Raven Jake Dawes

Raven Jake's Heart Attack

Alright folks, don't be deceived by that perfect blood pressure on the monitor behind my shoulder. Couple of weeks back on January 25, I had a heart attack. I had a heart attack tryin' to be healthy, so you see what clean livin' will bring. Now as Raven Jake die-hards know, I have a genetic disposition to depositing plaque on my coronary arteries. That's a gift I'd like to give back, but over the years, I've had four cardiac "incidents." This was my first actual heart attack (I think) and I got it walkin' up a hill near my house.                                              

Because many Raven Jake stories are cautionary tales, like "don't do the fool thing I did" I include this for your consideration: People havin' a heart attack ain't in their right mind. Their brain isn't getting enough oxygen, they're in pain, and they're full of adrenaline.  I had one thought "Get Home!" and that's what I did. The rational smart thing is to call 9-11, call someone for help, stop walking. I'm alive in spite of myself. So if you find yourself walkin' up a hill and you can't get yer breath and you think an invisible mule mighta kicked you in the chest - stop right there, amigo. It ain't getting better.

Anyway, my bro Anthony who lives across the street took me to Glendale Adventist Medical Center, the best place to have  heart attack, and they got down to business. Shout out to Sylvia, who is a terrific nurse, and the whole team for making sure Jane got a cot to sleep on for the three nights we were camped out there. When you have a heart attack, your body produces an enzyme called troponin which builds over than 24 hours and then fades away. Mine were way up there, so my cardiologist, a fantastic guy named Sanjay Sharma, did an angiogram. 

What he found is that while my bypass from two and a half years ago is holding up great, there's a blood vessel on the front that ain't doing so well and is clogging up some. Not enough to kill me, but enough to give me angina.  And folks, let me tell you it's brutal. Now I'm not a guy who talks politics (I've got more friends that way) but I'm here because of the Medicaid expansion of the Affordable Care Act. Without that, I don't even know what would've happened with my pre-existing condition. I'm home now, but I've got a slow way back, so keep Raven Jake in your thoughts. 

Raven Jake's Double Bypass

Fresh out of surgery.

Long time no see, Amigos!

You may have wondered where I wandered off to – if I was lost in the desert or somthin.’ That guess wouldn’t be far off; I’d been feeling progressively worse all summer (low energy, short of breath, tightness in my chest) and by July 28 I was feeling bad enough that it was time for the emergency room.

They ran some tests, tried to unplug me with an angioplasty and found out that my aortal arteries were about 98 percent blocked. Y’all, I wasn’t really surviving on 2 percent arterial flow – my body had grown some corollaries (additional blood vessels) but the situation was bad. The right one {which had 6 stents in it) was completely blocked, the center was at 98 percent, and the left one had disappeared all together. They had to do something drastic.

1 day past surgery - getting better!

So on August 1 I had open-heart surgery. It’s been a climb up from there, I still don’t have an abundance of energy and I’ve lost a lot of strength but I’M ALIVE. And I haven’t felt short of breath even once since the procedure.

I’m deeply thankful for the Affordable Health Care Act – if it wasn’t in place before my near fatal walk across Chinatown (I’ll post photos on that later) there’s no way I could have gotten insurance. Big shout out to my cardiologist, Sanjay Sharma and the cardiac surgery team from Los Angeles Heart Surgery especially my girl Crystal Rene de Cotret (that's us on the bottom) and Dr. Randall Roberts. And most of all a huge thank you to the whole staff at Glendale Adventist Hospital. Those people saved my life – LITERALLY. 

 

 

 

 

Me and Dr. Crystal at the 1-month check up.