Heart Tests Amaze Doctors and Patients
By CityBusiness Editor Terry O'Connor COMMENTARY

2006-11-10 10:10 AM CST

NEW ORLEANS — "You’re obese," the doctor tells me.

Hey, can I get a second opinion, doc?

"You’re shaped like an apple," he says with a smile.

You’re no ballerina yourself doc, I think to myself.

It was a bit of a shock to be called obese. Apparently, I haven’t let go of the self-image of the muscled 165-pounder with the 32-inch waist who played linebacker and running back in high school.

Those days are now buried under the "New Orleans 20" I larded on after moving to the Crescent City in 2002 and the "Katrina 20" I earned pigging out on Memphis pork during evacuation when I sat at a desk 15 hours a day banging out stories and exercising with my fork.

Not a good fitness program for a guy whose dad dropped dead of his third heart attack at age 48 about 30 years ago.

So when Doctors Imaging Services in Metairie offered to test me with its new 64-Slice service, which offers an unprecedented look at your heart, I said yes. I’ll see a fascinating new technology and check out any clogging going on, I thought.

The 64-Slice gets its name from the imaging spectrum that visually slows the heart and allows the docs to see what’s beating with unprecedented clarity.

Scan times for the 64-Slice are now about 5 to 13 seconds apiece, which means even patients with severe pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure can hold their breath long enough for the scan to work. The reduced time means minimal heart motion in the scan and higher resolution.

But first, I had to pass a physical with Dr. Cheerful in order to take the test.

"You need a healthier diet," Dr. C told me. "One without red meat."

Hey, doc, I mix in a salad on a regular basis. But no red meat? For a steak-and-potatoes guy who grew up in the heartland of America in Omaha, Neb., this was rough talk. Just how much stress am I putting on the old ticker? Maybe I was born in heart attack land.

I shared this story with Mackie Shilstone when I met the health fitness guru for the first time at a great meal announcing new cooking talent at the Windsor Court. He assured me I could get it under control and said he’d help.

We later met at a sushi joint to talk strategy. Shilstone shows up with a barrel of supplements and a book on healthier living. I’ve been following both for a little more than a month now.

Once Dr. Cheerful cleared me to undergo the next-generation angiogram, I was ready to see my gummed-up valves and be consigned to a lettuce diet the rest of my life.

Angioplasty used to be a significant procedure with serious risks. A tube had to be run up to your heart after entering a vein in your leg. As you can imagine, this is not comfortable and it does occasion serious debilitation. You’d be bedridden for awhile.

Not with 64-Slice, I was promised. I breezed into the bright, new facilities at Doctors Imaging Services in Metairie and soon was cooling my heels waiting for the initial drugs to kick in. I’d been told to bring a driver to get home.

The drugs made me bumble around a bit but didn’t seem to mess with the mind too much. Soon, I was popped into the new MRI machine.

The nurse told me this was the hard part. She was going to inject me with dye designed to help the doctors view everything more clearly. The dye brings a little heat flash some found uncomfortable, she said.

When the heat rush hit me, it wasn’t a great deal warmer than the hot sauce eating contests I used to have with beer-drinking buddies. The brief temperature boost soon subsided.

After about 15 minutes, I was released and asked to wait awhile for the doctors to look at the images. The moment of truth was here.

CEO Shea Soll and radiologist Dr. Jerry Satterlee sat me in front of monitors reflecting a detailed picture of my heart.

Soll and Satterlee were excited about the new machine. It takes so much of the guesswork out of what they do. It’s an amazing advance, they told me.

I walked out of the facility after they tour-guided me through all sorts of aorta adventures. Somehow, I wasn’t on the verge of a heart attack, according to the brilliant images explained at Doctors Imaging Services. Far from it. Clog free.

I went home to rest but really enjoyed a terrific day off. The next day, it was back to work with no ill effects.

With the aid of Dr. Cheerful’s encouragement and Shilstone’s supplements, I’ve managed to peel off 15 pounds since undergoing this procedure. Next time, Dr. C will need some new adjectives for me.

Editor Terry O’Connor can be reached at terry.oconnor@nopg.com or 293-9231.