The Tao of Heart Surgery

general Dec 17, 2008

Well you could have knocked me over with some iron wrapped in cotton back in April when I asked the doctor to listen to my heart. It had been running rough for months and I thought it was the stress of my job. He took one listen and immediately sent me across the hall to get an EKG. The result--atrial fibrillation and a weakened heart.

What the....??? Kung-fu guys who have kept in shape, done chi kung and worked out all their lives don't have heart problems. I sat there thinking of my dad, who had his first heart attack when he was 5 years younger than I am and died just 11 years later from congestive heart failure. He was 61 when he died. I'm 55. I want to be practicing and studying the internal arts when I'm 80 so this diagnosis was quite a shock.

Turns out the atrial fibrillation is common. The heart develops competing electrical signals that cause the heart to beat wildly--sometimes very rapidly--and it can not only cause a stroke, it can weaken the heart because it doesn't get enough rest between beats. No one knows what causes it, and it can happen to anyone at any age.

I've been through two surgeries this year. They snake instruments and "lasers" (you have to use quotation marks like Austin Powers) up through your kua (groin) -- one through the left side and two through the right--and maneuver them up into the heart, where they can actually fire up all the electrical signals, map out the pathways, and burn the crap out of the inside of your heart. As the scar tissue heals, it's supposed to stop the rogue electrical signals.

The problem is this--after two surgeries, I still have a-fib about 20% of the time. It was worse before the 2nd procedure. It got better after that but still isn't gone.

I could live with this. I could go on aspirin and just deal with it. I can still work out for hours each day. But eventually, by the time I'm in my 80's, it could have an impact on longevity. That isn't acceptable to me.

So this Friday, Dr. Michael Giudici here in the Quad Cities (tops in his field) is going to try again.

My previous two surgeries were in Tampa. After the last one, a cardiologist who was assisting in the procedure said, "Ken, we basically gave you a heart attack on the table."

Nice.

For some reason, I've been able to rise above this emotionally (except for one "feel sorry for myself" moment after the first surgery) and not even worry about it. I've been able to remain centered, and hardly think about it before the surgery. There's not a lot of pain involved. There's a lot of tenderness in the kua for a week or two after the surgery, but I was practicing my forms again within 3 days of the first surgery and 2 days after the 2nd. And after the second, my heart recovered most of its strength. I was relieved, since the term "weakened heart" was not something I wanted to hear.

The only real pain came from the urinary catheter that they ram in because the surgery is 6 to 8 hours long and, since you're unconscious, they don't want you to wet the operating table. But in the first procedure I had this year, the person who did the catheter caused "trauma" as it was going in. I'm really glad I was already out cold. I think they had to send an orderly down to Home Depot for more PVC pipe for the catheter (Nancy rolls her eyes at that joke and pats me on the head like a dog). The pain of pulling it out, and the horrible pain of peeing razor blades for 24 hours is something I'll never forget. Whoever put that catheter in--I want to hunt that person down and dim mak their whole damn family.

Sorry about that. I guess I wasn't centered there for a moment. I'm not a musician but when you start messing with my organ I get a bit testy.

Dr. Giudici says in his operating room, they pull it out before I even wake up. That's worth the price of admission all by itself.

So, after a very interesting year, I'm looking forward to starting a new year with this little heart hiccup behind me. My first tournament of the year is the first weekend in March, and that only gives me a little over two months to get Cannon Fist in good shape.

Friday can't get here fast enough.

--by Ken Gullette

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The Tao of Heart Surgery

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