‘Salt is a no-no’, says bypass man for Heart Week

RICK loved his greasy foods. Fries. Fish and chips. Steak and onions. But the 69-year-old was also an active man. He loved pottering around in his back garden, working with wood, cement and concrete.

Riccardo Fusciardi - Rick to his friends - also regularly played golf.

So when, about a year ago, he started noticing a little bit of breathlessness and tightness in the chest when going upstairs, he didn’t think an awful lot of it.

“I used to say to myself ‘You’re getting old, Rick, you’re not fit’.”

His GP told him he seemed alright but referred him to a heart specialist. The specialist sent him for an angiogram to check if anything was blocking his veins.

“I was just lying down and the doctor tells me to talk to the surgeon who carried out the angiogram - that the surgeon said I have to have a bypass. I said, ‘No, I’m great. I feel fine’.”

Then Rick met the surgeon. “He said, ‘You know you are not in a very good state’. He said, ‘You didn’t even have a heart attack’. I had no warning. He said, ‘If you had a heart attack, you’d be dead’. It was that bad. There’d be no way back for me.”

Rick said he was totally bowled over. “He worried me to death. I said ‘when can you do the bypass’?”

He was given a date a fortnight later.

“The realisation of it hit me. I got worried I could die. I was even afraid to walk out the door in case I got a heart attack.

“Before I would run here, do that, play golf, be in the garden lifting heavy objects. As soon as they told me, everything stopped. That’s the bit that gets you. They tell you, ‘You can’t be so active anymore’.”

A year later, and now 70, Rick is getting on with his life. He still plays golf. But he has to take it easy.

The doctors said cholesterol was part of Rick’s heart problem.

“I would have eaten quite a few greasy foods, fries, fish and chips, steak and onions. I don’t have salt any more. Salt is a no-no.”

Salt is this year’s theme for Irish Heart Week, which started on Saturday.

The Irish Heart Foundation (IHF) estimates around 900 deaths from strokes and heart attacks could be prevented each year if people reduced their salt intake by half a teaspoon.

Rick’s advice: “Keep away from fatty foods. Use flora and eat fish, like salmon, mackerel and herring. And don’t go back to your old ways.”

For more on Irish Heart Week check www.irishheart.ie or ring IHF on 01-6685001.