man and father of my beautiful daughter before these three words changed my life. It was three years ago. I had spoiled Jamie, She was only 19 years old and had moved over to College. She was smoking and drinking and having the time of her life. i barely knew what she was doing there. She was always a lazy person and lived a sedentary lifestyle. It was very dull with her away. Being a single father did not help… One day she called me and said “Dad i am having a chest pain. Nurse gave me medicine but its not going away.” Obviously being her father and never used to being away from her i wanted to rush to Canada but then i though maybe its just a simple chest pain it will pass, I said “why don’t you go to the hospital maybe they can help you out with that pain.”. She started crying…she said it is not going and has been for around a week. i rushed to Canada that very instant. we did tests. She had CAD… the disease i mentioned above. Always eating junk, smoking and never going out. I always told her it will be bad but never in a way like this.
CAD is the leading cause of deaths in America for Men and Women. I put out the books and set up appointments with every doctor in the state. I found out that she is critical.
I found out Coronary artery disease develops when the major blood vessels that supply your heart with blood, oxygen and nutrients (coronary arteries) become damaged or diseased. Cholesterol-containing deposits (plaque) in your arteries and inflammation are usually to blame for coronary artery disease. I was so scared.
The doctor said she had high cholesterol and that was the main reason of her disease.. I had heard about cholesterol before but i never knew what it was. apparently cholesterol is a waxy substance found in your blood. Your body needs cholesterol to build healthy cells, but high levels of cholesterol can increase your risk of heart disease.
With high cholesterol, you can develop fatty deposits in your blood vessels. Eventually, these deposits grow, making it difficult for enough blood to flow through your arteries. Sometimes, those deposits can break suddenly and form a clot that causes a heart attack or stroke. I didn’t want to read more but i had to i needed to find out what was killing my daughter.
We had an Electrocardiogram (ECG) it records electric signals as they travel through your heart…often reveal evidence of a previous heart attack or one that’s in progress.
We had a heart scan.. Multiple to find out the problem. and once we knew what the core of the problem was we began treatment and i put my life mission to keeping my daughter alive. We also found out that this disease can be very silent because it can take up to 10 years to get to the phase where you find out or it affects you.
Though the risk is almost equal my daughter was unlucky its more likely to happen in men and also is caused a lot of times by family history.. It should have been me. She is so young.
She was having regular problem breathing and having multiple chest pains in a day every time she told me she’s having pain anywhere i immediately would fall apart. I put on a cover for the world but inside i was dying. After a few scans we saw that the plaque in her arteries had grown to a huge extent and there was risk of heart attacks now as well.
I looked up about the disease a bit more and found out that Transplant coronary artery disease (TCAD) remains the most significant cause of illness after heart transplantation. there was so much information i couldn’t figure out what to focus on and what not to.
She was trying every solution in and out of the hospital.. She quit smoking and exercised regularly.. She lost 20 kilograms in 3 months. She was having aspirin which prevented her heart attacks for the future to an extent and beta blockers which slow your heart rate and pressure which also was to prevent future attacks.
We had Angioplasty and stent placement (percutaneous coronary revascularization) in which the doctor inserts a long, thin tube (catheter) into the narrowed part of your artery. A wire with a deflated balloon is passed through the catheter to the narrowed area. The balloon is then inflated, compressing the deposits against your artery walls.
We also had Coronary artery bypass surgery where a surgeon creates a graft to bypass blocked coronary arteries using a vessel from another part of your body. This allows blood to flow around the blocked or narrowed coronary artery.
We tried everything for some moments we had hope and some moments we just forgot about everything and spent time together but her problems didn’t run way those moments were always interrupted by a chest pain or stroke.
She died 10 months into the treatment. I looked up everything causes, diagnosis, symptoms, everything you can do to prevent it. Because the pain it caused me… I don’t want any other father to feel that kind of pain.
