Yesterday I noticed an unusual development on the nail of my right thumb.
A little research indicated "Beau's lines" had formed, about which Wikipedia says "typically in healthy populations fingernails grow at about 0.1mm/day" and "with this in mind the date of the stress causing Beau's lines and other identifiable marks on nails can be estimated. As the nail grows out, the ridge visibly moves upwards toward the nail edge."
So I had my son with his keener eyes measure the distance from my cuticle to the leading edge of the first Beau's line. He came up with 12 millimeters, which works out to 120 days ago, or approximately September 1, 2017, the day my wife lost a job.
As fate would have it, I was diagnosed with a 90% blockage in my left anterior descending coronary artery in November, which has since been mitigated thanks to the wonders of modern medicine. Obviously problems like coronary artery disease are many years in the making and I didn't suddenly come down with it in the month of September because my wife lost her job. It is noteworthy, however, that among the several causes of Beau's lines is . . . "coronary occlusion", aka "partial or complete obstruction of blood flow in a coronary artery".
In "broken heart syndrome" one experiences compromise of left ventricular function triggered by emotional stress but without such an occlusion.
"Evaluation of individuals with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy [broken heart syndrome] typically includes a coronary angiogram to rule out occlusion of the left anterior descending artery, which will not reveal any significant blockages that would cause the left ventricular dysfunction. Provided that the individual survives their initial presentation, the left ventricular function improves within two months."
Perhaps in my case the chicken stressor produced an egg occlusion.
Or was it the other way around?
"We agree in nothing but to wrangle,
About the slightest fingerfangle."
-- Samuel Butler, Hudibras
