Cayenne Pepper may have saved my life.

                        by Edmond G. Addeo 

      Without emotion, the cardiologist said, “The treadmill test turned up an abnormality. There’s a problem…”  

      The word “abnormality” is not what I expected to hear in the context of a heart examination. To quote Woody Allen, it is, after all, my “second favorite organ…” 

      At his desk, the doctor reached for a prescription pad. I started to zone out as I heard the feared words: “Medication…,” “Cardizam…,” “thallium test…,” T-waves…,” “reduced activity…” 

      And I thought: “Am I now an old man ?” 

            *  *  *  *  *

       Since 55 was my father’s age when he suffered a series of myocardial infarctions (MIs), when I reached that age I thought it would be eminently intelligent to take a stress test and check the condition of the old ticker. It was very nearly a bad mistake. 

     I had been relaxed about the prospects. After all, except for a serious bout of viral pneumonia in 1972, my health had always been near-perfect. I had been athletic all my life, usually in better shape in pick-up games than men ten years my junior. 

      I had only been in the hospital once before in my life, and then only for some cosmetic work on a broken nose after I graduated high school. Although I have had a penchant for copious amounts of  both wine and pizza at too-frequent intervals, my diet otherwise had been good and my blood work had always been excellent, including liver enzymes. And I was moderately active, physically, although possessed of a slight paunch, a rising but not remarkable cholesterol count, and locked into a sedentary career as a writer. 

      I considered an MI to be on the horizon genetically, and probably psychologically as well. During my annual birthday physical, I suggested the test to my family physician and he agreed. He referred me to a Dr. Vincent Gilardi (a fictitious name) who had an excellent reputation in the county, had done some pioneering research work, and had years of experience. I called and made the appointment. 

      It was to my utter surprise that I flunked the test. On the treadmill (so Dr. Gilardi told me later), I lasted far longer than the typical 55-year-old; my blood pressure behaved properly; for all intents and purposes, nothing appeared dramatically wrong. 

      But there was something erratic about the ST-segments of my EKG, i.e., a specific section of that wavy line we’ve all seen. It seems that under heavy exercise, my ST-segments didn’t go back to zero before starting to rise again. On the EKG, they were one millimeter away.  

      I groaned. In lay terms, this meant that some part of my heart muscle wasn’t getting any oxygen when my heart rate was elevated (we got it up to 172). Although Dr. Gilardi was only mildly concerned, he thought the symptom justified a thallium test.  

      A thallium test !        

 

 

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The Duke and I

WHEN my father was a young fireman in Brooklyn he looked so much like the American matador Sidney Franklin that he was asked for autographs in restaurants.  As he grew older and people forgot about Franklin, he looked more like John Wayne and was still asked for autographs in restaurants.  I, on the other hand, looked like none of the above (including my father), but I used to hang out in a San Fernando Valley restaurant called the Fireside Inn, which was where I first shook Duke’s hand and told him about the resemblance.         

        At the time, he was walking to the men’s room, passing the circular fireplace in the center of the large central dining area. I was a young newspaperman with enough brass to jump up and tell him how much he looked like my father.  He must have thought I was crazy.  He enjoyed the joke, though, and was very cordial.       

       Ultimately, it was twenty years later in a small Mexican cantina that the Duke apologized to me, both for looking like my father and for not starring in a movie I wrote for him.  There is an old joke, which I’ve customized, but that’s hard to put across on the printed page:  Ask me if I’m the world’s funniest Italian comedian, and then ask me to what I owe my success.      

      “Are you the world’s funniest Italian comedian?”       

      “Yes, I am.”     

      “To what do you owe—”  

       “Timing!”                                                                                                                                                                                       

        My father taught me that timing was one of the most important keys to success.  This is a story about timing.                                                                                                                                                                                

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