Facing the dangers of high blood pressure (BP)

 By Gershom Ndhlovu



Gershom Ndhlovu

In the year 2000, I was transferred from my base in Ndola where I had worked for just over four years back to Lusaka. My family remained on the Copperbelt while I went to take up my new appointment.

It was while there that one day a team of Rotarians came to my place of work to conduct some medical check-ups.

A Rotarian of Indian origin took my blood pressure. He looked at me and said my Blood Pressure (BP) was very high. As far I was concerned, he was talking to himself because it did not register to me what he meant and especially that he did not mention any thing I should do to control it or to seek further medical advice from a registered clinic.

As far I was concerned, life continued as usual—imbibing the lagers and cheap Zimbabwean spirits of Bols and Chateau and eating michopo in the form of goat meat, T-Bone  and fish roasted at pubs and added to that, the home made stews—and of course other unhealthy life styles.

One day, on my way to Ndola to see my family, I felt very uncomfortable on the bus with one side of my head getting swollen. Because of some pain emanating from the ear, I thought I had an infection in the ear. The following day, my wife suggested we go to the Ndola Central Hospital where she worked as a nurse.

When it was my turn to be examined by the nurse on duty, she, as a matter of routine, took my Blood Pressure. The woman looked at me wide-eyed and took the reading again. Without saying anything, the nurse shot off the room and came tagging a doctor. At this time, it still did not register to me how serious the problem was.

The doctor, straight away, recommended that I be given a bed. At that point, the problem of the ear was all but forgotten. I was taken for ECG (Electrocardiogram) and other related stuff. I spent four days in the Ndola Central Hospital, but that was the beginning of a very long journey with my BP treatment and admissions to hospitals.

An electrocardiogram (ECG) is a medical test that detects cardiac (heart) abnormalities by measuring the electrical activity generated by the heart it contracts. The ECG can help diagnose a range of condition including heart arrhythmiasheart enlargement, heart inflammation (pericarditis or myocarditis) and coronary heart disease.

Fast forward to 2009, living in a European country. One day I went to see my doctor for some minor problem I had. Fortunately or unfortunately, my usual doctor was not there and I was seen by another one who, again as a matter of routine, took my BP. While measuring it, she put the stethoscope on my chest and listened intently. She said: “You have a heart murmer.”

Again, I had no idea what that meant but she explained in simple language saying that as the heart pumped blood away from the heart, some of it was going back into the heart. She referred me to the hospital for a thorough examination. But I was assured that although there would be need for surgery in future, they would be monitoring me and required me to go for an annual check up.

I did not have any notable problems until towards the end of 2010 when I started experiencing pain in the chest, arms and legs particularly after a strenuous chore. This was increasingly getting debilitating almost knocking me out.

One day, after one of these attacks, I decided to go to the hospital. The doctors decided that I should undergo an angiogram (X-ray test that uses a special dye and camera to take pictures of the blood flow in an artery or a vein) to determine if there were any blockages in my coronary arteries. The doctors’ fears were confirmed. One of my arteries had narrowed. But because at that time it had been decided that I need heart surgery because of an anomaly in my heart valves that allowed blood back into the heart, the narrowing would be dealt with at the same time as the heart surgery on a date that had not even set.

Two weeks after the angiogram, i had an emergency. I set out to travel out of town to the university where I was studying for classes, on the way to the bus stop I just felt this pain I had never felt before. I dragged myself back home. I recovered quite alright but later in the evening I experienced the same pain. At that time I was taking some pain killers that had been left over by my daughter but ran out.

I had to go to the surgery the next day to go and get my own pain killers. As luck would have it, I saw the doctor who had diagnosed my heart murmur a couple of years earlier. She quickly ordered an ECG. Because of the ECG result and my presentation of the problem, she called an ambulance which fetched me from the surgery.

At the hospital, they did further tests and they determined that I needed an angioplasty or a stent, to widen the narrowing artery. I spent three days in the hospital. From that time to date, I have not felt that pain again.

Nevertheless, the medical authorities now had to scramble to find a date for my open heart surgery. This came six months later in May 2011. I had been given three choices of what they were going to do with my valve—replace it with an organic one, i.e. from a pig or sheep, replace it with a mechanical one or just repair my natural one. Fortunately for me, my natural one was in reparable state which they did.

The underside to all this is that I have to be on constant medication such as aspirin to “thin” blood and four other types tablets to control blood pressure. I also have to bear the 30 cm scar on my chest where I was opened up for heart surgery to take place.

The recovery process is a story for another day but in writing all this, it is my wish that Zambians should take issues of high blood pressure.

Based in the United Kingdom, Gershom Ndhlovu is a veteran Zambian journalist, a co-host on Crossfire Blogradio (UK) and former Zambia Daily Mail Editor.PYM