Heart Health is Serious Business

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The 2020 Board issue of IPMBA News included an article written by IPMBA Industry Liaison Greg Bowen entitled, “Fit for Duty: A Sober Reminder about Heart Health”. This letter was written to Greg in response to his article and serves as another reminder about the importance of exercise and routine medical screenings.

January 27, 2021

Captain Greg Bowen,

I wanted to thank you for writing this article; I think it’s a great reminder that we are not superhumans even though at times we feel like it.

I work at the St. Louis Community College Police Department, normally a low stress environment, but there are occasional stressful calls that come up. I know our officers can easily become complacent and get themselves in a routine which includes not exercising and bad eating habits.

I didn’t eat terrible food, but I also didn’t exercise. I spent a lot of my time, outside of work, going to school and taking care of my family.

Last year, I was going to physical therapy and at the end of a session, I just didn’t feel right. I was fatigued and my face was flushed; I sat down drank a lot of water. The therapist suggested that I visit my doctor. After that appointment, the doctor suggested that I take a stress test because they couldn’t find anything wrong on the EKG. So, a month later I completed the stress test and the cardiologist said that everything looked great. Well, I was 39 years old, in good health, I rode my mountain bike a lot (lost 20 pounds of winter weight), but there were some issues in my family history. After the cardiologist said that I was fine, I figured the feeling I experienced was due to another issue.

The one thing I struggled with all summer was cutting the grass, and my yard is not big nor are there any steep hills. I could usually cut the grass for 5-10 minutes and then, I’d start experiencing tightness in my chest. At times, I would just become egotistical and try to fight through, but most of the time I would leave the yard mostly uncut for a few days until I felt like tackling it again.

Finally, in August, at a follow up appointment, I told my cardiologist about the grass cutting issue and he scheduled an MRI. A few days later, a nurse called me and said that I needed to have a procedure done within a week. She said that I needed at least one stent, maybe two, because I had one artery with 70-90% blockage.

Well, to say the least, my heart started pounding right then, so I took off work, thinking that if I continued working while I was so stressed out, I would have to go to the hospital right then.

In October 2020, the night before the surgery was scheduled, I ended up going to the ER because I was getting too anxious (my insurance provider was playing around by denying the procedure, saying they were going to see if I really needed it). I didn’t know if I was suffering from a heart attack or what was going on, so I thought it was best to let the doctor figure out the symptoms.

Once the procedure was finished, the cardiologist said that I needed four stents, because one artery was 70% blocked and a second one was 99% blocked. They diagnosed me with angina, which is similar to experiencing a heart attack.

I was one of the lucky ones that made it to the hospital before I became a statistic. Thank God for that!

Now, I’m exercising regularly and eating even better than before. I bought a FiBit to monitor my heart rate to make sure I did not overdo it.

Again, thank you for writing this article because it is an eye-opener, and I hope that everyone takes their health seriously.

Respectfully,

P.O. Matt Dedert, PCI #1919
Saint Louis (MO) Community College Police