Polite Dissent

From The Beat comes some news about a recent health scare involving Chris Claremont (emphasis mine):

On March 5, comic industry legend and current writer of Uncanny X-Men and Excalibur, Chris Claremont, was overcome by exhaustion while attending a conference in Italy.

Thankfully, he is expected to make a full recovery and return to the comic industry he helped build.

Chris Claremont is best known for being the definitive X-Men writer and over thirty years later is still writing Uncanny X-Men along with New Excalibur.

After treatment and tests in Italy, Claremont was diagnosed with cardiac stress and last week returned to New York City where he will continue his rehabilitative therapy.

I read this and I get suspicious that there’s a little more going on than the press release reveals. Let me take a second to read between the lines:

For starters, cardiac stress is not a diagnosis, it’s a cause. Saying someone has been diagnosed with cardiac stress is like saying someone has “pollen” instead of allergies.

Next, we have to wonder what condition was caused by the cardiac stress. Whatever it was, it is something that requires both recovery and rehabilitation.

Let’s face it: minor injuries generally don’t need recovery and rehab.

Now when I see the words rehab and cardiac close together, I think “cardiac rehab”, which is the professionally monitored slow and careful resumption of activity after a myocardial infarction (i.e. a heart attack). This makes me wonder if Claremont may have suffered a small heart attack. Another possibility would be that he sustained some sort of acute coronary syndrome, a similar condition caused by a lack of blood and oxygen getting to the heart.

Finally, note that the incident happened on March 5th — yet he didn’t return from Italy until last week. To me this suggests there was a lengthy hospital stay involved, or at the very least a significant period of time where he was not medically cleared for traveling.

Therefore, based on what’s revealed — and not revealed — in the Marvel press release, I am very suspicious that Chris Claremont has suffered an ischemic heart injury of some variety.

Regardless of the cause, I wish him and his heart a speedy and full recovery.