I watched with interest the Larry King program on former president Bill Clinton's latest heart operation (CNN, February 12, 2012). The panel of experts included Dr. Wayne Isom who had operated on Larry King 23 years ago; Sanjay Gupta, CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent; Dr. Dean Ornish, founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute; and Jane Seymour, the actress, who talked about the emotional stress of a broken heart.

The panel appeared to confirm and applaud the way Clinton's latest trip to the operating room was handled by putting two stents in his blocked artery- all except Dr. Dean Ornish. Each time the camera focused on Ornish, usually only for a moment, he would say that life-style change was the best way to treat cardiovascular disease. Once he even ventured to contradict Isom and Gupta by saying that stents don't extend life.

Problems for heart patients don't end with bypass surgery. The case of Bill Clinton is a good example that surgery is only the beginning. His bypass surgery was done in 2004, but in March 2005 he had to have follow-up surgery, decortication to remove scar tissue and fluid from his chest cavity. Now, just short of five years later, he is back in the hands of the expert surgeons, this time to put in a stent to open an artery. This is a temporary fix, although it is said that the newer kind of stent inserted with medication will last longer than an old stent.

Seeing Bill Clinton in the news again with his heart problem might give us the impetus to examine more of what this procedure and the post operative entails. There are complications that aren't usually spoken of outside the cardiac unit in hospitals. Dr. McDougall, internist, author and lecturer on diet vs. drugs, recently described in a newsletter a problem that follows bypass surgery that all surgeons and cardiologists recognize. They refer to it as "post bypass surgery cognitive dysfunction," or brain damage caused by the operation. The newsletter says, "The primary cause is emboli produced during surgery from clamping the aorta and from the 'heart-lung machine.' This machine pumps blood to keep the patient alive while the heart is stopped during the operation. Unfortunately, this pump also introduces toxic gases, fat globules, and bits of plastic debris into the bloodstream of the patient under anesthesia. Once they are in the bloodstream, these particles migrate to the brain where they can clog capillaries and prevent adequate amounts of blood and oxygen from flowing to the brain. Essentially, all patients experience brain emboli during surgery and for many the damage is permanent."

Dr. McDougall tells us that memory loss and personality change with fits of anger have been reported in medical journals since 1969 and yet he hasn't heard of any doctors warning of these complications from bypass surgery.

Then, of course, the post operative care means the patient will have to take medications for the rest of his life-some will have deleterious effects on other organs. The patient must also change his lifestyle after the surgery or be right back in the hospital with another closed artery.

Dr. Dean Ornish recommends a plant based diet, exercise, lower stress, meditation- a major change of lifestyle. And of course he wants you to do the lifestyle change instead of surgery. This makes more sense in the majority of cases since you can't live the same after surgery anyway.

What is considered when making a decision whether to do a bypass operation, insert a stent or initiate a lifestyle change? When a decision is made to do a bypass, is it because of an emergency situation and are the complications from this surgery fully understood and relayed to the patient? Stents appear to be a temporary fix.

In my case, after a mild heart attack in 2002, it wasn't even a choice for me. I just told the doctors who wanted to send me to Loma Linda Seventh Day Adventist Hospital in Southern California for bypass surgery that of course I was not going to have surgery, but I would go home and treat myself holistically. I was given an angiogram and was found to have blockages in arteries close to the heart, in the high 80's percentile. It was also found that I had grown veins around my heart to aid the blood flow, which is called angiogenesis. This is unusual, but not unheard of.

In the Spring 2003 issue of New Perspectives: A Journal of Conscious Living, I wrote about the experience in this way: On May 28, 2002, in the morning, I had a mild heart attack. I drove myself to the hospital. I was immediately admitted and given an angiogram. The doctors told me I had 80 plus percent blockage in two arteries close to my heart. It was their urgent recommendation that we make plans to have a bypass surgery in a matter of days. After all, Loma Linda Seventh Day Adventist Hospital where they would transfer me is the best at what they do and that's 370 bypass surgeries a year.

My reply to that was to tell them that I didn't think I wanted to do that. If I'm going to live I want to live healthy and not all cut up and on medication. If I'm to die then that is okay. That is what happens at the end of life (I was 67) and I am not afraid to die.

I left the hospital and bought Dr. Dean Ornish's book on reversing heart disease. I immediately started exercising, walking, doing yoga more regularly (Ornish and I learned from the same organization-the Integral Yoga Institute), deep breathing, meditating, doing the treadmill, and even joining a low impact aerobics class. I had been a vegetarian for 30 years, but I took Ornish's suggestion and made sure my diet was only 10 percent fat. The year before I weighed 190 lbs. Now I weigh 155 lbs.

I have learned over time to be my own advocate within the health care system. I use doctors and medical personnel for their technical ability. I rely on myself for the understanding of what I need to do to take care of myself. I use the hospital for blood tests such as for cholesterol, etc. I don't take any form of medication.

Soon after leaving the hospital and refusing the bypass operation my doctor told me that I was a walking time bomb. Needless to say, he thought I should have had the bypass surgery and that I would most assuredly be back with further heart complications soon. But, after a few years went by without further problems he said that although he wouldn't allow his family or friends to do as I am, he "wanted to be on my team." I have had a different doctor for the last five years. His comment (after seven and a half years from the heart attack) at my last check up was that I must be doing something right, and to continue doing it.

For the past three years I have been hiking the San Jacinto Mountains in Southern California. The farthest I have gone so far is six miles up and six miles down for a twelve mile hike. I breathe fresh air and participate in the best kind of aerobic exercise in this way. I observe some beautiful country which also adds to an appreciation of life.

I hope by sharing this experience that people will do two things. They will become their own health advocates and not leave the final decisions of life or death matters in the hands of medical doctors, no matter how much they admire them. They will become actively involved in their health in a preventive way. Your body will take care of you, if you take care of it.