Klarinet Archive - Posting 000595.txt from 1996/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: What do you think of the following? I'm puzzled.
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 1996 20:57:51 -0400

I had to go back into the hospital for a week to have an angiogram and that
was followed by an angioplasty which involves doing yucky things to the heart
and then photographing it.

Anyway, the physician found out where my blockage was and zapped the daylights
out of it so I'm fine. But it is what he said later that has puzzled me.

He showed me on the photographof my heart that the main cardiac arteries were
very large, much larger than the patients with whom he generally dealt. And
he began to ask me what did I do to get such large cardiac arteries. For one
thing I did not even know if that was good or bad, so I was hesitant to
comment but finally I told him that I played a lot of clarinet, mostly the
larger clarinets.

And the cardiologist said that he found this to be the case with many players
of large wind instruments. In effect, he suggested that the years of playing
act as aerobic exercize to the heart and enlarge the cardiac arteries in
a very positive way. He went so far as to say that my blockage was large and
would, all things being equal, have led to a serious problem beyond that of
a heart attack, and that what prevented that was the large arteries.

Does anyone else know anything about this? Is this even vaguely correct
or was the cardiologist just woolgathering.

I never thought of playing a bass clarinet as being a form of aerobic
exercize. But maybe it is.

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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