Heart Surgeries

On the 5th of April 2008 64 year old John Smith begin experiencing chest pains. He is 5'7" and about 350 pounds. He is a self proclaimed couch potato and the last time he exercised was in 2001 when he was chasing an ice cream truck. He eats fast food at nearly every meal and refuses to consume anything green. As his chest pains worsened Smith reluctantly drove to the hospital. After observing Smith's weight and lifestyle habits his cardiologist decided to run a battery of tests to check for coronary heart disease. The doctor started with an electrocardiogram to check the timing and strength of the heart's beat and electrical signals. Next came a stress test where Smith ran (or attempted to run) on a treadmill while his doctors performed various tests to see how his heart handled stressed. However the very fact that he nearly vomited after five minutes of exercise seemed proof enough that the heart was not pumping properly. Lastly, he underwent an angiocardiogram where a special dye was injected into his heart so the flow of blood through the heart could be seen easily with x-ray imaging. All tests concluded that his coronary arteries were severely constricted. The fat and cholesterol from smith's daily quadruple bacon cheeseburger settled on the walls of his coronary arteries, hardening into a substance known as plaque. Though he miraculously escaped a heart attack many of his arteries were mostly if not completely constricted. Smith's cardiologist decided that the best route to go would be a quintuple bypass. Five healthy arteries were removed from his left leg and connected from his aorta to the damaged arteries. He is doing well and has since replaced chili cheese fries with apples and twelve hour America's Next Top Model marathons with bike rides.