My Heart Attack Story

I'm Dr. Jeremy London, I'm a board certified cardiovascular surgeon and I've been in clinical practice for the last 25 years. I'm also a cardiac patient and today I'd like to share my story as a patient. Not to look for applaud and approval and accolades of the decision making that I went through but actually quite the opposite and that's to shed a very bright light on some of the mistakes I made and some of the very poor decisions that I made with reference to my own health care. You may be familiar with the health wellness and longevity content that we put out. Today I really want to talk about my own personal decision making and how I have come to change the course of my decision making consequent to this whole episode. How it's changed me personally as well as professionally and how many times we know better but we just don't do better and none of us including myself are immune to this idea of cognitive dissonance or disconnect between what we do and what we know to be right. We want to take a minute and thank our sponsor of this podcast Element. Hydration isn't just about drinking more water it's about replacing what you lose. When you sweat from workouts, sauna sessions or just daily life activities you're not just losing water you're losing electrolytes like sodium, potassium and magnesium. That's why I choose Element as my electrolyte replacement of choice. Element has everything you need and nothing you don't. Their electrolyte formula uses a science backed electrolyte ratio of sodium, potassium and magnesium. Electrolytes are used by every cell in your body and even minimal dehydration can limit cognitive and physical performance. Element tastes great and helps me replenish my electrolytes after a hard workout or sauna. I mix one packet of Element, usually my favorite flavor grapefruit salt, in 32 ounces of water to ensure I stay hydrated throughout the day. If you want to try Element for yourself head to www.drinklmnt.com and you will receive a free sample pack of all 8 of their most popular flavors with any purchase. That's www.drinklmnt.com plus they offer an unlimited time no questions asked refund policy so if you buy it, try it and don't like it for any reason they will refund you. Now let's get back to the podcast. So approximately 3 years ago, 2022ish, I wasn't feeling great. My energy was low, I really couldn't figure out what was going on with me, I was under a fair amount of stress at work, working long hours, but I knew that I wasn't feeling myself. At this point I decided to remove alcohol from my life, I figured the least I could do was not put something toxic into my body since I wasn't feeling well and this has been a great decision for me irrespective, but it really didn't make a huge difference. I went through multiple different workups, I sought out functional medicine physicians and we really could not figure out exactly what was going on. I had very nondescript type of symptoms that really went more along with my overall lifestyle where I wasn't sleeping great and I was working long hours and under a great deal of stress. Fast forward approximately a year, 18 months later, I woke up one morning, we were out in the country in a small cabin that we have about an hour from our house in town and I was pacing around the room and my wife looked at me and she said, are you okay? And I said, yeah, I'm fine, I just have heartburn, which I get occasional. She looked at me and she said, are you sure you just have heartburn? She goes, you don't look like, your color's not good, you don't look like you feel well. I looked at her and I said, seriously, you're questioning whether I have heartburn or not? Like, I know if I have heartburn, I'm a cardiac surgeon. She said, okay, you know, whatever, whatever you say. So, I continued with my morning routine, which is to sit down and read for a while. I took some Pepsod and for this, we got up to take our dogs for a walk down the country road that leads up to this cabin. It was the middle of December, cool outside. We get about a quarter mile from the house and I am miserable. The heartburn is back, I'm sweating, I'm peeling off clothing. And again, Tracy looks at me and she's like, are you sure you're okay? Like, what is going on? I said, I don't know, this heartburn is just, I just can't get rid of it. So, we head back to the house slowly, mind you, and I'm not feeling good. And at the risk of giving out too much information, when I walked in the house, I went directly to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet. And within 30 seconds of sitting down, the symptoms went away. And I thought to myself, this is not good. Why did I think this? Well, I know from what I do every day, taking care of cardiac patients, that symptoms that are brought on with activity and then relieved with rest are a red flag for blockages in the heart arteries. Why is that? Well, if you have a blockage in a heart artery, as you exert yourself, the heart has to work harder. The area below that blockage then becomes blood starved. And that's what then causes the symptoms of chest pressure, shortness of breath, chest pain, can go to the jaw, can go to the arm. Or it can be very unpredictable symptoms like heartburn or reflux symptoms. That's why they refer to cardiac angina as the great masquerader. It can come in lots of forms. But that sequence of exertion, pain, rest, and relief of pain is a red flag. And I thought to myself, there's no way. This can't be. So I spent the remainder of the day testing. I would go up the stairs in the house. I'd get a little bit of reflux symptoms. I would sit down. They would go away. I was like, ah, no, can't be. There's no way. This isn't possible. Now I went outside, cleaned the grill, moved it around on the porch. Reflux symptoms came back. I sat down for a bit and they went away again. Is this actually possible? I was like, there's no way. And just literally pushed it to the back of my head and said, this can't be an association. At this point, it was later in the afternoon and my wife and one of my other sons headed back into town. I stayed in the country to do an afternoon hunt with my youngest son, which we headed out to do. Got into a deer stand kind of late in the afternoon and just at dark, he was able to harvest two animals. And when we came out of the deer stand, it's pitch black. To head out into the field to collect these deer, I immediately had crushing chest pain that literally took me to my knees. In the middle of this field, in the middle of darkness with a 14 year old that could not drive with no cell service an hour from home. And all I'm thinking to myself is, we're not going to find the deer out here. He's going to find me dead in this field. And that was an absolutely overwhelming experience for me. The thought of him having to go through life with that experience, I couldn't bear it. And I had to pull myself together. In the meantime, he's screaming to me, dad, what are you doing over there? I was like, I'm fine. I'm looking over here. He's like, you're not even in the same area that you need to be in. I was like, well, sometimes they run over here. He knew something was up and I got myself up and walked over to him. He's like, are you okay? I was like, yeah, I'm just having that heartburn again. I just needed to stop for a minute. And he literally looked at me. He's like, stopping helps heartburn. And I said, yeah, sometimes. So we get ourselves out of the field and we head back into town. My chest pain had settled down because I had gotten in the truck and was comfortable and drove an hour back into town. We get home. I head upstairs. I take a beta blocker and an aspirin as soon as I get home. And I went to bed. Didn't say a word to my wife. Didn't say a word to anybody. Just went to sleep. Got up the next morning and we live in a home, in an older home in downtown Savannah. Went downstairs, make a cup of coffee. And when I came back up the staircase, I immediately had the crushing chest pain once again. And at this point, there was no denying what was, what was actually happening. And I looked at Tracy and I said, listen, this is what's been going on for the last 24 hours. And here's where I am now. And she looked right at me and she said, let me get this straight. You drove my child an hour back into town after having crushing chest pain. Didn't say a word to me and went to sleep. I said, yes. She said, and why didn't you say anything to me? I said, well, because you would have made me go to the emergency room. She said, right. That's what you do when you have crushing chest pain. And I said, well, I didn't like the cardiologist that was on call that night. And she said, well, you're friends with all of them. I'm sure they would have been happy to come in and help you. And then she stopped and looked at me and she said, I just want you to know that this could possibly be the most selfish thing you have ever done to me and the boys. And I looked at her and I said, you're right. And I'm sorry. And by the way, I'm having crushing chest pain. Can I, can we go to the doctor now? And I called one of my friends and I said, Hey, listen, this is what's been going on the last 24 hours. He was like, what? He's like, there's, there's no way. He's like, you take great care of yourself. You eat right. You exercise like there's no way that this is possible. I'm like, look, I'm telling you something is really wrong. Like it's so wrong that I hope that we find something so that hopefully you can fix it. He's like, I don't know. He goes, just come to the office. So I go to his office and literally just parking and walking down the sidewalk to get into his office to the symptoms came back. And when he walked in the room and took one look at me, he saw that my color was really bad and that I didn't feel great. And he was like, man, he goes, I'm really surprised because I just think, you know, we're going to do a catheterization where, where they put the dye in the artery to get a roadmap to see if there's blockages. He goes, I just don't think we're going to find anything. And I said, I just don't think that's possible based on what's gone on the last 24 hours. So he's like, but obviously that's what we have to do based on where you are right now. So he took me to the catheterization lab where of course I would not let them sedate me to do the procedure because I wanted to see what was going on and remain in control of the situation. And they catheterized me through the rest. So I was awake and it wasn't particularly uncomfortable. They shot the picture and I had a 99% blockage in the artery on the back of my heart. And I could tell by the medications that he was ordering that something was going on. And I look up and I, you know, see what we're dealing with. And I was like, Oh, okay. And the way that a stent is placed is a wire is passed through this blockage and then over that wire using that for support, the balloon and stent are directed to the area of the blockage. And then that's inflated. Well, when he crossed the blockage with just the wire and it's the thickness of maybe three or four hairs, essentially, I immediately had crushing chest pain once again. And I said, Hey man, I am really hurting. Like this is the pain is worse than it's been the whole time. And I was having EKG changes that were indicative of lack of blood flow to that area of my heart. And literally he pulled the drapes down. He said, I need you to shut up so that I can get this done. He immediately sedated me, put me out and did a beautiful job with the stent. Got a great result, got the artery open and everything. Thank goodness resolved, went out to talk to my wife and he said, I dream of doing cardiac procedures on cardiac surgeons. But putting a stent in your husband was a frigging nightmare. Her response. Oh, I'm sure it was. We want to thank the sponsor of today's podcast, Our Place. About six months ago, my family and I decided to replace all of our traditional nonstick cookware because we were concerned about toxic PFAS or forever chemicals. These forever chemicals such as Teflon have been linked with disruption of our hormone function, reproductive function, gut microbiome, and many other health problems. That's why my family and I do our best to avoid them. That's why we switched to Our Place. Our Place products are completely PFAS free and toxin free. We actually chose the titanium pro cookware set, which is nearly indestructible and it can handle temperatures up to a thousand degrees and looks great. We cook eggs, steak, chicken, bison, and fish on the titanium pans, and it's super easy to clean. If you're ready to start cooking on non-toxic pots and pans, go to fromourplace.com slash London and use code London at checkout. You'll get a 10% discount on all Our Place products. Plus they offer a hundred day risk-free trial. Now you can buy it and try it for a hundred days, completely risk-free. Again, that's fromourplace.com slash London, or just click the link below in the description. Now let's get back to the podcast. So I have a history of such apparently, and I was not proud of really any of that, but I ended up being incredibly fortunate to have the result that I did. And I woke up the next morning. This was on a Monday, on a Tuesday morning, and my entire life literally had been reprioritized. Things that were important to me the day before were not even on the list anymore. Quite frankly, the list got very short. The people that I care about and love and the people that care about me, my friends, my family, that was really it. And it gave me an opportunity to really shake the cherry tree and reevaluate my life. And an opportunity to reevaluate my priorities, my decision-making, how I care for myself, and the simple fact that none of us are immune to this idea of cognitive dissonance. This idea that we know better, but we don't do better. Who should know better than me, a cardiac surgeon that deals with these kind of problems every single day, that this is what was going on. And I still explained it away, pushed it into the back of my mind, and nearly not only endangered myself, but my child. And the level of selfishness was truly unacceptable. But I really looked at this as a true opportunity. An opportunity to change my entire outlook and the way that I made decisions both for myself, for my family, and for my patients. And it was really transformative on all of those levels. And it's one of the reasons that I'm having this conversation with you today, that I'm sharing this story with you today, that I even got involved with social media. Because for years, I was only able to take care of one patient at a time, whether I was in the office or in the operating room. But my oldest son, who's been in the social media space for years, had been prodding me to share my message on various platforms. And I was very resistant. And at one point, he said to me, you know, you think social media is toxic. And I said, yes, I do. I do think it's toxic. And he said, fine. He said, well, then why don't you do something positive instead of just bitching about it? And I thought to myself, I can really do something positive. Not just by sharing information about how to do it right, but offering my story on the mistakes I've made in hopes of allowing others an opportunity to avoid the same pitfalls. And not just one patient at a time, but truly on a dramatic scale. My hope is that this has given you that same opportunity to recognize in your life where you might know better, but you don't do better. And it's okay. It's a universal human quality. The Stoics wrote about it. We're warned against it in various religions. But we all fall prey. The saving grace is recognizing that. Recognizing when there's a disconnect between what you believe and what you know to be right and what you actually do. And understanding that that's a starting point. Then deciding on who you want to be, the type of person you want to be. Who do you want to be a year from now? And taking that opportunity to make better decisions. To make decisions that are constructive and allow progress. And are positive motivators to move the needle in a way that gets you closer to that person that you want to be. And this whole event created amazing clarity. Number one, about where I was. And about the person that I want to be. My goal each day is to offer information that, number one, I'm proud of. That's had an impact in my life and that may consequently have an impact in yours. I hope that this has been helpful for you. I hope that this has given you some insight into my experience as a cardiac patient. Not so much as a cardiovascular surgeon today. Although having the perspective of a patient has made me a better surgeon. Because I truly understand when a patient comes in and says, hey, you know, I go up the stairs and I have this crushing chest pain. And I can say, yeah, I get it. My ask for you today is that you take a second and look at your life. And the decisions that you make. Whether it's with your relationships. Whether it's with your health care. And recognize where this dissonance may or may not be in play. One of the things that I really struggle with is when I'm asked, what's the one thing people can do to improve their health? To increase their longevity? And what I've realized is answering that question in a very myopic, narrow way can be very misleading. Because I may say to one person, you got to move every day. And that individual says, well, I exercise twice a day. I can check that box. I'm good to go. But their diet may be terrible. Their relationships may not be good. Their sleep may be bad. So what I want you to do is really examine your life. Not at what you're good at. And the things that you can pat yourself on the back about. But what are you not good at? That's where the opportunity lies as far as making transformative changes in your life day to day. If you'd like to do a deeper dive in some of this type of information, please check out our free weekly newsletter. We'll leave a link in the description below. If you are watching on YouTube, you can like and subscribe. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, don't forget to follow so you don't miss any future episodes. You can leave up to a five-star rating. Thank you so much for your time today. I truly appreciate it. I hope you guys have a great day.