I Am Getting Better!!

Rebecca and I journeyed to San Diego on May 28 and returned on June 1. It was my annual pilgrimage to Dr. Howard Wayne's Noninvasive Heart Clinic. My appointment was on May 31 and we enjoyed and appreciated the hospitality and fellowship of friends who live in that beautiful city. In fact, they kindly loaned us a car while we were there.

Enough about the non-medical stuff -- Let's get to the reason for this post:

I have spent the past year taking medication twice a day for a problem cardiologists in Indiana insisted must be corrected with a Quintuple Coronary Artery Bypass Graft. I was warned that unless I had the surgery immediately, I faced the probability of having a heart attack within three months or less.

Well, I am still standing! I fact, according to Dr. Wayne, my heart is in better shape today than it was when he saw me exactly a year ago. The walls of my left atriumthat were slightly enlarged have decreased in size. My ejection fraction has gone from 65 to 72.

And I haven't experienced angina symptoms since I began his regimen, so he has removed Unstable Angina from my list of diagnoses.

But by far the best news I have to report, is I started working again. That's right, after almost two years on Social Security Disability, I felt good enough to work and was offered employment.

I began working as a Safety Advisor to ExxonMobil on the drilling rig Scarabeo 7, working off the coast of Nigeria, West Africa. I spent 43 days on the rig recently, my first hitch offshore since 1998.

Dr. Wayne was opposed to the job at first, since I would be so isolated from a decent medical facility. But everything went well and he has certified me "fit for duty."

I return to Nigeria on July 4.

Remember: IF YOUR DOCTOR INSISTS YOU NEED CORONARY BYPASS SURGERY -- GET A SECOND OPINION FROM A NONINNTERVENTIONALIST CARDIOLOGIST.