We were on

our morning walk, passing the pond below the house, when,

in a moment of rare prescience, Dave said, "Whatever

happens tomorrow, I have a feeling things will never be

quite the same again."

It appears

that he was right. After a couple of weeks of off-and-on

chest pain - pain so atypical of cardiac pain that

it nearly fooled a cardiologist - he'd finally made

an appointment. "I know what's going to

happen," he lamented. "They'll keep on doing

`just one more test' until they find something, and then

they'll want to do surgery, and I'll join the ranks of

old men talking about their bad tickers."

As every

basic first-aider knows, chest pain of any kind in a man

of 68 must be considered symptomatic of a

life-threatening illness until that is positively ruled

out. But it was impossible to believe this of Dave. He

has none of the risk factors you think of first: his

blood pressure and pulse are almost abnormally low,

cholesterol and triglyceride levels optimum; he doesn't

smoke, is not diabetic, his weight is acceptable, he

exercises regularly and he's virtually vegetarian.

That's the

tough one. I'm so obsessive about fat and fiber in our

diet (none and lots, in that order) that heart disease

wouldn't dare darken our doorway. (Our friends are

shaking their heads incredulously, our detractors

doubling over in glee.) Put together Dave's history and

the pattern of this pain - not crushing, not

relieved by nitroglycerin, no shortness of breath, but

definitely associated with some muscle-challenging

household chores he'd done recently - and even the

cardiologist at Piedmont was ready to dismiss it.

He ordered

more tests nonetheless. An EKG showed no changes since

previous routine ones. But a treadmill test did wear Dave

out more quickly than expected. So the doc ordered

catheterization to be on the safe side.

"What

did I tell you?" Dave said. "I knew this would

happen." And that's how they found two arteries

occluded 90 percent or more. Bad enough to warrant

monitoring him in the hospital over the weekend. As he

had predicted, this is how a man goes from being husband,

father, handyman, boatsman - to patient.

We were

stunned. Dave with heart problems? Unthinkable. He was a

chemist, you know. Stick to the formula and you get

predictable results, every time. Eat right, stay active,

avoid toxins and stress, and live long and well. Earlier

I said he had none of "the risk-factors you think of

first." There are three others over which he had no

control: his gender, his age and the fact that his father

died after his one and only heart attack, at 77.

We needed

that weekend in the hospital to come to terms with the

message in the blurry black and white photos the doctor

handed us. The narrowed passage of blood was plainly

visible in two of the arteries that enable heart muscle

to squeeze blood to the lungs and then back into the

body. There was no denying what we saw.

Suddenly

the future was foggy. We had been just days from taking

off for a few weeks on our little trawler, the nicest

weather of the year ahead of us, and now there were

decisions to be made, concerns to be addressed that had

nothing to do with boating. Even assuming this story

would have a happy ending - and we were - Dave

reviewed our finances with me again (or thought he did; I

tend to glaze over when he starts talking mutual funds

and money market accounts). He even discussed the best

way to sell the boat.

I nodded

where I thought it appropriate, hearing nothing.

Something inside kept whispering hoarsely, "This

isn't happening. Not to us. Not to him." We let the

girls know, one by telephone, the other by e-mail. I

begged off a few committee meetings and posted e-mails to

people who needed to know. Talked to our pastors, one of

whom called Dave and said he was thinking of buying a

boat; was Dave interested in selling his?

The man has

a mean streak behind that backwards collar. But he also

helped us think through our options. One was angioplasty,

with stents to hold open the arteries, restoring good

blood flow with relatively little risk and trauma. The

other, bypass surgery - a more traumatic procedure

requiring that the chest be opened and veins borrowed

from elsewhere in the body - statistically offers a

somewhat more permanent fix. The decision was ours, and

took the whole weekend. Whatever we chose would happen on

Monday.

Angioplasty.

It seemed to us that Dave's prospects were very nearly as

good with angioplasty as with surgery, and at

considerably less cost in pain and time. Moreover, if

results were not as long-lasting as hoped, bypass could

still be done later. Dave was in the cath lab by 10 a.m.

Monday, and at about 12:30, the cardiologist, a tall,

engaging man who exudes confidence, strode into the

waiting room and said both he and Dave had done extremely

well. The outcome was very satisfactory.

Again, the

pictures proved it. Those previously pinched arteries

were now plump with flowing blood. As I stared at them,

it seemed my own heart beat easier, and a weight I hadn't

even realized was there lifted from my shoulders.

That was

Monday. He came home next morning, is a model patient,

and if our immediate future is not yet crystal clear, at

least the fog has lifted a little.

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