A Life of Words

Eleven years ago, on July 26, 2014, my dear ol’ Dad, whose sense of humor and passion for making others laugh carried him through life, hopped on his flight for heaven. Clark Lindsay Christlieb, who played basketball and football and ran track in high school in St. Paul, Minnesota, gave melanoma a great race twice until it nudged him out at the tape on the second one.

I miss his laugh. I miss his pride in my older brother Isaac and me and his grandchildren. I miss his penchant for cracking jokes and making conversation with strangers. I miss his ability to brush off stuff that makes me stress out. I miss his easygoing ways – generally speaking, the opposite of me.

I miss him, period.

Exactly 10 years after Dad left us, on July 26, 2024, I was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism, blood clots in both lobes of my lungs and in my main pulmonary artery. It happened three months after surgery for my fractured right femur, so it likely had some connection to that trauma. It was my second experience with a blood clot, having had deep vein thrombosis (DVT), also in my right leg, three months after surgery for my ruptured appendix in May 2020.

The PE was a life-threatening condition that, looking back, I probably should’ve been hospitalized to treat with one of the clot-busting procedures available these days. But instead, I was only put on anticoagulants, which don’t dissolve existing clots but keep them from growing and prevent new ones from forming. Knowing PEs can be fatal, and having lost a dear college friend to one in 2022, my family and I could only hope the body’s natural clot-dissolving mechanisms would work.

Thankfully, a follow-up CT scan three months later showed the PE had resolved. Dad, as much as I’d love to see you again, and know I will, that wasn’t my time.

So I’ll stay on the blood thinners permanently and cross my fingers that clots are behind me. I’ll also keep focusing on my recurring low back pain (dealing with a flare-up now) and staving off chronic headaches with medication.

I’ve also added my heart to my list of health details to monitor. Because of the history of heart disease in my birth family – both my biological grandfathers died of heart attacks in their 40s and my oldest brother Crys, now 81, had bypass surgery last year after having a 99% blockage in his “widowmaker” artery – it was recommended that I add a preventive cardiologist to my team.

So in early May, I visited a great cardio at UT Southwestern Medical Center where I work, and we ran some blood tests (LP(a) and APOB) that turned out normal. But I also had a CT calcium scoring scan at his suggestion, which checks levels of calcium deposits in the coronary arteries, a sign of plaque buildup, which leads to heart attack/stroke.

Three of the four arteries checked had calcium scores of zero, which of course is awesome. The fourth – that troublesome widowmaker, or left anterior descending (LAD) artery – had a score that scared the hell out of me.

The number was 526.8, and anything over 400 indicates an “extensive plaque burden” and a high risk of a cardiac event in the next five years. Calcium deposits are a sign of atherosclerosis, or the buildup of plaque in the arteries.

So where we are is that my cardiologist has put me on a statin medication. Even though my total cholesterol has always been great – in the 150-170 range – he feels this is one preventive step we can take to keep my LDL, or bad cholesterol (a key component of plaque), below 100. Also, statins help keep more calcium from building up and stabilize existing plaque, preventing it from rupturing and causing a cardiac event.

And of course, I’ll also make more of an effort to eat a healthier diet and get more exercise. With the various health issues I’ve dealt with – broken leg, blood clots, back pain for decades and chronic headaches – I sure didn’t expect my heart to be added to the list!

I’d like to urge all my family and friends to pay attention to your heart health. Even if your cholesterol results are always good like mine, heart problems and risks can still develop as you get older. (Ladies, this includes you.)

So *please* talk to your provider about the possibility of having the blood tests I mentioned (especially if you have a family history), which are being recommended more often to show biomarkers for heart disease risk. You need to ask your doctor specifically about these tests – and research them so you’ll know what they’re all about. This is very, very important.

And if you *ever* see even the slightest worrisome signs – I had not had any but was being proactive because of my biological family history – please don’t wait to get checked out.

PSA over. Love you all. ❤ ❤ ❤