FEATURE PATIENT
LISTEN TO YOUR HEART Man’s Experience Underscores Importance of Advocating for Yourself as a Patient by TERESA SCHIFFER 20 | CFHN
N
o one knows your body better than you. There may be times when something just doesn’t feel right, and even though you voiced your concern to your physician, you weren’t able to get the answers that put your mind at ease. As Roger Walker can tell you, this is no time to silently accept your fate and wait for “something” to happen. “I started to feel pressure on my chest when I was working outside in the yard cutting the grass or whatever,” Walker says. “It kind of came and went, came and went, no big deal. But then it became more frequent and longer-lasting. At that point, I went to my primary care physician and they did a bunch of tests.” The doctor ran a number of standard tests,
but the only thing that showed up was a heart murmur that Walker was not previously aware of. Other than that, no issues were found. He was then referred to a BayCare cardiologist. More tests were performed, but again, no problem was found. Two options were then presented to Walker: He could simply wait and see what happened, or he could undergo cardiac catheterization for a deeper analysis of what was happening inside his body. During this process, a thin, flexible, hollow tube (the catheter) is inserted into a blood vessel. The catheter is then threaded through the blood vessel into the aorta, where it can be used to check the pressure within the chambers of the heart and other diagnostic procedures. centralfloridahealthnews.com
