As an environmental scientist and expert on evaluating risk, I’ve become something of a therapeutic nihilist. I rarely see my physician (Andy Lazris, MD, my coauthor, encouraged me to share and helped write my story)—and want no screening tests when I do. But when I had a heart attack at age 75, I was both very grateful for medical intervention and frustrated by hospital physicians’ subsequent failure to take my preferences into account.
It began as intermittent, burning abdominal pain and exhaustion. I called Andy, and he sent me to the closest emergency department, where I was found to have a right ventricular myocardial infarction (MI).