I wasn’t going to say anything about Michael Jackson’s untimely death due to cardiac arrest, since there have been rumors that drugs may have been involved, but then on Sunday, Billy Mays died–apparently also of cardiac arrest.
That’s two well-known figures in less than a week. Their hearts suddenly stopped beating. That’s what cardiac arrest is, and it is often instantly fatal.
Unfortunately, for many people, it’s also the first sign that there’s a problem. Lee was lucky; the big red flag that spurred him to action was big enough to get his attention, but not big enough to kill him. Billy Mays was not so lucky.
For those of you who are unclear on the distinctions, cardiac arrest is not quite the same thing as what we commonly call a heart attack. Lee had a myocardial infarction (heart attack), which means that blood supply to his heart was reduced enough to kill part of the heart muscle. Dead muscle can’t contract properly, which means that the damaged part of his heart no longer pumps like the healthy part. If enough muscle is affected during a heart attack, you can be permanently disabled, or even die.
Cardiac arrest, like I said, is when the heart suddenly stops beating. I think the prospect of just dropping dead–bam!–out of the blue like that is horrifying. It’s a bit like Russian roulette–some of us have time bombs in our chests, and there’s no way to predict when, or even if, they will explode.
For the record, this news is just as alarming to me for my own sake as for my husband’s. Yes, Lee has an increased risk of sudden cardiac arrest, because he’s had a previous heart attack. But in this culture, with coronary artery disease (clogged arteries) as common as it is, we’re all at some level of risk. That includes me. And you.
Jackson and Mays were both 50 years old, with a lot of living left to do. As I find my forties starting to slip past, fifty doesn’t seem all that old to me. I know that arteries clog up over years, so it seems to me that now is as good a time as any to make sure I’m doing what I can, every day, to ensure my heart keeps beating steadily for a long, long time.
Read more about Mays’ death, sudden cardiac arrest, and how to avoid it, here.