46 healthy and POW!
So...where to begin. 4 weeks ago i was working and felt some chest pain. After realizing that it wasn’t a pulled muscle that same pain started to radiate into my left arm. Now i have been a volunteer EMT for 20 years and thank god i recognized the symptoms in myself that i have seen in many of my patients in the past. I was in another state when this was happening and not knowing the nearest hospital or how fast an ambulance would get to me i jumped in my car and typed hospital into my navigation. I got to Englewood Hospital in 8 minutes. I was rushed into ER and was indeed having a heat attack. I was brought into Cardiocath to look for the blockage in my heart and as they found it i went into cardiac arrest. They defibrillated me one time and i was only down for about 5 seconds. I had a complete blockage of my left coronary artery what the MD’s call a Widow maker. They placed 3 stents and decided to check the right artery 2 days later and placed another 3 stents. So i now have a total of 6 in my chest. My MD said he would yell at anyone else for driving to the hospital but if i didn’t he said i would have been dead.
Now at 46 years old i am trying to wrap my head around all this. I run 3-5 miles 2 to 3 days a week, lift weights 4 to 5 days a week, weigh 195lbs at 6’1”, and eat low fat Mediterranean diet....i never had a symptom, a pain...nothing. How could this happen? The MD feels this is all hereditary.
So i have a second chance to really stay on top of all this. I also need to make sure my children are checked early...like in their 20’s and screened. I am now ready to get back to the gym, golf, swimming and anything else i wanna do. I can’t look back and be scared to do anything. I am now the poster child to my 40 something year old friends and preach heart health to them. Yeah I’m that annoying friend now but hey...if i can help one person with my story i would be happy. If it can happen to me it really can happen to anyone!