So long, Rochester Cardiopulmonary

After 25 years — maybe 30 — I visited Rochester Cardiopulmonary Group for the last time Wednesday, June 24th, 2015.
I asked them to transfer all my cardio records to Finger Lakes Cardiology in nearby Canandaigua (“cannon-DAY-gwuh”).
Canandaigua is at the northern end of one of the Finger Lakes, Canandaigua Lake.
Rochester Cardiopulmonary is 45-50 minutes from my house. Finger Lakes Cardiology is 20-25 minutes, still a long way, but I hope by the time I can no longer drive I’ve moved to Canandaigua.
Rochester Cardiopulmonary goes back to a referral long ago by a doctor I called “the pusher.” He was affiliated with Folsom Health Center, an HMO (health-maintenance-organization) I had to be a member of at that time — this was during the ‘80s.
I called him “the pusher” because he was always prescribing pills. He was probably getting kickbacks.
He prescribed a calcium-blocker blood-pressure medication I later found made me dizzy, and that was despite my blood-pressure being acceptable.
I never did like him, but at Folsom I couldn’t change doctors.
When I had my stroke, he told my wife I’d be a vegetable.
That made me mad. “I’m gonna prove you wrong,” I told him, and I did.
So goes Dr. Rao (“row;” as in “ow”), my wiry little doctor at Rochester Cardiopulmonary.
I remembered while driving home he was the one that performed an angiogram on me prior to open-heart surgery to repair the reason I had a stroke.
It was a patent foramen ovale (“PAY-tint fore-AY-min o-VAL-eee;” PFO), a hole between the upper chambers of my heart that never sealed closed after birth.
That hole lets you use your mother’s oxygen in the womb.
Lots of people have the PFO, but never have symptoms.
But a PFO can pass a clot, and if so it goes to your brain.
Which it did in my case. A brain-clot is a stroke.
They had to see if they needed to do anything else during open-heart surgery to repair the PFO.
Which is why Dr. Rao performed the angiogram. A tube to your heart is inserted in the large artery that supplies a leg.
Radioactive dye is injected in the tube, and reveals any blockages in arteries to your heart-muscle.
If anything is blocked, they have to do a bypass.
No blockages in my case, so all they had to do was repair the PFO.
And it was Dr. Rao who performed the angiogram.
Much as I disliked “the pusher,” he referred me to good places.
Another is Urology Associates of Rochester.
But they are in Rochester, and I live in the sticks.
Canandaigua is much nearer.
At least two stress-tests and innumerable consults.
And each time I visited I was amazed at some of the patients. Creaky old codgers with walkers and in wheelchairs.
Compared to them I am Superman. I drove there myself, and walked in on my own.
To Rochester Cardiopulmonary and Dr. Rao I was the miracle who had open-heart surgery to repair a PFO.
And recovered from a stroke.
I could easily pass as healthy.

• “Canandaigua” is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• The Finger Lakes are a series of north-south lakes in Central New York that look like the imprint of a large hand. They were formed by the receding glacier.
• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.