Prayer request for Swordmaker who will be undergoing heart cathertization sunday

Friday morning, just after midnight as I was turning off the TV from watch a movie on Netflix, I felt a sudden pressure and pain in the center of my chest. This pain went through my chest to my back and a bit in my left upper arm. There also, for some strange reason an ache in my right elbow, and later radiatingup my back to both side of my rear neck.

I woke my girlfriend who is an RN. She took my blood pressure which is usually normal, but this time was 189/129. The next important number was 911.

My girl friend gave me four aspirin to chew up. Ten minutes later when the EMTs arrived my BP was down to 180/119 and they gave me four more aspirin because their protocols required it be their aspirin. Theirs tasted better. The pain and pressure were not letting up. They started popping nitroglycerin sublingually and that started to help a bit. They transported me to the OR in an ambulance which had completely worn out shocks. It felt like riding in a cart of a wooden roller coaster, there was so much road chatter.

Starting an IV while on the move in all directions must have been fun for EMT Chris, but he did it. I think the driver located every pothole and crack on the way. . . and the roads seemed to be rough between them!

At the ER my EKG looked good but the blood enzymes started low and began to climb with every subsequent draw, from 0.1 to 0.9. . . that showed my heart had experienced something which damaged the cardiac muscle, but the don't know what. These are not super high, but anything at all indicate damage. Over the next several hours, they got the pain and pressure down with morphine, an IV nitro drip, and an anti-coagulation drip. The enzymes are now down to 0.7.

Kept me overnight in ER, then to a regular room for two hours, then transferred to ICU. Today I was transferred to another hospital because although they can do a catheritization at the first hospital to diagnose a problem, they aren't allowed to fix the problem they find there. Seems silly to do it but not be able to do a balloon angioplasty or place a stent.

So tomorrow they're going to cath me and if this hospital find a problem they can fix, fine. Otherwise, I get to be transferred to ANOTHER hospital for bypass surgery. Let's pray that's not necessary, please.

Also, read as much as you can on nutrition and diet in general. Many doctors still have old-fashioned ideas on nutrition so ultimately you need to listen to your body.

Those were the doctors I ran into in the past weekend. . . Had I eaten what the hospital nutritionist sent to me as a cardiac diet (what they also referred to as a diabetic diet) I would have consumed almost 500 grams of carbohydrates in a single day. Breakfast was French Toast with genuine syrup, Orange Juice, a large banana, and three quasi-sausages made of some carb laden pseudo meat! No protein. Lunch? It was a nice crescent sandwich with low fat mayo (which to make it palatable, they add carbs to), rice (more carbs, a fruit bowl (more carbs), milk (yes, more carbs), noodle soup with huge noodles (even more carbs), and finally a fruit drink (yet more carbs!). Recall this was a diabetic plate masquerading as also a cardiac diet! My low carb diet is fewer than 60 grams of carbs!

oh my dear geeeeeeeeeky friend. I am just catching up with your ordeal. I in the past have had limited wifi time(a bit improved for a few weeks starting today)

I am so sorry this is all occurring. Glad you are home and surely know for the most part you will be better equipped to heal at home than at hos[ital

Ive had 6 of those procedures.. first scary and after routine but still concern the dear doc doesn’t tear a vessel requiring open heart team

MY VERY BEST hospital experience EVER was in Oklahoma city. Oklahoma Heart Hospital. Physician owned. I went in with chest pains, hardly able to walk etc.. found out I had been misdiagnosed at Cleveland Clinic with Congestive Heart Failure. In fact my heart and arteries were in excellent shape but I was near death due to anemia (so much for a world class heart hospital .. Cleveland Clinic)..

That facility in Oklahoma City is amazing. Food, staff/patient ratio, rooms..

Anyone who suspects they are having heart issues.. visit OKC... go to ER with Chest pains.. You will hate to leave.

You have a full menu to chose from (and the choices are excellent). One meal a day you can have a guest who eats for free with same menu. Huge private rooms, TV and AV stuff to die for. Great wifi. Nurses that smile and give back rubs (wowsie)

It is a beautiful and relatively new facility. As it is physician owned they work hard to make sure the patients will walk out like me - singing its praises not griping

Well continue to keep us posted will you..?

And do investigate natural... there are foods, herbs, oils that clear arteries, minimize cholesterol issues. I was caregiver to my mom. When I came she was given 3 months to live. I took her off all her meds (about 15) and did all natural for her “diagnosed conditions”. Within 4 days ALL of the issues and problems and pain were gone

She lived 20 more years to 74. Not saying all should do this but I do not prescribe to the huge amount of drugs prescribed that do nothing to correct conditions but just “handle” symptoms

Okay, Ill get off my soapbox.. Need to get out but first remove ice and snow from my van.

Hugs from NE Ohio

Also, read as much as you can on nutrition and diet in general. Many doctors still have old-fashioned ideas on nutrition so ultimately you need to listen to your body. From SamAdams76

Had I eaten what the hospital nutritionist sent to me as a cardiac diet (what they also referred to as a diabetic diet) I would have consumed almost 500 grams of carbohydrates in a single day. From Swordmaker

First, Swordmaker, I thank God that you survived your ordeal and that you are doing alright. You have my prayers for your continued well being. Now if you even are actually able to remember who I am... I will give you a little of what you might have come to expect from me... advice that will contradict you and other posters here.

I give you this advice based on what I know from 25 years working on a fire department. I responded to countless people who were having cardiac events. Many of them became repeat customers. But I also have many, many years volunteering at Nursing Homes and Retirement Centers, and watching friends and family members recover from similar cardiac events.

The very first thing that you should do is to forget all about counting how many grams of “carbs” you are eating. And don't try to listen to your body. And don't try to read everything you can on nutrition and diet. Most of the self help nutrition books you find these days are pure unadulterated fad diet nonsense. And that goes especially for this high protein, low carb diet crap. If that is how you have been picking what you eat, then you do not have any idea how typical your situation is. You just survived something that could easily have killed you. This is not a the time to play games with your health trying to use your superior intellect by putting your faith in some fad diet guru.

Sorry guys, but patients are often their own worst enemies especially when it comes to recovering from a cardiac event. Follow the advice of your doctors and the nutritionist from the hospital or whoever your doctors recommend. They are professionals and their “old-fashioned ideas” are typically based on years of experience. If they are older they have observed who has done the best after going through what you just have. If they are younger, they probably are up on the latest research.

I have known many people in their 90s and quite a few who made it past 100 and still had their wits about them. Not one was ever counting their carbs or eating a high protein fad diet. Many were under the guidance of nutritionists. I can't tell you how many men I have met who were on high protein low carb diets who had cardiac events... most of those who continued on the same routine are now dead. So I feel very passionately about this.

The people who I have known who have reached very old age ate a balanced diet, have had an active lifestyle, and had interests that kept them mentally engaged. They weren't counting carbs and eating high protein diets. You were lucky enough to survive your cardiac event. It was a wake up call. Follow the advice of the professionals whose actions saved you. And if they advise you to change your diet... LISTEN even if it means eating French Toast with genuine syrup, Orange Juice, a large banana, and three quasi-sausages. That sounds delicious to me and probably has more than enough protein for a balanced diet.

So get well and keep letting us know about all things Apple. Remember what Benjamin Franklin said.

Your post to Swordmaker is well taken but I do want to point out that when it comes to nutritional advice, many doctors can still give bad advice, especially when they base their advice on conventional wisdom.

For example, doctors have spent decades telling us to eat margarine instead of butter and eating egg whites while discarding the yolk (the most nutritional part of the egg!) out of fears of cholesterol. Those ideas (and others) have been completely discredited.

Then you have the "food pyramid" that was pushed on us for many years which basically says that most of your meals should be grain-based and that healthy fats like olive oil and nuts should be used only sparingly. This food pyramid (probably pushed in Washington by lobbyists for cereal companies) has also been discredited and even the government has been backing away from it in recent years.

Just like global warming, nutrition is not a "settled science" and there is much disinformation out there presented as settled science. Even worse, many doctors (for whom nutrition is not their specialty) parrot the misinformation pushed by the government.

Fully agree that most of the nutrition books out there are garbage. You can usually tell the bad ones when they make ridiculous claims on the cover like "lose 15 pounds in one week" or when they push a diet that requires you to buy special foods like shakes, protein powder and vitamin pills. Also, if a nutrition/diet book is pushed on daytime TV, it's probably one you should stay away from as well.

One should be able to eat perfectly well with the foods found in any supermarket and should never have to buy anything special or follow a "fad" diet (like eating nothing but grapefruit for a month!).

Lastly, you misinterpret my post to Swordmaker about the carbs. I eat carbs every day and I don't count them. Obviously I eat less carbs than the average person as I avoid junk food as much as I can and try to limit my intake to food in its natural form, such as meat, fish, eggs, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and whole-milk dairy products like yogurts and cheese.

So I fully encourage Swordmaker to follow the advice of his doctors in general but with regard to nutrition, some independent research and taking a common sense approach to what he eats will also go a long way.

I agree with SamAdams76’s take on this and not Fireman15’s. What Fireman15 forgets is that I’ve been working in medical for 35 years, although in a support field, and have access to many doctors who are well versed in the current state of nutritional research. In fact doing primary research why those 80 to 100 year old people you mention are hale and hardy and it has little do with a good diet, Fireman, as your anecdotal claims assert.

My girlfriend is an RN with other alphabet soup behind her RN, and is writing books on nutrition. She forgotten more than Fireman thinks he knows on this subject. She has years of practical experience in the field, having lost 243 pounds and kept it off for over twelve years, watching her health statistics closely, including all blood levels.

I know that if I deviate in the number of carbs I should eat on a daily basis above sixty, I WILL GAIN WEIGHT! Fireman apparently thinks, like most people, that all metabolisms are identical. I assure you, they are not. There are some that can exist quite happily on the government’s long discredited Food Pyramid, that many doctors are still touting as the be-all-and-end-all of nutrition, but that is actually only about 15% of the population! The hospital I was in actually had that damn pyramid posted! That lock-step adherence to the pyramid is what has resulted in two generations of obesity in the USA.

Most medical doctors are exposed to a single three hour course in nutrition in medical school. Some take three day symposia put on by companies selling diet plans! That’s it. They are NOT the experts Fireman claims them to be. I’ve had Cardiologists tout me to buy various fad diets from them such as the now discredited Micro™ Diet, the Paleolithic Diet, Weight Watchers, and even Jenny Craig, assuring me this was the most scientific breakthrough in cardiac dieting! All of them came with a high price tag! Anything to fatten their personal wallets.

First off let me assure both you and SamAdams76 that nothing makes me happier than to be able to continue having this type of conversation with the two of you... complete with whatever mischaracterizations and misquotes either of you would like to assign to me. I consider both of you to be very good and knowledgeable “freeper” friends. The amazing thing to me especially with Swordmaker is all the parallels in our life experiences.

My wife of approximately 30 years is a retired nurse who taught nutrition for decades and was the reigning Northwest Aerobics Instructor Champion in her age group when I met her. She, like your girlfriend had been pudgy at one point in her life and also has kept the weight off since that time. At 60 she is still just 110 pounds and currently fairs better than me riding a bicycle 50 or 60 miles over a mountain pass for an afternoon outing.

I personally have also had a life long interest in nutrition. It started when I was a teenager and state road bicycle racing champion and nationally ranked racer. I was a skinny little kid who had to eat massive amounts of food to supply the energy necessary to ride my bicycles over 10,000 miles a year. My coaches and I felt it would maximize my competitiveness if I made good food choices.

Swordmaker, I have no idea the extent that your dietary and lifestyle choices have contributed to your current difficulties. You told me previously that you had worked in a medical related field for 35 years. I will happily acknowledge also that you and your girlfriend are very smart and have forgotten more than I will ever know about nutrition. And I have now learned that you have doctor friends who have studied 80 to 100 year old people who have concluded that what they ate had little to do with their longevity.

My message to you is very, very simple... it doesn't matter how smart we are... it doesn't matter how much we know or think we know... any life threatening medical episode like you have just experienced is a wake up call. If you do not pay attention. If you keep doing things the same way you have been, no matter how well reasoned you feel your behaviors are... you will have continuing problems and the next time you might not be so lucky. I don't know why it is but most people make poor decisions when trying to out think their own doctors after a crisis such as you have just experienced.

I am telling you directly that people I have known who were counting “carbs” and eating a high protein diet after having a cardiac event had poor outcomes. And by that I mean that they are now dead. Almost every one was very smart and could argue with the best of them and tell you how they knew better than nutritionists and doctors, heck some of them were doctors. But they are still dead.

If you do not think that the doctors you currently have know what they are talking about, then find some different doctors. Even doctors are generally not good doctors for themselves and you are not either. This is not like arguing about Apple products. Get professional guidance and care and follow it.

No worries. I appreciate a spirited dialogue so long as it's kept civil and it's certainly been that so far.

Nutrition is an area where otherwise like thinking people (like Freepers) can have widely disparate opinions based on one's own life experience.

In a nutshell, my life experience has been this: In 2003, I discovered to my horror that I was closing in on 350 pounds. I'm six foot three so it wasn't like I was Michael Moore but I was definitely obese and while still reasonably healthy, I was running all the medical signs of impending troubles down the road like high blood pressure, early onset diabetes and heart disease.

The moment of truth came on a business trip when I was walking down the aisle of an airplane to my seat and I saw that a pretty attractive woman was sitting in the seat that was to be next to mine. I will never forget the look of disappointment and disgust she gave me when she realized I was going to sit next to her, with my gut spilling over the armrest into her area.

I knew something had to change. During lunch at work, when I would normally get a six-pack of Tacos from Taco Bell or a couple of cheeseburgers and fries from the burger joint, I decided to take a walk instead. Fortunately there was a rails-to-trails path near my workplace and so it was convenient to take a nice long walk without having to worry about auto traffic and other congestion. I also read up on nutrition and the popular diet at the time was the Atkins Diet so I thought I'd give that a try - only skipping the induction phase because I thought it was too extreme. I wasn't concerned about losing a lot of weight as once but just changing my lifestyle to a healthier one.

So I ate much more meat, eggs, nuts and cheese and a lot less breads, pizza, pasta and rice. As for junk food like cakes, pies, cookies, chips, I cut that out immediately. Lot less carbs but I wasn't counting. Just trying to be healthier.

I ended up losing over 100 pounds within a year. I have lots of posts here on Free Republic from that era as we had a lot of discussion back then.

After a few years, I gradually moved back into the diet I had before. It's easy to do. A pizza here. A plate of spaghetti there. Before long, I was pretty much eating the way I ate before except I always maintained my exercise regime and still to this day walk over 10,000 steps a day and usually closer to 20,000.

In November of 2015, I was back over 300 pounds again!

So once again, I eliminated all the carb-laden foods. No more pasta, breads, pizza (my favorite food!), candies, pies, sweets of any kind. I started drinking my coffee black.

Almost immediately the weight dropped off again. My doctor was amazed. By last summer, I was back down around 225 which is heavy but carries very well on my 6'3" frame.

I am now convinced that at least for myself, a "lower" carb diet works. But in particular, a diet based on whole foods. I couldn't care less how many carbs are in things like blueberries, apples, bananas, and such. I eat as much of those as I want. But if it comes in a package and it's labeled "low fat" or it includes high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated (trans) fats, I don't eat it.

Even yogurt is where I can pack on weight. If I ate the low-fat yogurt, it is likely to have 30 or more grams of added sugar. But with the full-milk yogurt (higher fat), you have no or very little added sugar at all and it is delicious. Especially when blueberries or blackberries are mixed in.

This by the way, goes completely against the advice of my doctors who always spout the generally accepted "balanced diet" approach which means lots of cereals, breads, rice and pasta - which I know for a fact makes me fat.

Thanks for the great history. I am glad that you have found something that works for you. But please be careful and if you start having health problems let your healthcare professional know about your dietary philosophy.

There is no doubt that a “low carb” “high protein” diet helps millions of people lose weight. And carrying a high amount of excess body fat puts one at risk for all sorts of health problems. Our daughters have had battles with weight and they yo-yo back and forth. They lose weight while on their low carb diets and they gain it back as soon as they go back to their normal routines. The “low carb” diets they choose do not seem to be sustainable or healthy for them. When they are on them they tend to be grumpy, mean and have very bad breath.

People are able to get away with this approach when they are young. But as we age our bodies are less able to absorb the needed amount of essential nutrients from a diet that is intentionally restricted to exclude “carbs”. Many foods high in “carbs” are easily used by the body for its essential energy needs. Foods high in animal fat and protein especially often have to be used by the body in a more circuitous manner that puts a strain on the liver especially but also on other organs.

In addition unrefined foods which contain “carbs” in the form of whole grains etc. provide an important source of fiber which is important for digestive health. This is not to mention that many “high protein” foods contain large amounts of animal fats which have known health risks associated. This is all debated by adherents to certain diet philosophies to a point that would make Global Warming fanatics blush.

The primary problem that I have with “low carb” “high protein” diets is specific to persons who have a history of cardiac problems. I have seen over and over people who literally will not give up their ill advised diet philosophy until it kills them. I am not arguing that the philosophy does not produce results. I have seen first hand however that in the long term that it is not healthy.

The evidence that the adherents are acting irrationally is very easy to observe. You can try to convince them to take a more balanced, moderation in all things approach until you are blue in the face. They will ignore all evidence that contradicts the nutrition philosophy that they have chosen. That is very nearly the essence of irrational behavior in all its ugly forms.

I am now convinced that at least for myself, a “lower” carb diet works. But in particular, a diet based on whole foods. I couldn't care less how many carbs are in things like blueberries, apples, bananas, and such. I eat as much of those as I want. But if it comes in a package and it's labeled “low fat” or it includes high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated (trans) fats, I don't eat it.

We were out this afternoon; I did want to mention that to me it sounds from your description that you have a well thought out diet plan that works for you.

My wife's "little" sister was up visiting for a week in December. She is someone who spent her lifetime abusing her body by smoking, drinking, eating poorly and letting herself become obese. She is actually two years younger than my wife, but my wife looks ten years younger than she does. More importantly my wife's sister can't get around without a cane while my wife is still very athletic and able to enjoy life like someone decades younger.

While her sister was visiting I had to go to Costco and buy her special organic high protein shake powder made from a huge assortment of healthy sounding stuff. Then I bought her a bunch of frozen and fresh fruit, nuts and expensive almond milk. So in the morning while I was making a more traditional breakfast she was blending up these shakes which she insisted were extremely healthy.

She refused to eat most of the food that I prepared while she was here including my beef stew made in the pressure cooker with fresh vegetables and potatoes, or even my home made chicken soup. She wouldn't eat my homemade bread. She refused to eat the smoked beef, pork or even turkey that I made during the week she was here. She actually did eat some of the oatmeal that I made from machine cut oats. But every night she went through literally about a pound of candy before she went to bed.

We had to endure long winded lectures about her new found knowledge of nutrition that she was parroting mostly from her 18 year old daughter who has become a vegetarian. It was almost comical to have this person who spent almost her entire life abusing her body preaching to her sister about nutrition. And I did realize a little why there is so much disagreement about nutrition.

People come at this from so many directions. There are vegetarians who want everyone to give up all types of meat or even animal related products such as dairy. Then there are body builder types who want to eat a bunch of high protein products that they think will increase their muscle mass and virility. Believe me I ran into that a lot at my previous job. And then there are a large number of people who are OK with “carbs” but believe that gluten is an evil player in available foods. The largest group however are those who want to lose weight but do not want to experience the hunger pain associated with a traditional diet. And it seems that this high protein low carb diet helps people with that a lot. All the groups want to believe that they are making very healthy choices.

It seems these days that only a small minority are now those like my wife and I who started out or achieved athletic conditioning in our younger days and mostly just want to maintain our good health as we age by making good choices in our diet and activity level. We are willing to listen to the other groups but we take a lot of what we are told by people with a grain of salt. I have eaten everything left behind from my sister-in-law's visit other than the high protein organic vegetable powder. I am just not a true believer in any of this stuff. I believe in moderation in all things and staying busy enough that I don't sit around eating all day.

Sword, I am praying so much for you!!

Thank Sir_Ed, I had to go back in the ER on Wednesday because the hospital had kicked me out too early refusing to listen to me on what was going on in my body. . . they had given me a bronchitis and my gut had developed a problem that was getting worse. By that evening my abdomen was so distended I was like a bass drum and as hard my pain even was up to an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. Turns out I am sensitive to the morphine they gave me which resulted in temporarily paralyzing my ileum and I was getting impacted!

My girlfriend, who is an RN, laughed her ass off, saying "In 37 years of being a nurse, this is the first time I've ever heard of where an ambulance had to transport someone at a doctor's orders from a clinic because he was full of sh!t!" LOL!

I hope nothing else pops up.

I may be covered on that because while my daughter and I were waiting for the Clinic to open, it became apparent that someone did not get the memo that the drive through clinic at the Pharmacy in the lobby was going to start NEXT January 12th, and not this January 12th, because they tried to DRIVE up to the Pharmacy window through the front lobby doors! "SCREECH! CRASH! BOOM!" Suddenly concrete dust floating in the air from the smashed bench outside. A 90 + year old man behind the wheel was completely befuddled about what had happened and why half of his car was in the lobby. The old lady with the walker who had just one minute before been sitting waiting for pickup by her daughter on that now pile of rubble that had been a concrete bench had decided it was too cold out side and had come inside and was luckily not under the car. THAT really got my heart moving well. . .but the fast motion I took to get out of the way was painful on my abdomen and I now had a lung full of concrete dust.

What's that Chinese curse about "living in interesting times?" I'll go with the "living" part of that.

Thanks for the reasoned reply. Let me give you an example of the advice I have gotten. I refuse to take Statin drugs because for me, every time I take them I have had bad side effects. Also there is not one scientific study, not one, that has shown there is a linkage between dietary Cholesterol and blood serum cholesterol. Zip, zero. There are many studies that show that we make our own cholesterol, both HDL and LDL Lipids, out of excess carbohydrates during the Krebs cycle. Non-Human cholesterol essentially passes through the body. Similarly we make our own fats during the Krebs cycle.

The Krebs cycle is driven by carbohydrates using insulin to convert them to glycogen.

This board certified cardiologist was so wedded to the use of Statins and insistent on the use of them, that when I told him that I had consistent weight gain when ever I take them. I also told them that Statins completely counter a class of drugs I must take to counter severe phantom pain I have in my feet that can be debilitating. This class of drugs requires being titrated down over a space of 18 months to stop using it otherwise I am at risk of suffering severe psychiatric drug withdrawal episodes due to the body not supplying the necessary chemicals right away. Statins turned OFF the action of this drug in the course of just FOUR HOURS! I had to do deep research into how both classes of drugs worked to discover why I was having problems the last time a doctor put me on statins.

In any case, this Cardiologist told me I would be better off RE-GAINING the 154 pounds I had lost and risking those withdrawal symptoms and suffering the severe pain in my feet just to take a Statin that has no proof of efficacy, or even any proven studies showing that having high cholesterol is a risk factor.

In fact, the latest studies show that high cholesterol may, in fact, may be a factor for longevity. It turns out that the guy who had the "hunch" that dietary cholesterol was the "cause" of heart disease had tweaked his data to get the results he wanted. . . and when it was untweaked, there was no indicator one way or the other.

My family has a high cholesterol level and my mom's cholesterol of over 350 and lived without heart problems to 95 ⅕. Her mom lived to 95. Her Dad to 95.

But this "expert" doctor would rather have me weigh 374 pounds just so I can take his holy Statin drug. That make no sense.To lower my risk of another heart attack by 20% he will increase my risk by 200%! AND condemn me to living in pain for the rest of my life.

This A-hole, not only insisted I needed to do that, he went so far as to CANCEL a prescription for a more modern, non-Statin drug cholesterol lowering drug I had agreed to try that another cardiologist had recommended that does not, he claimed, have the side effects! because it works in another modality This drug was listed on my discharge prescriptions but it was not delivered. When I called to find out why it wasn't, I was told it had been canceled by the arrogant Statin A-hole.

Thank you very much for the reply. I was worried that I had bugged you enough. Despite my previous posts, I am not a huge fan of doctors myself. But I probably owe my life to doctors and modern medicine.

Ten years ago I had abdominal pain severe enough that I had to miss a day of work. Then it got quite a bit better. But a few days later I was feeling poorly again and my wife said that my complexion had an unusual tint. She is a nurse and insisted that I go to get looked at. Her exact words were, “If you do not go to the doctor I will shoot you myself.” She is a pretty good shot.

So I waited from the time the urgent care opened up until sometime after noon while every crying kid was triaged in front of me. They finally took some blood and then I waited for another couple hours. Then they took an X-ray of my abdomen. An hour later they called me back in from the waiting room and an excited doctor came in and told me I had a ruptured appendix and they had called an ambulance to take me to a hospital that I don’t like. I told them to cancel the ambulance and that I was going to drive home and have my wife take me to a different hospital that I trust more.

They said that they could not let me do that because I was not fit to drive, and that they had “admitted me” and that they would call the police if I tried to leave. So I called my wife and she came to the urgent care so they would let me leave without a fight, and I drove home and she took me to the other hospital.

When I got to the other hospital they had been warned of my impending arrival and seemed excited to see me. We didn’t have to wait. They took an MRI immediately. My wife was standing in the hall and heard the radiologist exclaim, “Whoa!”, followed by a couple expletives. Then he came out, saw her and apologized for what he had said.

I was feeling subpar, but not like my life was in danger. the head surgeon at the hospital came in to talk to me. I asked the doctor if they could just give me some antibiotics and fix it after the infection cleared up. He said, “No! If we do that you will die!” I didn’t actually believe him; I assumed he was exaggerating to get me to do what they wanted. But what choice did I have?

So I had a lengthy surgery and ended up with a scar from hip bone to hip bone. They had to take all my intestines out so they could wash the nasty stuff off that had been leaking into my abdominal cavity for a week.

So I had a quick and basically pain free recovery. A year later I had an overtime day and I was in charge of a “probationary” (new) firefighter. When I was talking to him, he told me about his dad who had been the same age as me and also a serious bicyclist. He had been in perfect health. But he had died just a few months earlier from peritonitis because he had ignored abdominal pain the same as I did. He had abdominal pain that he had ignored just like I did. He had the same surgery that I did and came out of it and it seemed like he was going to be OK, only he ended up with an infection that killed him.

So it turned out the doctors probably were not lying to me after all. So these days I do not try to second guess my doctors... as much. My concern with your situation is strictly that I have known quite a few men on high protein low carb diets who have had heart issues. After their episodes those who continued with their high protein low carb diets had poor outcomes. I do not know if there is any conclusive evidence confirming this. But my personal observations of this concern me, and I would be grateful if you would discuss this with whoever is aiding your recovery.

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