I had to have a stint put in 7 years ago. I missed a half-day of work as I had it done on a Friday afternoon and was home by Saturday afternoon. At work on Monday. Many bounce back very quickly.
But if you don't do it, you do run a very high risk of dying. A baseball player, Darryl Kile, died in his hotel room in 2002, at the age of 33. He was in the starting rotation for the St Louis Cardinals and was expected to pitch the next day.
An autopsy found that he had 90% blockages in two coronary arteries. If he had taken a stress test, they would have been found, he would have had two stints put in and would have been fine.
This was a seemingly healthy professional athlete. On June 18, 2002 he started against the Anaheim Angles, pitched 6 1/3 effective innings, allowing only 1 run, and the Cardinals won 7-2. On June 22nd, he was dead. During his entire major league career, he had never once been on the Disabled List.
If this can happen to someone like Kile, then it can certainly happen to any 50+'er. Certainly an excellent example of preventative treatment.
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