I’ve been doing a lot of research in the last few days on artery blockages, bypass surgery, and this treadmill stress test that ultimately indicated that my dad needed an angiogram to identify his artery blockages. I’ve spoken with both his surgeon and his anesthesiologist at length to learn more (both of whom were incredibly patient, listened, and answered all my questions thoroughly), and I’ve also discussed this with others who are familiar with coronary artery bypass surgeries because they know people close to them who have had them. What I have found is that as common as bypass surgeries are, treadmill stress tests are just as common, if not more common, and are done regularly on people who are at high risk of heart disease, as indicated by family history. The American Heart Association recommends this as the #1 test for anyone with a history of heart disease in the family. It’s not a secret, and I don’t need to be a doctor to know this. It’s all available online for anyone to see and learn. They are done on people as young as their 20s and 30s who have indicated a family history of heart problems. Even Chris is one of these people, as he had this test done two years ago.

So you can imagine how angry I got after thinking about this whole chain of events. Why did my uncle have to tell my dad to ask his primary care doctor for the stress test — after his own stress test, which showed my uncle had a blockage? Why did my dad’s doctor not proactively recommend it to my dad, knowing my dad has heart issues already as well as high blood pressure and a family history of heart disease? Every person before my dad on that side of the family has died of a heart attack. My dad is very honest and open about discussing these issues and has made this all very clear to his primary care doctor. I posed this question to my dad’s surgeon, who paused and said, “That’s a very good question — one for your dad’s primary care doctor to answer.”

I scheduled some time with my dad’s primary care doctor to chat tonight. Needless to say, the conversation did not go so well. When he called me back, he was very curt and seemed confused as to why his patient’s daughter would be calling him. yet when I spoke with the other two doctors, they completely empathized and understood immediately why I would call — because I’m a concerned daughter. I explained to him my thoughts, and when I asked him point blank why he never recommended this specific test to my dad and had to wait until my dad asked HIM if he could do it, that was when the drama began.

He immediately started interrupting me, claiming I had “misinformation” and “misinterpreted” what I was reading and what I heard from the other two doctors. He said my dad exhibited no chest pains or tightness. To this, I insisted that this test is supposed to be preventive, not reactive — it certainly can (and should) be done reactively, but I thought the whole point of having a primary care doctor is to prevent problems, not just treat them after you are already ill? He insisted he was right and I was wrong, that I didn’t have the proper training to understand any of this. It was a lot of condescension, with him constantly raising his voice at me. Not one to be outdone, I made sure he knew I was not going to back down and just raised my voice even louder. And I told him to stop interrupting me. Here’s a hint: if I tell you that I’m not done speaking, it means you should probably shut up and let me speak. That doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I mean it. It became quite a shouting match in the end. I told him, I guess we’ll need to agree to disagree here. He laughed and said, “There’s nothing to disagree about. This is all very clear.” A few more back and forths, and I said, “This is going nowhere. This conversation is now over.” And I hung up.

While he was rude, condescending, and everything opposite of calm and empathetic, the worst part was when he actually told me that “family history” of any disease, whether it’s heart disease or cancer, is defined NOT by the family members before you such as your father, your grandfather, etc., but by those in your current generation, so your brother, sister, cousins, etc. I’d never heard anything more ludicrous in my life. “So you’re going to tell me that just because my father’s father and my great grandfather both died of heart attacks that this indicates nothing about my father’s risk for getting heart disease or a heart attack?” I asked him in complete shock.  He said yes — that’s how “family history” is defined by those in the medical profession. Oh, and I think he completely forgot my dad told him that his older brother died from a massive heart attack at age 65. That was over 14 years ago.

There’s a reason why the American Breast Cancer Foundation advocates that women whose mothers or grandmothers have had breast cancer should get tested earlier — because that’s how family history is defined – by anyone in your blood line. The same goes for anyone else.

I’m deeply dismayed at the fact that there are doctors like this who exist and can still practice medicine. Clearly, being proactive is not a valued or strong suit here. And this man, Richard Tang, is supposed to be the director of the Phase Clinic for Prevention of Heart Attack and Stroke at Kaiser in San Francisco.

I just put a flight itinerary on hold to go home next Wednesday. Sudden visits home are never for a good, happy reason.

I just found out last night that my dad failed a stress test for his heart, and then through an angiogram, he discovered that his left artery has a severe blockage. As a result of this, he has to have heart bypass surgery this Thursday morning. He’s going to be in the hospital for five nights after that, and then after that will be mostly recovering at home for the following 3-4 months.

The main reason my dad had this stress test done was because my uncle, his younger brother, had the same test done after sensing some chest pains, and he found he also had an artery blockage, yet it wasn’t severe enough for a bypass surgery, luckily for him. I spoke with my dad’s doctor tonight, and she reassured me how common this surgery was and how they do over a thousand of these surgeries in this hospital alone every year. The success rate is over 99.5%, with less than half a percent of patients experiencing complications. She said my dad was the ideal candidate given his vitals and his relatively young age, as most of the patients they do this on are between 70-90.

I know I’m supposed to be rational about this and calmed by all these facts, yet I can’t help but feel scared. Imagining my dad’s chest being opened up and his heart stopped for 30-45 minutes is absolutely terrifying.

I thought about Ed a lot this evening as I was learning about all of this from my parents and my dad’s doctor. A part of me knows that if he were here, he’d probably be hysterical, too, the way our mother is now. He was always the worrying type. Part of me wishes that we could share this experience together. The other part of me is a bit happy that he doesn’t have to deal with this stress — the stress of living and coming to terms with the fact that not everyone around you will live healthily forever.

I’m going to hate every visit to the dentist for the rest of my life.

My dentist today walked me through an X-ray of my teeth. He explained why my teeth are shaped the way they are, and then showed me what my bone structure is supposed to look like versus what it actually looks like. That’s never a good thing. Then, he said that basically everything wrong with my mouth is not because of poor hygiene or diet because he can clearly see I take good care to brush and floss more thoroughly than about 99 percent of his patients, but it’s all because of my grinding problem. Why do I get food stuck in my teeth everywhere so much more than I ever could remember before? Oh, that’s because of my grinding, too, which created those gaps. Strangely, my retainers still fit perfectly. I guess the gaps don’t affect the actual bite structure.

These are all signs of age. And I’m only 28 going on 29 soon.