A ‘Sixth Sense’ diagnosis that made my heart skip a beat

Frank Coughlan

A Valentine's Day card from a grandson rather than a GP’s analogy delivered a shock about heart health. Picture: Stock image.

March 14 2023 02:30 AM

“I’ll put it to you this way,” she said, “if there were five men roughly your age in this room right now with similar cholesterol, one of you would have a stroke or a heart attack within 10 years.”

My doctor had put it to me this bluntly because whatever expression my face had settled on after my latest health update hadn’t impressed her.

This was supposed to do the trick.

I visualised what the other four might look like. No doubt there would be one sinewy, Lycra-wearing fetishist who had furiously cycled 20km to get there. I immediately excused him from the room. On your bike, mate.

Shortest odds on Pizza Slob, obviously

Another two – despite being pasty-faced, fresh-air-phobes – could not be relied upon to take one for the doctor’s imaginary team.

The fourth would be that guy who dozes on the couch between Super Sundays and whose idea of your five-a-day is four beers and a takeaway pizza.

Then there’d be inoffensive me. A moderate in all things, dedicated to the smooth path of least gradient in matters, both intellectual and physical. All in all, I would take my chances in that line-up of unusual suspects. Shortest odds on Pizza Slob, obviously.

But it got me thinking all the same.

About something my grandson had said to me a few weeks earlier, with the sort of searing honesty that comes naturally to a six-year-old.

Truth in such hands can be a brutal instrument of torture. He had made a suite of Valentine’s Day cards for the family in school, his grandparents included.

I noted that the various hearts were accompanied by bright red dots underneath.

The boy in 'The Sixth Sense' came to mind

Having complimented him on his craftsmanship, I wondered aloud why my heart received one such dot while his own had five.

“Easy,” Arthur said. “It’s because your battery is nearly flat and you are probably going to die soon.”

The boy in The Sixth Sense, who saw dead people, came to mind and a shiver ran down my 67-year-old spine.

There was no hiding my shock and he picked up on it instantly.

If he ever becomes a doctor, his bedside manner might need some fine-tuning

“It’s the truth,” he said. “Literally.”

“Literally” is his current buzzword and he threw particular emphasis on it here, rather pleased he had evoked such a stirring response. If he ever becomes a doctor, his bedside manner might need some fine-tuning.

Hanging around for an acknowledgment of his personal sadness at this impending turn of events was an unrewarding waste of time.

Arthur did offer the certainty, literally of course, that I would be able to look down from heaven. This delivered little by way of consolation to a man who is seriously doubtful his lapsed membership card would get him in.

Childish, of course, but it was this encounter rather than my GP’s striking analogy which nudged me in the right direction. Being blessed with decent health at the moment is no guarantee of longevity. Especially if the old heart battery lights are fading.

Amazing how seeing yourself through a child’s eyes can put years on you. Literally.