roy s. johnson: wilbon has heart attack

Bob Cook · Jan 29, 2008

Re: roy s. johnson: wilbon has mild heart attack

DocTalk said:

Cleaning out the arteries isn't quite right but close enough.

Plaques of fat form on the inside the arteries of the heart and narrow blood flow to the heart muscle itself. When the heart is asked to do more work, like shoveling snow or climbing steps, it needs more blood to deliver oxygen. Should the blockage be significant enough that there isn't enough oxygen delivery, then the muscle aches, no different than arms that get sore from lifting or legs that hurt after running. This is called angina.

When an angiogram is performed, it is to look for critical narrowing and by inflating a balloon at he obstruction, the plaque buildup is squashed into the wall of the blood vessel (angioplasty). Once the area is opened, there is opportunity to place a wire mesh stent across the angioplasty area to keep it open long term.

In heart attack, the plaque ruptures and a blood clot forms completely obstructing the heart artery and no blood flow gets to the part of the heart muscle that the artery supplies. If angioplasty isn't performed emergently (the standard is 9o minutes from the time the patient presents to the hospital to when the artery should be opened) then that part of the heart muscle dies and is replaced with scar tissue. Not all hospitals can perform emergent angioplasty and clot busting drugs like TPA or TNK can be used to dissolve the blood clot adn termporize until transfer to a more fully equipped hospital.

Significant risks exist with angioplasty but the risk decreases when cardiologists doing the procedure have experience doing alot of the procedures frequently.

I hope Mr. Wilbon does well; he is young and has many years ahead of him. This is now opportunity for him and his audience (including those on SportsJournalists.com) to start minimizing risk factors for heart disease: smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. Family history is also a risk factor but you can't do anything about genes.
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Thank you for explaining it in real medical terms, instead of my listening-to-doctors-three-times explanation. But I'll warn again, if something like this happens to you, and you don't change what you're doing, you will soon have an appointment with a chest spreader.

VJ · Jan 31, 2008

Re: roy s. johnson: wilbon has mild heart attack

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/31/AR2008013103759.html

A great writer and from all accounts, a great man. Best wishes on a speedy recovery.

playthrough · Feb 1, 2008

Re: roy s. johnson: wilbon has mild heart attack

LATimesman said:

I've always been told Wilbon works very hard, travels constantly for work, etc. And on the air he has talked about having a bad back. If you're in his position, it would be tempting a chunk of time off (like six months) to just get healthy.
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No question about it. But I can't stop wondering if a guy like him would heed a trusted doctor's advice to shut everything down for six months. You're at the top of your game -- on television every day, you've got the column, you're at every single big game in every sport. Can you make yourself walk away for six months? I read all that name-dropping in that column and wonder. And I'm trying not to slight Wilbon, who by all accounts is good people. I hope he's being honest with himself about this.

funky_mountain · Feb 1, 2008

Re: roy s. johnson: wilbon has mild heart attack

from wilbon's column:

I landed in Phoenix late Sunday night, drove to my home-away-from-D.C.-home in Scottsdale, looked at some e-mail, and went to bed at 1:30. At 3:15 a heavy pain in my left arm and on the left side of my chest woke me. I thought it was indigestion, and started drinking water, but the pain persisted. Took some Advil. The pain got worse. Tried to go back to bed, but it became unbearable. They were classic heart-attack symptoms, the pain up and down the left arm and in the upper-left chest, stuff you see on TV dramas and sitcoms. It was after 15 minutes of denial that I woke my wife and told her: "I know this sounds insane, but we've got to drive to the emergency room. I'm having a heart attack."

Within six hours, after nitroglycerin pills, morphine drips and an ambulance transfer to an intensive care unit, a cardiologist to whom I will forever be indebted conducted an angioplasty, using a balloon to open a blocked artery. For the first time in my life, I was admitted to a hospital and stayed there for two more days -- and found out that not only wasn't I indestructible but that I now would be a full-fledged, insulin-dependent diabetic.
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Pete Incaviglia · Feb 1, 2008

His latest column is damn good. And scared the shit out of me. Motivation enough for even me to get healthy.

Mizzougrad96 · Feb 1, 2008

Wilbon is the hardest working columnist in the country and in my opinion, it's not even close...

No big-time columnist travels 1/10th as much as he does...

I hope he's OK, he's definitely one of the good guys... Knowing him, he'll still be at the Super Bowl...

EE94 · Feb 2, 2008

Simon_Cowbell said:

Bob Cook said:

A "mild heart attack" is like Bill Walton's definition of "minor surgery" -- it's a heart attack that happens to someone else.

I don't know Michael Wilbon, or what his health habits are, but if anyone knows him pass along this -- do EVERYTHING the doctors tell you do, including taking time off. My father had a similar procedure in 1990, and he thought six weeks later it wouldn't be a big deal to cut the yard with his riding mower. Instead, he was in excruciating pain -- doctors told him to wait at least two or three months before doing anything. Also, depending on his health habits and his genetics, he could be right back in sooner than he knows it. About five or so years later, my dad, who had resumed smoking, was back in for a sextuple bypass. And a couple years ago, even though he had quit smoking and improved his health habits quite a bit, he still had to get his arteries cleaned out again. All of this occurred between the ages of 48 and 62.

So if you ever "just" have an angioplasty, please remember it can be a beginning, and not necessarily an end.
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Is there a procedure to "clean out" arteries?
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clear out might be better term, but yeah, angioplasty is designed to increase the blood flow

Joe Williams · Feb 2, 2008

For all of his success, I give Wilbon credit for remaining hard-working even as his broadcast gigs have blossomed. I don't read him regularly enough to know if he has cut back on his frequency of writing for the Post (a la Kornheiser) -- if so, then maybe I would temper that first sentence a little bit.

But yes, he does seem to put in more hours than most. And he has stayed the same good guy that he was at the start.

didntdoit19 · Feb 4, 2008

He's on PTI today. Glad to see he's healthy enough to come back, not glad he didn't take more time off.

Is one week off really enough to recover from this?

TheSportsPredictor · Feb 4, 2008

didntdoit19 said:

He's on PTI today. Glad to see he's healthy enough to come back, not glad he didn't take more time off.

Is one week off really enough to recover from this?
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What'd he do besides talk on TV for a half-hour? Is that taxing? Was he at the Super Bowl?

Sounds like the same ole Wilbon though. Good for him.

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