It’s a tight game. They said it would be.
The arteries encircling Joe’s heart have grown narrow. The tiny pipes were smooth for years, connecting to a system that carries 80 gallons of blood every hour through the heart. Decades of cholesterol build-up formed plaque inside the left anterior descending (LAD) artery. Now the blood flow through this critical vessel of the heart is more like the rock-filled twists and turns of a Colorado river.
Joe’s wearing his striped overalls in the team colors, a foam corncob crowns his head. The squeeze of "indigestion" he feels is, he thinks, from the recent pizza, hotdogs and carbonated soda he had at the game.
At an average of 80 beats per minute, the left ventricle shoots life-giving blood through the body by over 100,000 contractions a day. Those contractions also feed the LAD. Now the stress of the moment makes the heart beat faster, but the narrowed LAD can’t deliver the blood needed upstream. That’s why the LAD is sometimes referred to as the "widow maker."
Looking back, we didn’t have the recruits we’d hoped for. The fundamentals weren’t mastered yet. Today we should have made those third-and-shorts. But generally the boys were doing their best against a solid opponent. They’re winded now; who wouldn’t be in a nail-biter finish like this?
Maybe it was the lack of exercise or the overeating. The rotten genetics didn’t help. Now the body is sending in platelets to the heart in an attempt to smooth things over. With the artery already narrowed, the effort is in vain. All this misdirection forms a dreaded blood clot. The whole LAD is now blocked.
Joe rubs his chest, wishing that deep pain would go away, but instead he feels it extending down his left arm. A wave of nausea washes through, and he wipes his brow of sweat, wondering why he lets a game get to him like this.
The blocked LAD abruptly stops blood flow to the critical muscle tissue of the heart. Pain signals that have already been fired by neurons from the heart combine with other nerves to further sound the alarm, leading to a sensation of pain in the jaw or down the left arm. Heart cells are starved and dying. It can’t keep beating much longer.
What can we do to help the team?
Get checked before the big game. It was likely days or weeks ago that Joe first felt that vague but unmistakable chest pressure, like a large weight on his chest.
Joe isn’t real, but he could be any of us. Be sure to tell your clinician about unusual chest pain, shortness of breath, or sweating spells before you’re on your last down.
This article first appeared in livewellnebraska.com
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