Life Flight - Part 1, Lipoprotein (a)

on Tuesday, January 13, 2009


What is Lipoprotein (a)? Your guess is as good as mine. My doc calls it "LP little a". It's a marker for heart disease. Are you bored with this post already? They really don't know what it does or what affects it but they know that if your number is high, you're in trouble...

my number is high...real high.

In my case, they think it weakens the walls of my arteries and they collapse. I'm not a clogged up girl but my walls are weak and they fall. When they fall, I do the heart attack thing. Here's the story:


That much beloved photo above, is my dad and me (that's correct English, btw) at Georgia Tech homecoming in fall of 1968. He was 45 and I was 4. He died of his third heart attack within the year at a train station in Leningrad, Russia. He was taking a group of students to Russia...they were some of the first Americans allowed in that country during the Cold War. I'm the youngest of 5 children.
Digest that for awhile.

I know this sounds a little grim so far but truly....the Lp (a), is such a gift. I'm not just being Polly Anna meets Holly Golightly. You'll see, in part 3...it's all about the heart.

2 Comments from you:

Carrie P. said...

So is this hereditary?

Marcia said...

I was tested for this 10-12 years ago and the dr found that my score was very high and I've been on Niaspan ever since. I move 7 years ago, told my dr about Lp (a) and he said, "What's that?" Grr. I've been collecting Google Alerts since for awhile but they are all in "dr-eze." It is nice to read something I might understand!

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