Mike Melloh - A Harrowing Surgery Story You Have to Hear to Believe

let me share with you exactly what I'm having for dinner tonight I whipped up a batch of our all-new old-fashioned cornbread and I'm serving it alongside our just restocked sweet and Smoky chili along with a big pitcher of porch swing iced tea now the kids are in charge of the salad tonight and Cole is massaging some avocado and lemon juice into a big bowl of kale this dinner is from the all new plant strong picnic bundle which also comes with our unsalted sweet corn broth to make the most delicious cornbread that you could ever ever imagine and what I did to give it a little Texas kick is I stirred in a small jar of jalapenos to the mix for those that like it a little hotter if you haven't tried the new sweet and Smoky chili the best way that I can describe it is it's like slow cooked baked beans and it's made with plump pinto beans in this Savory barbecue like sauce that is just um Divine you can make this same dinner at home simply go to planstrongfoods.com and snag your plant strong picnic bundle today and guess what we'll ship it directly to your door thanks so much I'm rebeccan and welcome to the plan strong podcast the mission at plant strong is to further the advancement of all things within the plant-based Movement we advocate for the scientifically proven benefits of plant-based living and envision a world that universally understands promotes and prescribes plants as a solution to empowering your health enhancing your performance restoring the environment and becoming better Guardians to the animals we share this planet with we welcome you wherever you are on your plan strong journey and I hope that you enjoy the show not long ago I received an email that I had to read twice because it was so incredibly moving impactful powerful literally it stopped me in my tracks and it was a letter of thanks that was written to my father Dr kawabi esselstyn Jr but the email also told a story a very cautionary story that was so compelling I wanted to have this conversation to share with you and fortunately Our Guest Michael Mello agreed to share it with all of you firsthand and what makes this conversation so special is that it's actually the first time that I've sat down next to my father to interview a patient together with him for the plan strong podcast now a little background on Mike Mike was a person who was seemingly doing everything right he was in his mid-50s he was exercising six times a week he ate a healthy pescetarian diet and even booked appointments for preventative tests just to ensure that he was in fact a picture of Health as his doctors had pretty much told him up to this point in time now what happens next is incredulous story that we're going to share with you right now and I'd like for you to welcome both my father Dr kawabi esselsten Jr and Mike Mello to the plant strong podcast well Mike thank you so much for uh agreeing to come on the plan strong podcast you have to me one of the most incredible stories that I've ever heard of and I thank you for sharing that with me but I think it's also a bit of a potentially a cautionary tale yeah and you know knowing what you know now I'm sure there's some things that you probably would have done much differently but I'd love for our listeners to just kind of uh hear hear your story from start to finish because it's absolutely remarkable and and let me just start with this and then I want I want this guy on board because there's going to be a lot of terminology that I think a lot of us probably don't understand I like for him to kind of lay it out there in layman's terms okay okay so for starters where are you right now are you in are you in Cleveland where are you actually I'm at my daughter and son-in-law's House in Lakewood yep oh we got here last night gotcha and if you don't mind me asking uh how old are you I am 57 years old 57 years young 57. and what part of the country did you grow up in I grew up in Indianapolis I was one of uh four Sons my mom and dad raised us in Indianapolis and we live there uh really until I got my first job and and moved to Illinois I spent most of my career though in the Midwest right and uh like kind of growing up in early adulthood did you always consider yourself to be a pretty healthy guy yeah I mean I would say we grew up eating um like most families in the midwest Etho I mean it was as I've heard you characterize many many times the sad diet the standard American diet um we were not health conscious at all it's not like we avoided fruits and vegetables they were just not a priority come Meal Time my mom is the first to tell anybody that she's not a great cook um and so you know we sort of had the same thing kind of over and over and over again Thursday was always pizza night Friday we usually went out to dinner somewhere my father played poker every Saturday so we were sort of on our own Saturday and Sunday was usually like a pot roast with with potatoes so um but we drank a lot of soda we ate a lot of sugar um and that was just kind of you know the culture and the way we grew up but were you ever overweight or did you ever have any kind of health issues never had any health issues um you know I was a kid that was not overweight per se but you know it was in the Husky jeans um but I was active I played Sports and um got really really serious about physical fitness though about 10 years ago um at that point in time I my my weight had shot up I was busy I was working a lot our kids were getting um they were older so we didn't have kind of the the the tug and the pull of of you know their schedules through you know Elementary School junior high high school Etc so I had a little bit more time on my hands to kind of focus on my health um so I decided to get a personal trainer I started working with a personal trainer uh lost uh you know considerable amount of weight and um adopted a pescatarian diet and this is and this is like give me the timeline when you yes this was 10 years ago so I was at the time I was 40 46. okay now I have to stop you for a sec because I've neglected to let people know that your full name is Mike Mello and it's pronounced mellow how cool was it growing up as a kid saying you know first day of class you know Mike Mello I mean um yeah I mean you know all through school I was pretty much just mellow you know my my first name was dropped really yeah that's the best nickname ever and would you say that you're a mellow guy um I'm not really sure I I epitomize a mellow guy all the time my wife would tell you that I can be pretty intense right um but you know the only thing that I couldn't do with the last name mellow is marry a girl named Marsha that would not have worked that's good that's good what what is your wife's first name Ellen Ellen Mello yeah we've been married we've been married 35 years wow okay so let's get back so you said about 46 yep I got very serious about health I adopted a pescetarian diet so I eliminated all red meat um chicken pork um I really was watching carbs generally speaking um I really wasn't distinguishing between complex carbs and simple carbs I just thought you know getting rid of carbs and uh and you know pastas and Grains and so forth was was a good idea um and it It ultimately had the desired effect I I lost weight I felt good uh I had the the exercise regimen that I adopted was pretty rigorous you know was I was doing strength training four days a week um and all also during those four days I was doing cardio the days I wasn't doing strength training I was doing only cardio so really there was only one day of the week that I took off in terms of any physical activity and that had been that's really been my um my regimen for uh 10 plus years I I don't miss a workout it doesn't matter if we're on vacation uh or traveling um I am I am intent to get my workout in yeah and so um who was it that recommended that you go on a pescetarian diet you avoid chicken uh red meat eggs I'm assuming eggs too or no no I was eating dairy I was eating a lot I was eating a lot of eggs I've never I've never been a big milk guy so didn't really and I really was never a big cheese guy but I definitely ate eggs and I ate a lot of yogurt okay got it so you're a pescetarian eating a lot of eggs and yogurt uh so and you're working out six days a week got it and then and then tell us what happened where you uh you kind of what was it that led you to Fountain to Fountain life and to kind of have all that testing done so I was listening to a podcast in the gym and um the individual being interviewed on the podcast was Tony Robbins and uh Tony Robbins had just come out with his book um I think it's called life force that's exactly I had actually I had Tony on the podcast when his book came out and we talked all about Fountain life and Cleary and some of this incredible technology that's coming out so I have since listened to that podcast okay was not the podcast I was listening to when I originally got turned on to um Tony's book and uh Fountain life but um probably about um six seven weeks ago I actually listened to that podcast between you and Tony yeah yeah and but his his what he was saying to you is essentially the same kinds of things he was saying to this particular interviewer at the time that I listened to it and I was just fascinated frankly by all the advances in biotech and very curious to know um about these diagnostic tests that can find something lurking in your body before they manifest themselves as a as a problem and so I had a conversation with my wife this was uh March of last year and I said hey we should we should look into this and she was a little bit more reluctant she was a little bit more hesitant um I said well you know I think we should at least consider it and so I had to work on her for a while she was one that you know if there's something wrong I really don't want to know and I said well look I don't want to know if I have stage four cancer necessarily if there's nothing I can do about it but if I have stage one cancer and there's things that I can do about it why wouldn't we you know and so I finally wore down so she can she consented to go with me it took us six months to get an appointment once we called we were not able we were not scheduled until September of last year and as luck would have it uh hurricane Ian hit and so um the Naples Center was closed uh following the hurricane so we actually got rescheduled to November of uh 2022. so that's when we uh drove from Sarasota where we live now down to Naples and um we had a great experience there the staff was wonderful the facilities are incredible um it was it was a very um extensive set of diagnostic tests that we had we had blood biopsies done um of course you have to indicate at the beginning um they ask you hey do you want to know everything that we find do you want to know about those things that we can we can do something about or do you want to you know do you want to just sort of decide later and and so both of us looked at each other and said no we want to know everything when you decided to sign up to go to Fountain life was there a menu of different tests that you could decide that you wanted to do or is just when you go you just have like from head to toe everything done to you yeah yeah it wasn't it wasn't so much like kind of a drop down menu where you chose this and that it was a it was an extensive exhaustive set of of tests you know you had a deck set we had a dexa bone density scan we had a complete seat uh MRI from head to toe we had the CT scans with the clearly software um can you can you can you can you tell people that don't know uh what do you what do you know about the clear the clery software like this artificial intelligence yes as I understand it's a software it's powered by AI that can look at the scan and give a um a range of of um calcified calcification in your arteries it's not precise for sure and I've I spoke to another cardiologist um shortly after I did the the test and his office actually decided not to even use clearly because it has a tendency in his opinion to sort of overstate uh blockage um but nevertheless the range that was given to me so so what happened was you know we we said yes we want to know everything they said okay well um once you leave here today you know we'll schedule your follow-up visit it'll be about two weeks from now you'll meet with the medical director you'll review all of your results unless of course there's a problem in which case we would call you right away and so you know we left confident that we weren't going to hear anything inside of two weeks because we were both feeling very healthy um neither one of us had any symptoms to indicate there was any illness lurking anywhere so we're at breakfast the next morning and my phone rings and I pick it up and I look at it and I see caller ID and it's Fountain life and it's the medical director from the center so um we had just finished breakfast we hadn't paid our bill yet I looked at my wife and I said I I need to take this so I stepped outside and he's like Mike this is Dr Kingsbury from Fountain life um hey I wanted to give you a call because I was looking at uh your test results and this is probably not going to come as a surprise to you but you know we detected some some blockage some significant blockage um and I'm concerned a about the blockage but I'm also very concerned about the location because it's your left anterior descending artery and of course I knew that that was um often referred to as the Widowmaker and so I said well I am surprised because I don't have any symptoms he said you're not short of breath I said no he said you don't have any difficulty breathing I said no and I said you know I I work out pretty hard I get my heart rate up to you know 150 160 beats a minute um I said you know I I press and he said well he said I'm not telling you to go to the emergency room but you you do need to get a cardiologist and so I hung up and you know we didn't have we all of our doctors were still in Indiana so we didn't even I didn't have a primary care Doc in in Sarasota so um I made a couple phone calls I did a little bit of networking um found a a cardiologist an interventionist I think you're calling the cardiologist that does interventions um which is what he recommended um so I uh I think it took about two weeks to get in to see him and was this somebody this is somebody that was in Florida yes yeah okay there was somebody in uh in Sarasota yeah who had a good reputation and I think he was he was well known in cardiology circles and so um like I said it took about two weeks to get in to see him and my wife and I both went to the appointment and he walked in and it was at the end of the day it was like a late appointment like 4 4 30 in the afternoon so he had seen patients you know all day and he walked in and he sort of kind of um laughed a bit he I should back up he did get all of my test results prior to seeing me so he had access to those and presumably had an opportunity to look at them but he kind of laughed a bit when he came into the exam room because he said he just took one look at me it's like wow you're the healthiest person I've seen all day um without doing it without doing anything he goes you win um then he got more serious when we had a conversation about you know my calcification score which um was 10 42 so it was 1042 was my calcific my um calcium and that was and that was a calcific calcification score that you got when you were at Fountain life that's right okay that's correct and so he said well um I I think the first thing we need to do is a stress test and and I had had stress tests um every year really since I was like 40. um before I retired I worked as a as an executive in a company and one of our benefits was an executive physical program so and I took advantage of that every year and it was a it was an exhaustive physical it wasn't like Fountain life but it was you know I was there half a day and um one of the tests they did was a stress test and it was um it was not a nuclear stress test it was a um they basically look at your um your VO2 max and so they clip your nose shut and they're taking your blood pressure and you've got this mask on and so um one more reason why I was very surprised when the doctor called me and told me that I had a blockage because my EKGs every year were normal as a matter of fact my last stress test that was monitored by EKG in October of 2021 my doctor said for a 55 year old man your stress test is perfect he goes I'm going to show my nurse my new nurse who's starting next week what a perfect stress test looks like for I'm sorry a perfect EKG looks like for 55 year old male so the stress test that the doctor the cardiologist ordered was a nuclear stress test which again I had not been subjected to before so I went um they interjected this um or injected this radioactive isotope and when I was at rest they sort of watched it travel took some pictures I came back three days later they put me on a treadmill blood pressure cuff hooked me up to EKG all that was normal there were no indications on my EKG that there were any issues got off the treadmill they injected the radioactive isotope again I laid back down a table they took pictures of course you know they don't tell you anything in the moment I got a call back from my doctor said hey come back and see us we went in to see him and and he said well the the stress test confirmed that you have blockage um and um you know but you're asymptomatic um we think one of two options is reasonable for you you can wait until you become symptomatic and then we will we would do um a uh um a car cat would take you to the lab and do an angiogram or we can do that now and so um you know I wish I could go back in time to that moment because I would have taken a beat and I would have done some research and I really was not in a position to advocate for myself because Frank clay was uneducated um I just I just didn't know uh all I heard was blockage in my left anterior descending artery I knew I worked out hard and I didn't want the first symptom to be a heart attack that I may or may not survive do you feel like you were getting kind of a hardcore press to go on option two as opposed to just kind of hang hang tight uh I wouldn't say it was a hard no I wouldn't say that they they I think they honestly believe that one of the either of those options was was reasonable it was really not a a full court press to uh opt for the uh the angiogram I'd love for my father just to weigh in here for a second a couple things before before you kind of continue the first is what are your thoughts on a calcification score of like 1042 does that mean anything to you well it's an indication that the patient does have coronary artery disease and we've seen any number of patients in our uh seminars that have calcification scores as high as three thousand right and then and then the other thing that you said is so they determined that the blockage was it in your uh left anterior descending artery was 80 Mike is that correct so again there was a range they gave me a range and they said the gold standard to know exactly how much is to uh do a hard Cath okay okay and but they described you a significant blockage okay and then you had that heart cath done right I did and then what did that what did that uh yield so I I went in for the um the heart catheterization on January 10th and I was I was in the heart the lab for two and a half hours but there was no intervention uh it took them that long to get all the pictures that they wanted they went through my wrist first um and then they couldn't get all the pictures they said something about my anatomy made it very difficult so then they ended up having to go through my groin um by that time after two and a half hours I was getting very very uncomfortable because Dion's awake in a quote relaxed State um but you know my arms started twitching and I was just the doctor knew that I had had enough and uh and I think it's Dr esselstyn would know better for sure but I think it's relatively unusual to be in a the lab for two and a half hours and there'd be no intervention it was just all pictures correct so I came back out and I got out and he said you've had enough I'll talk to you in a little bit so I went into the the recovery room or whatever you call it and he came back in he said yes the the um angiogram confirmed that you do have significant blockage and we do recommend stents he said but there's a chance I'm going to consult with another doctor there's a chance that we may do bypass surgery and I mean my my jaw just dropped I mean I I couldn't believe what I was hearing frankly stents one thing but bypass surgery was something that would just you know it really just kind of took my legs out from underneath me um so I you know just sort of nodded and I said okay so I'll hear from you guys soon and he said yes so the um they got back with me and they said look um we think uh bypass surgery is overkill we think that the the best and effective intervention is to uh put two heart stents in one into your left anterior descending and then the other one was in my I think it was my left circumplex artery and so I went in three weeks later can I stop you I want to stop you for a sec before you before you talk about the procedure you had and let me ask you this so he's got significant blockage in his lad and another artery or two is it uncommon for somebody to have blockages like that and be completely asymptomatic no it certainly can it can happen absolutely right and um because I think I read in your in your letter Mike that did you have 80 blockage is that a number that I'm remembering correctly yes yeah so I mean have you have you ever counseled patients that have 90 or 100 blockage oh yeah and then oh yeah but but they're asymptomatic well yes and how would you explain that is because they build the corollary I mean collateral collateral arteries around it or just simply by the anatomy that they have they're still getting enough uh oxygenated blood so they're not getting symptoms but when we started this uh years ago one of the first patients I had had an 80 blockage right at the junction of the left anterior descending and the circumflex rights where I think Mike's was and uh it was all said to have a a bypass operation at the Cleveland Clinic our institution bunny somehow found about the fact that that we existed and he just wanted to hear what we had to say and we went through the whole nine yards and he was having symptoms if he walked to the mailbox so since his surgery was not scheduled for another six weeks ahead he aggressively tried the program and suddenly he found out that he could walk to the mailbox without without any symptoms and he thought to himself this seems like a little Kinder way to treat this disease maybe maybe I'll stick with this with him for a while and he gradually increased increased increased his efforts he was he was a a passionate triathlete and after he saw another cardiologist who gave him the green light to go back after about eight months he went back to his triathlons and this is this was now he I saw him actually uh 14 years ago we called him up because we were going by his uh southern New York State Route 86 we were going by near his house we decided to call him and he's still doing triathlons wow and he never had any any procedure done no and the interesting thing was he when he changed cardiologists two years after the earlier one the same blockage was there but all discomfort was gone yeah and he was really good in the blockage because it was calcified and as you said when you have the calcification that's like a tattoo that you know but what what happens when you're eating this way all the other arteries that are so-called normal are not really uh dilated to their fullest extent which is why so often these patients if they have symptoms within four six eight or ten days they begin to improve so and so he got out to the mailbox and was doing much better without any kind of uh symptoms within a couple days and well you said six weeks right yeah Okay so Mr mellow yes let's let's come back to you so you are now staring at this intervention to get the two stents Done Right correct okay take it away so um I guess the headline is I went into the Cath Lab at 2PM I did not leave the cath lab until after 11 pm and landed in ICU basically anything seemingly that could go wrong went wrong um uh so they got me in and uh they got the again I'm in a relaxed state right so I'm awake they got the first stint in but when they tried to put the second stint in in the left the first set went in I should say into the the left circumflex the seconds are you sedated for this are you I'm sedated but I'm awake I'm in like they call a relaxed state um because they sometimes they they ask you to uh to do things like cough and you know they want you to be able to follow instructions and so um when they tried to put the second stent in and that was into my left anterior descending uh the doctor said I'll never forget it he's like your body did not like that that's the that's the only um answer to the question that I've ever got like what happened why did this happen your body didn't like it what happened was um and Dr esselson can keep me honest here in terms of the sequence of things but as I understand the first thing that happened is I experienced ventric ventricular tachycardia can we can we can we stop and so people understand what every term is so what exactly is that as a sort of an uncontrolled rapid heartbeat for the left ventricle okay okay yes and it was apparently very very rapid um that led to um ventricular ventricular fibrillation that's his that is sort of the natural stepchild of ventricular tachycardia that is very prone to turn into ventricular uh fibrillation yeah so I went into vfib um so my heart basically wasn't pumping blood to any organ it just shakes was shaking kind of uncontrollably yeah um and so I went into cardiogenic shock um which you know I I kind of sort of understand I know what I was experiencing I was sweating profusely um my heart my heart rate was still extremely elevated um and as I understand a cardiogenic shock is something that uh is very very serious well your heart isn't your heart is not pumping your heart is wiggling but it's not pumping and so then I then I went into cardiac arrest so then my heart stopped so were you are you awake or are you unconscious now so I was awake up until Cardiac Arrest because then my heart stopped and I stopped breathing wow yeah and they um of course you know when they're prepping you for the procedure you know they put the the the the electrodes electrodes on your on your chest in the event they have to you know shock your heart um and so they ended up having to shock my heart but it it didn't go back into rhythm and uh so again I'm without a pulse I'm I'm not breathing somebody's covering your chest yeah well I I I'm very pumping it not that I recall because I was you know I was unconscious when I came to find what I came to learn the next day is that the doctor made he probably had a minute and a half to two minutes to make a decision as to what to do or else I wouldn't be here and so he ended up um delivering a heart pump for a second catheter so they they cut my left femoral artery and inserted a um a second catheter that was used to deliver a um a heart pump to my heart to get it and which basically took over from my heart and got my heart beating again um yeah I was that heart pump was used for essentially the rest of the the procedure um it was not withdrawn in in first for several hours yeah and you said that you said in your email to me that was called an impella and Pella heart pump yes yeah and then also you know when all this is going on do you know the time from when you your heart went into ventricular tachycardia to when he had to put in the in the heart pump if any any idea I don't I don't you know what we were expecting this procedure to last you know an hour total um from the time I got into the time I got out um you know that was docs told me that they told my wife that he was in the waiting room so you know um they got the first dent in presumably very quickly uh the reason that I was in there for nine hours is because of everything that that happened and then recovering from uh you know all of the medical problems I was experiencing and you and you also mentioned that in addition to you know going into cardiac arrest you also had flash pulmonary edema right yeah which is what my lungs started to fill with fluid then that's part of your congestive heart failure yeah okay and then also you said that your kidneys took a massive beating as well right yes why is that from all the dye all the contrast and the low blood pressure I'm going to clap the question did uh did they end up pleased with the extent that went into the left anterior descending yes yes they they at the end of the procedure you know they said look you had a rough go of it but you know there shouldn't be any complications there was no damage to your heart um we don't really know why what happened to you happened um it's the the nurse said you know it's one in a million um the uh the physician assistant said you know I've been doing Cardiology for 25 years this is only the second time this this has ever happened and the other patient was you know considerably older and in poor health um so yeah no no so now once once the heart pump was delivered and took over from my heart now I'm awake again um I am conscious and I know that things are not going well because you hear I heard you know get me this stat this isn't working bring so and so in here there were many a lot of people coming and going um in the in the lab um they were asking me questions I came to find out later that was in in order to confirm brain function uh because obviously when I was after suffering Cardiac Arrest all of my organs were deprived of oxygen and blood right um including my brain so yeah do you know how long was it over two minutes under two it was probably right around two minutes the length of time it took him to cut my left femoral artery put the catheter in and deliver the impeller hard pump um wow that was a pretty um pretty incredible move that he made there at the time yeah I I I'm obviously I'm very grateful for his quick decision making but you know they're I'm vomiting um I have I it's it's weird I had the um um the the wherewithal to to do things during that procedure again once once I came back I you know I knew that if I vomited while laying down that I could aspirate so you know I was picking my head up and turning it uh to puke um I was coughing constantly just because of I guess all of the meds the fluid on my lungs um I was they had to cut my gown off me because uh my low blood pressure and how much I was sweating um and you know I I also was very concerned about my wife in the waiting room because again I knew things were not going well I knew I was going to die in that lab I just I knew it and I kept sending um one of the technicians out I said you need to give my wife an update um because again she was expecting an hour I'm like yeah did you was there a in the conversation you had before the procedure was there a discussion of of complications that can occur with stenting no no and well there are there are some well-known figures a one percent one percent of people can die and four percent can have a heart attack the uh for example if if you have a country that does 1.2 million uh stents uh per year that means the 12 000 people will die and I think that's information that patients should have four percent of the of the 1.2 million will have a heart attack so that's what 4 times 12 is Another 48 000. and if you take that over a decade then it's 10 times it's ten times twelve thousand that's 120 000 people will die uh getting a cent that's acceptable that's the data that's known and I think that has to be shared well also what percent of stents fail within a year and a half two years well first of all I think that they were it sounds like they were very astute and very brilliant with what they did to make a wonderful resolution of the complications that you had and I think they get her to be congratulated for that but the building the more the basic problems is whether I'm doing my practice my most frequent phone call that I get Dr esselstyn I've been told I have to have bypass or stents I don't want to have it what can I do and the interesting thing is when these are offered electively are these patients really if they're carefully studied there's no reason for them to have to have a pleasure procedure which has the potential of this kind of complication especially if they have no symptoms we have a saying in medicine it is difficult to make the asymptomatic patient feel better yeah um here here there we go um so so Mike let's get back so you're on the table yes um and you know they've they've inserted the the heart pump and then you had complications when they tried to basically um uh basically um put in an incision right so what happened was um they got they got the second Cent In My Heart got back into Rhythm they were pleased with the placement of the second stent and so they withdrew the catheter that that you know carried the heart pump to my heart they kept me alive during the the procedure when they took the catheter out um they could not suture the incision and they couldn't get it to stop bleeding any other way than manual compression so they had to apply manual compression for two and a half hours and you're and you're awake for that I'm awake for that and uh you know that was the most that was not the the the closest I came to not being here um but that was the most painful I mean the other stuff that was happening to me clearly some of some I mean it was it was all uncomfortable but in terms of like sheer pain having a grown man on top of me you know with all of his weight pressing down on the incision and of course they had to take turns because you know not one's birth control can apply compression for two and a half hours like that wow so they were tag teaming it but they were literally on top of me um and I was I remember wailing in in pain I mean it it hurt it hurt a lot um they finally got it to clot and then um that was when you know he told me that um I was I was going to obviously be staying overnight before you before you had the procedure when you were into the discussion and they discussed the options of either waiting for a number of months until you became symptomatic uh was there ever any discussion about while you were waiting these six months you could treat the causation of the disease was plant-based nutrition none not one single uh word about that well yes but that information has been actually forthcoming now for well over uh 30 years yeah but you're you're not surprised that he didn't get that information correct I mean that seems to be kind of unfortunately the status quo these days um yeah that's unfortunate yeah no I and and so you know my wife and I have had this discussion a number of times like knowing what I know now what I have made the same decision when that doctor posed those two options to me wait until you're symptomatic or um or an angiogram I I would have um I would have definitely waited and I would have um educated myself on the um the role that a whole food plant-based diet can play and not only stemming coronary artery disease but reversing it I want to alert you to a couple of things one uh what have they told you about the status of the sense going forward um they haven't really they haven't really said anything other than when I've asked questions like so um you're you you are happy with the placement in a sense you're happy with you know how they're how they were performing I guess um and the answer to those questions has always been yes and again no damage to your heart you should be just fine there's no reason why you shouldn't continue to live a long healthy life yeah but there are there's more data one percent of stance will feel in a year 40 of States within 20 years uh encounter problems yeah so that's all right they're going to keep an eye on this and uh well but I'll tell you if it's a situation that I am not infrequently encounter is once we've had a patient has come to us after they've had the stent they say they've had one stent in the left anterior descending and they're fine for two years or three years and then they begin to get chest pain again and they sure enough they want to say well that plant-based diet isn't working well the interesting thing is that when you get a repeat angiogram you know if the patient has been following it correctly this can't be the case but what happens is the stent has failed the stent has gone down and it's given the mangina and how do we know this you look at the other blockages with at the time of the original procedure that were not significant enough to Warrant having a stent and they now has been three years of eating this way they will have gotten shrink they have they will have shrunken they've reversed while at the same time this the stent being a foreign body and initiating a what we call neo-interminal hyperplasia as a begun to shut down so because I have the stent in my LED um down the road if that stent if I should encounter problems with the stent and they suggest to me that they need to go back in um there is no other option other than re-stenting I mean is the way that I'm eating now um will not protect a stent will not protect the stent because the stent is of the the coronary artery was not designed to live side by side with a bare metal stent and uh and some of these well most by the end of 20 years have had a reaction however this but the majority of these patients are absolutely you're going to do fine you're going to have somebody keep an eye on this this isn't usually ever going to slow close suddenly as it closes slowly you might begin to get some symptoms that's all and then when that happens they sometimes can go in and actually believe it or not put another stent inside that wow I need to correct the problem so can we Mike thanks for your patience with this conversation on stents and I hope it's not making you you know too uncomfortable you know but but the reality is right people are getting stents every day to people oh yeah but wasn't there wasn't there some pretty powerful research that came out of the Lancet I want to say five years ago where they took a group of people and they gave them stents other ones they didn't but they didn't know what group they were in and it basically showed that there was almost no difference that's the or the Orbiter trial yeah right and what and so what what what's your take away from that trial well that trial clearly indicated that in those particular patients there was no benefit to stents and so in your opinion when is there a benefit to get stuff when there's no question when somebody's in the middle of a heart attack a stent can be absolutely life-sing no question [Music] no question so but other but I I think that uh Mike has got either a cardiologist in Indiana or one in Florida yeah who's going to be able to you know the and his symptoms and so forth will be the guidance to how this is all proceeding yeah Mike let me ask you this how has this whole experience that you had how did this change change your life uh wow I I um I think about that um a lot you know I I feel blessed and fortunate to be here um you know the first thing that I wanted to do after um you know recovering in the NICU was speak to each of my children um because again in the moment I I just knew in that lab that I was I was a goner I just had this sense with again being conscious and everything going on and hearing all the chaos that that you know it wasn't going to end well so uh clearly it's it's made me um more aware of how fragile life is for sure um I and it makes me more conscientious about how I spend time and who I spend time with [Music] um and it's um it's awakened me frankly to the power of of nutrition and and the the the medicine frankly of of nutrition and eating right um I'm frankly amazed at the results that I've already seen um being on the diet yeah so what are what have been some of the results that you've seen in three months three plus months well I can I can compare where I was in November when I left Fountain life um with a diagnosis my cholesterol total cholesterol then was 234. I just had it tested him a month ago and it's 108. is that are those uh Apples to Apples as far as statins or no statins and so and I was when I went to Fountain life I was on a Statin I was on Nomads I wasn't taking any medication for anything um so I am on a stat I'm on a uh 20 milligrams of rosuvastatin um so the the November reading was um before a Statin and that was uh again um 233 um it's now 108. and my LDL back in November was 135 and it is now 31. um so is there a role the Statin is playing [Music] um I would say yes however um it my LDL has dropped 20 points just since I've been on the diet so it'll be amazing it'll be I'm very curious to have a conversation with my doctor and that conversation is coming where I ask him to take me off the Statin because you know with an LDL now of 31 even if the Statin is doing something um the way that I'm eating and I'm I am not deviated from the diet one bit I traveled I traveled with food um I ate a cold baked potato yesterday on the drive from Indiana to Lakewood but we didn't really want to stop it it's I I prep meals now you know I I make sure that I'm not caught in a situation where I don't have something on the ready Michael we have a chance we speak long enough that I tried to Enlighten you about the importance of the endothelial cell oh yes while I before I forget it while uh while hindsight here in this uh very uh thought-provoking situation that you've presented us well hindsight is 20 20. I do think it's important that I congratulate those guys that even though they got into an absolutely horrific complication that they had the will the written and determination to and what night and the uh and the know-how to get you out of that rat in that situation but from here on I'd really hope that you'll uh do what you're doing take the whole plant-based nutrition seriously because it and also if there's ways you know we have to question the fact that the American Heart Association was formed in 1924. even back then we knew that there were multiple cultures on the planet Earth where cardiovascular disease was virtually non-existent and since then there have been a number of what I call skillful colleagues and Friends who have taken the route that I have to try to do research on the benefits of plant-based nutrition and it's all out there and it's published in the scientific literature and I'm I'm very disappointed that Physicians like the ones that treated you never even brought that up to you I mean it's really almost Unforgivable not to give the patient the opportunity to absolutely Vanquish their disease without any complications and without any significant expense the only time it came up was after when they suggested that cardiac rehab might be a good option for me and so I asked what's cardiac rehab and they described the program one part of the program is um following the dean ornish uh diet um and um which as you both um well know is essentially the exact diet that Dr esselstyn has been recommending for years so um but when they when they brought it up they brought it up with almost a derisive tone like you know people don't eat like that you can't eat like that for you know for a long time it's just you know those are always the people in a in a big you know Hotel like banquet room or conference room and we're presenting you know to a large group and they're always shivering in the back because they're so cold because apparently they're not they're not getting enough nutrients or enough fat or I don't know I mean it was it was definitely not hey you should really consider doing this it was like well it's part of the cardiac rehab program so you might want to do it right um so um who who referred you then to to this guy here and yeah you went to seminar I think it was March 10th yeah so what happened was um you know given the experience that I had I had to so many questions and um I had the occasion of talking to my wife's brother who knew of an individual a friend of his back from high school actually that um ended up having bypass surgery in his 40s and he knew of Dr russellston and had had a consult with him and undoubtedly been to one of his webinars so it was really through a a my brother-in-law's friend and interestingly I said well how do I contact this Dr wrestlestone and so I got the email and I I emailed and Jackie answered and said you know we've got a program coming up I had my consult Dr russelton and I talked for probably an hour and then some days later I was in the the webinar on on the 10th and um and so did everything you hear just kind of makes sense had you read the book yet yeah oh yeah yeah and I read Dean's book too I read Dean ornish's book as well um it it yeah it clicked it it you know when Dr esselton describes the the endothelium and you know what happens to the endothelium over time and how to restore the endothelium and how it you know it's a natural dilator of of blood vessels um and you know you eat these uh all these leafy greens that ultimately uh build the endothelium I mean um it it it made perfect sense uh and so I have been proselytizing to anybody and everybody who will listen to me um about because they're you know they're like oh my gosh are you feeling well you look great you're like but there's always a little bit of so now your labs are so good you're gonna still be on that diet and I said well of course of course I am that's the reason the laughs are so good that's the reason that I'm feeling so good and and um and feeling so healthy and and I've heard you um rip on a number of podcasts talk to individuals following the diet and they all say you know they all sort of face um a lot of the same skepticism about eating you know twigs and grass and this and that and and I will Echo everything that they've said on your webcam this food is exceptionally flavorful it is so good I mean it's it I haven't gotten sick of of anything and I I eat uh I have um most of our meals I use recipes from um Anne or Jane from the The cookbook I've also bought a couple of cookbooks ripped from various authors that you've had on your your podcasts and you know I was never a chef I was I was never in the kitchen um and now you know I prepare I prep every meal for myself my wife um and any family members who are home so you've kicked your wife out of the role of basically being the head chef in the house yes yeah and she's extremely supportive we're doing it together I mean she'll she you know she has her occasional um you know uh treat um usually something sweet but um yeah we you know when you live together you know you prepare meals and you eat essentially the same and she's been extremely supportive and has really enjoyed the food as well are you in Ohio right now right now I'm in Lakewood yes very good yeah hey hey um how shaken to the core was your wife waiting in the waiting room because you said it was going to be about an hour it's nine hours is she just is she getting reports of what's going on well I'm sending the technicians out but they're not really telling her exactly what's going on they're they're telling her that I'm that I'm having a tough go of it and that um but I'm I'm I'm fighting I'm I'm things are going okay but and I understand that they're not going to say oh geez that's it's really nip and tuck in there I'm not sure he's gonna make it um so they were telling her you know a little bit but she she she's a smart woman she knew and um the the second to the last report the the doctors Head Nurse came out and she took a look at him and you know he was obviously stressed and she said um before you say anything you need to sit down because I have to sit down um and then she talked to the doctor at the end of it and the doctor's like he's like Alan he said uh there's not a lot of people that could have fought through what he fought through he said yes we did what we had to do but your husband is incredibly strong um he you know physically he was very strong but you know for him to be awake during you know the majority of that procedure he said um you know he he did more than his share to to get him through um and she's like well that doesn't surprise me at all because he's a very willful man and and he does not like to know he did not like to miss anything so the fact that he remained conscious is a testament to his strong desire to be in the know oh tell me about Mike uh how is your renal uh your kidney function all good they they return to whatever level of performance yes it's all it was all good weeks later and really the only restrictions that I had post procedure were I developed um a pseudoaneurysm because of the um the uh where they had to go in through my left arm artery I developed a blood clot there that um was I need some leakage in one of my blood vessels that they thought was small enough that would clot on its own and it did it just took a couple weeks so I wasn't able to go to the gym or anything like that for a couple weeks but it had nothing to do with my heart it had everything to do with that healing hey Mike can you share with our audience what have you eaten so far today because it's probably um about five six o'clock your time right now yeah um so I told you we traveled with food so um this morning I got up and I made um the same breakfast I have almost every morning it was uh oatmeal and with uh fruit and I was using fresh fruit now I think it's actually even tastier to microwave frozen fruit berries and put it on I started with a banana I had the oatmeal um and with the fruit and also your granola rip the berry flavored granola on top of the oatmeal I had that every morning and then um that got I mean I was I was feeling you know um satiated all the way until about two o'clock and that was after my wife and I walked about five miles and I did a strength circuit in in the backyard here at my daughter's house about two o'clock I came in and um I warmed up one of those baked potatoes that I brought and put some salsa on it and uh that was that was lunch her her kitchen is not and her cupboards are not stocked with Whole Food plant-based um options currently but we're gonna go shopping tomorrow because we're here for we're here until next Thursday nice what do you what are your plans for dinner tonight I'm probably going to make um one of the esselstyn's favorites as I understand just black beans and brown rice and with with lots of veggies hey so nice up some some peppers and um some jicama and I'll have some you know some spinach some um uh probably some um jalapenos oh yeah that sounds great how how absolutely proud are you of what Mike has done in the last three months well I think it shows that listen to if anybody like had gone through what Mike has gone through who has a brain in their head doesn't ever want to do this again or have it experience but the exciting thing that that to know is that it is so ridiculously simple safe and inexpensive to absolutely annihilate the leading killer of women and men in western civilization which is cardiac disease and we have got a somehow emerged from the dark ages of treating it with drugs stents and bypasses which have absolutely not one single solitary thing whatsoever to do with the causation of the illness and those pain and those cardiologists and cardiovascular people really have got to Tumble to the idea that what we're doing is absolutely fallaciously wrong I ought to offer every patient the opportunity of a treatment that is going to an absolutely kill this disease you know I was just on a on a panel Mike about a week ago in New York City with Dr Neil Barnard uh Dr Rob ostfeld with Montefiore Hospital he's a cardiologist there Dr Michelle mcmackin and you know the mayor there now is Eric Adams yeah fervent fervent advocate of Whole Food plant-based nutrition he actually came to see came to see my father and you know basically credits him with the information that helped him to reverse his type 2 diabetes but in all the New York City Hospitals now the first default meal that you get after a procedure is Whole Food plant-based that's pretty darn cool and if you want to have something that's animal based or something like that it's the third the third option the second is again plant-based so the first is Whole Food plant-based the second is Whole Food plant-based and then if you're like I can't do that then the third down the down the rung of the ladders is some sort of an animal based do you know what was on the menu for me in ICU uh and a cheeseburger with bacon I have no idea again this was I was a pescetarian at the time so I had a I had already made excuse to turn away the tray but it was Beef Manhattan so I am a heart patient okay I just experienced what I described to you guys I'm in ICU and they serve me Beef Manhattan you know what that is a slice of white bread with some sort of beef and all this gravy on top I mean you can't make this stuff up that's what they're serving a heart patient in ICU and as you you probably ate it right you didn't know I turned it away and I I turned yeah I I turned it away and I say and I and again I was not Whole Food plant-based at the time but I was a pescetarian I said I'm I'm pescetarian I don't eat this um they were nice enough to bring me salmon but the default option was Beef Manhattan was I mean mind-blowing yeah yeah incredible well um Mike if I'm not mistaken I'm gonna see you in a couple months in Sedona Arizona you and your wife right my wife and I are both going to be there we're very much looking forward to it uh so am I so am I it's gonna be incredible oh well then yes yes I'm sure a lot of people will have probably listened to the podcast but yes you'll if you're game four we'd I'd love for you to share your story there as well um Mike this has been absolutely incredible I can't tell you how much I appreciate you sharing your story this you know this very cautionary tale with us being so um so open with with everything that you went through and um how it's changed your life because I think there's a lot of people out there listening that will uh have a lot of great takeaways from this conversation that we've had it's been my honor and privilege I thank you both for all the work that you're doing yeah thank you any any any closing words from you Essie just absolutely congratulations to uh your willingness uh to really try to educate other people so they can avoid the path that you had to follow yeah and and that's to your earlier question rip about how it's changed me that's I really would like to to figure out a way that I can um help affect the change and and really spread the word um to get people to embrace a healthier way of living that will spare them from you know not only from the kind of thing that happened to me which you know let's chalk that up to a fluke but there are so many people that are living in such unhealthy ways by what they're eating and um it's just a ticking Time Bomb for many and so to the extent that I could get a platform and and tell a story and and help convert some folks to a whole food plant-based diet and embrace their health in the process I'd love to do that remember it is difficult to make the asymptomatic patient you know feel better yeah we shall we shall hey Mike this has been terrific and enjoy your time in Lakewood with your daughter and uh I'll see you in a couple months my plan strong brother give me a little plan strong bump up a little higher up a little higher there you go boom hey and thank you to this guy for joining in all right all right Mike bye-bye bye-bye thanks so much to Mike for recounting that incredible day and thanks to my father for providing some incredibly useful color commentary guidance and wisdom I know that it was Mike who wrote a thank you letter to us but I really I want to thank Mike for embracing this plant strong lifestyle and sharing his story the way he did with us today the biggest endorsement of this plant strong lifestyle is putting it into action and watching it work and Mike has done exactly that and if any of you are figuring out how to put this lifestyle into action I would encourage you to join us at our Sedona immersion in October and you can not only Meet myself and Dr Clapper and Doug Lyle and Adam sud my sister Jane and a slew of other people but you can also meet Mike mellow and his incredible wife so to all of you thanks so much for listening and always always keep it playing strong thank you for listening to the plan strong podcast you can support the show by taking a quick minute to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts leaving us a positive review and sharing the show with your network is another great way to help us reach as many people as possible with the exciting news about plants thank you in advance for your support it means everything the planet strong podcast team includes Carrie Barrett Lori cordovich Amy Mackey Patrick Gavin and Wade Clark this season is dedicated to all of those courageous true Seekers who weren't afraid to look through the lens with Clear Vision and hold firm to a higher truth most notably my parents Dr Cabo the esselstyn Jr and Anne cryo esselstyn thanks for listening

Channel: PLANTSTRONG by Engine 2

Views: 21,239

Keywords:

Id: YedyAQSNwys

Length: 73min 54sec (4434 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 03 2023