roy s. johnson: wilbon has heart attack

[funky_mountain]

sorry if this is a d_b:
http://passtheword.wordpress.com/2008/01/28/get-well-mike/

from roy s. johnson's blog:

Michael Wilbon, a good friend, suffered a mild heart attack today. He suffered chest pains around 3 a.m. Monday morning while at his second home in Scottsdale, Az. Thankfully, his wife rushed him to a local hospital. Doctors found minor blockage and conducted an angioplasty to clear things out. He’s doing okay now, he told me tonight.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

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

They didn't label it as a heart attack on PTI last night, but said something along the lines of he had chest pains and had called in during the taping to say he was doing fine.

 

[LATimesman]

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

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.

 

[Bob Cook]

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

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.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

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

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.

Is there a procedure to "clean out" arteries?

 

[Bob Cook]

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

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.

Is there a procedure to "clean out" arteries?

That's what an angioplasty does. It's a balloon put in the arteries to clear out the plaque and get the blood flowing again, and normally a stent (drug-coated or not) is placed inside to keep the artery open. So when you have angioplasty, you haven't had a Fred Sanford-style "heart attack" because the heart muscle might not have been damaged -- my father's barely was at the time of his first procedure. For most people -- and DocTalk can correct me if I'm wrong -- most of the heart procedures are to clean out space in the arteries, or with a bypass, to create new paths around damaged arteries, so the blood can flow to the heart. People who have a heart attack that is the muscle itself seizing up (and that could be because of chest pains that were long ignored, and could have been taken care of with an angioplasty) often drop dead before anybody can do anything.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

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

FWIW, and there's no such thing as minor heart surgery, but this is as close to a tonsillectomy as you can get in that field.
Best wishes to Wilbon, a great American.

 

[Michael Echan]

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

Best of luck to Mike. Met him a three years ago in DC at one of those sports media summits (I forget who was running it) and he was one of the featured panelists that day. He came in about 10 minutes late and one of the first things he said was: "...sports writers and early mornings (it was 9:30 am) do NOT go well together." Still one of my favorite lines. I hope everything went smoothly for him and that he's back at the keyboard and in front of the camera in no-time.

 

[mike311gd]

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

Get well soon, Mr. Wilbon.

 

[DocTalk]

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

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.

 

[DanOregon]

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

Man - that ESPN DL is getting long...Hope he heals up soon. Probably the best time of the year to be on the shelf, between the Super Bowl and March Madness.

 

[forever_town]

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

Best wishes, Michael.

I did what I'd consider heavy lifting five days after surgery, but it was three two-liter bottles of soda and I'd had the equivalent of hernia surgery. For something like this, FOLLOW DOCTOR'S ORDERS!

 

[Bob Cook]

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

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.

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]

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]

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

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.

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]

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.

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

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

 

[Mizzougrad96]

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]

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.

Is there a procedure to "clean out" arteries?

clear out might be better term, but yeah, angioplasty is designed to increase the blood flow

 

[Joe Williams]

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.