(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Lessons Learned [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2026-03-21 That’s me in the cardiac recovery area post-surgery, very lucky to be alive. I work in San Fracisco. My office is at the top of one of that city’s many hills, and I’d often go to lunch one block down the (fairly steep) hill from my office. The last few months, I noticed that when I returned to the office I’d be unusually winded by the time I reached my building, and would have “indigestion” too, and often my left arm would feel sore. I was having difficulty walking up a flight of stars without getting winded. On stressful days at work, I sometimes felt like I had an anvil on my chest. I have very little family history of cardiac issues, so I consigned this to middle-aged flab and feeling overwhelmed. I resolved to walk more. My commute (when I take public transit) involves about 4 miles of walking, some of it uphill. I tried that but found that I was really exhausted, had the “indigestion” and felt dizzy after both the journey to work and when I got home. Two weeks ago I was talking to my brother and his wife on the phone, and mentioned in passing these symptoms. They expressed concern and mentioned getting this checked, and I responded that I didn’t want to put medical professionals out for something that’s probably just indigestion. There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone, and then my brother said, “Call the Advice Nurse at Kaiser, and have her confirm that, then call us back.” That probably saved my life. I called the advice nurse and explained what had been going on, and she asked me where I was and said she was setting up an appointment with my primary care provider for the next morning (this was at maybe 9pm) and told me that if I felt those symptoms again to call 911. That was my first realization that Something May Be Terribly Wrong. The next morning I described my symptoms to my PCP, and he gave me an immediate referral to cardiology for a stress test , where the nurse hooks up EKG leads to you and has you walk on a treadmill that simulates walking up hill. It usually lasts 10-15 minutes, but in my case about two minutes in, the nurse told me to stop, and ordered me to sit down while she went to talk to the on-call cardiologist. A few minutes later she came back looking concerned and said I should immediately take a pill (metoprolol, which is in a class of drugs called beta-blockers that help the heart function more efficiently and can reduce angina symptoms.) At this point I was getting understandably anxious, and she had me do some deep breathing exercises. Next, I met my newly-assigned cardiologist and he said that the next step was a coronary angiogram, which is a procedure perfomed by a specialist surgeon where they insert a catheter into an artery, run it up to your heart and, with the help of “contrast” dye, investigate any suspected blockages in the coronary arteries. This is performed with the patient in “twilight sedation” where the patient is given enough sedatived to make them sleepy and (very) comfortable. That occured last Tuesday, and pretty quickly the surgeon said something like, “Okay, Mr Talbot — we found it.” “It” in this case was plaque that was very close to completely blocking my right coronary artery. He mentioned that it was a complex case, and that ordinarily it would be referred out to the regional coronary surgery location is San Francisco, but that since he happened to be the head of that center, he could go ahead and do it at the Oakland Medical Center where I was. He ended up doing what amounted to a very involved version of stenting. I am very, very lucky to be alive — almost despite my best efforts. A Nurse Practitioner told me that they had solved the immediate danger, but that my task for the rest of my life was to “stop the progress” of my disease — which means cardiac rehab, and then taking my giant pile of meds as directed, getting exercise and eating low on the food chain. The thing that almost cost me my life was denial, and “not wanting to be a bother.” I didn’t want to believe that I could have a life-threatening condition, and so ignored what are very obvious signs of a possibly major problem. I took a walk a couple days after the procedure — about 3 blocks — and was amazed at how easy it was. It was only with relief of the symptoms that I realized how very sick I had been, how I had been avoiding exercise due to my body’s reaction to it — in short, how close I came to breaking the hearts of people who love me. Lesson learned. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/3/21/2374221/-Lessons-Learned?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/