Am I the superhero Veinman? You can weigh the evidence

Am I a superhero? Probably not. Do I have superpowers? Maybe.

According to the surgical nurse, I have superpowers. According to my cardiologist, maybe not.

My origin story: Several months ago, my doctor recommended an ultrasound of my heart to see if my persistent high cholesterol has caused problems. (Background, at a risk of violating HIPPA: I'm a Type 1 diabetic and have maxed my cholesterol medications without significantly lowering my bad cholesterol. I do all the things you're supposed to, I swear. But it remained high until I recently started biweekly injections that have done the trick. So better now, but it's been a while).

Anyway, the test showed that I have a high calcium score, which isn't great. So they suggested a stress test, which I presumed was someone yelling at me that I was late for a crucial appointment and that I was missing deadlines at work. Alas, it was a treadmill test and I . . . failed it. Inexplicably. I thought I aced it.

So it was time for the next procedure, an angiogram, where (this is my dumbed-down understanding) they stick a wire in my veins at the wrist and go all the way to my heart in search of problems that they can fix then (are there little workers inside the wire? Perhaps).

I had the angiogram and woke up in the recovery room. The nurse told me they found a blockage, but didn't have to do anything because I GREW NEW ARTERIES TO REPLACE IT.

What? I can grow my own arteries and veins? I'm a superhero! I'm Veinman!

Could I become a vein donor? Could I also grow a new ear or toe if needed? Is anything possible?

I communicated the good news to my family, close friends and co-workers. They were all amazed and (to my face, at least) agreed that it was likely a superpower. I recovered well, as you would expect for Veinman.

A week later, I had my follow-up appointment, where I was told this isn't that unusual. We have backup veins (again, this is my dumbed-down version) that come off the bench when needed to replace blocked veins and arteries around our heart and brain. I apparently had Brock Purdy or Steve Young waiting to replace the starter (another allegory: Those veins are like side streets. When the body's equivalent of Highway 12 or Interstate 80 gets blocked, my blood pours off the freeway/highway like cars going to side streets, then coming back on before the destination, losing no time and delivering the same amount of cars).

So maybe I'm not a superhero and maybe I don't have a superpower. Maybe it's more about the remarkable, miraculous bodies that God gave us and how they can sometimes create their own workarounds when something goes wrong. It's already amazing that our bodies work perfectly about 99.9% of the time (our heart, lungs, brain, liver, kidney, legs, etc. almost always work. Our eyes work. Our ears work. When you take a step, you just do it because your body works. You get the point).

Now I'm even more amazed that when they don't work perfectly – when an artery or vein gets totally blocked, as in my case, there are other veins and arteries ready to come in and finish the job.

I'm grateful for the good news. I don't have any restrictions, other than continuing to monitor my cholesterol and checking in with the cardiologist.

But apparently, I'm not Veinman.

However, I still am so good at veins that I probably think that Carly Simon song is about me.

Reach Brad Sranhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.