What a beautiful weekend! Shame I’ve been on-call all week and it’s been very busy. At the end of on-call weeks I often like to write my blog on an interesting case I’ve seen, and try to tease out any learning points that are of value to the public. Today is no exception, but there is a very personal story to me at the end.
Joe (not his real name) is a few years younger than me in his early 40s. He’s a bit overweight, but had no major medical problems. He had been feeling a bit breathless for a few weeks, and finally got some indigestion like pain which prompted him to see his GP. His GP did an ECG (paper tracing of the heart) which was quite abnormal, and he had some fluid on his lungs when he listened with a stethoscope. He referred him to our hospital and I looked after him on the coronary care unit, where it turned out he had uncontrolled high blood pressure, heart failure, and the worst coronary artery disease in a man of his age I’ve ever seen. There was actually a moment or two when I thought…
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