I was 29 Years Old when things started to change and 32 when it struck:
I was 29 Years Old when things started to change and 32 when it struck:
As a kid I was heavily involved in athletics most notably the sport of Cross Country and Track and Field. I can still remember being 12 years old in 1995 and first breaking 5:00 minutes in the Mile I ran 4:54. Fast Forward 11 years later I was a senior in college it was 2006 and I was still racing I ran 4:01 for the Mile and 29:05 for the 10,000m. Later on that year I ran a 2:23:16 Marathon. I ran out of options in life and decided that becoming a Navy SEAL seemed like the next challenge that excited me after all I was incredibly healthy and full of life or so I thought. I joined the Navy in August of 2007 and was in Coronado by November of 2007 taking my first shot at BUD/s.
I wound up withdrawing from training but would return in 4 years at the Age of 29 only something had changed in me. I was one of the strongest in my class the second time through but noticed I was gassed very quickly running was becoming difficult and I started to not like this aspect of training. By 2012 I was having abnormal EKG’s which to me meant I got to go hang out at Balboa Naval Hospital San Diego for a couple of days why they ran tests. This started to become pretty routine I would have an EKG and be admitted I thought it was because of how healthy I was. By 2014 I was jogging on a treadmill and had incredibly tense chest paid that nearly did me in at MCRD this was on July 31, 2014 how can you forget the day you almost died? Well you can’t and it will continue to replay in your head forever why? Well because this is the day that your life changes forever.
I was not diagnosed on July 31, 2014 the doctors originally said I was too young and healthy to have a heart condition and ruled it as a biological change. This made zero sense to me I went from being able to still run a mile in well under 5:00 to not even being able to walk to the store without being out of breath. They contued to push me to the side and even called me a hypochondriac at one point and referred me to mental health. Until January 12, 2015 when I completely collapsed and told my wife that I need to go to the hospital and I am not going to make it she rushed me to Sharp Medical who ran tests and my cardiac enzymes where through the roof. The next day I was back and Balboa Naval Hospital for a Cardiac Cath and they found my LAD (Left Anterior Descending) Artery known as the Widow Maker was 95% blocked. They stented it put me on a bunch of medications.
I was medically separated from the military. The problem is when you have a heart attack at such a young age the battle is not over when they put you on medications. The battle has just begun like a coal miner hearing a rumble in the ground and thinking it is the end, we too have that fear we constantly are waiting for the next heart attack the big one. I was left broken with sever post-traumatic stress disorder. I also got to see my entire world turned upside down everything I worked for was gone. The idea of death became very real and one point I was so suicidal that I was planning my own death because I refused to allow this illness to control me. The problem is I am a prisoner to this disease and the only thing I can do is try and make it to the next day.
I do hope I get to have a full life and one day get to see my 80’s or 90’s and maybe even 100 even though I know it is slim. Just so people know you don’t have to be some 500 pound person to catch this disease you can do almost everything right and still unfortunately wind up with this. The message of me writing this is to try and find an inner peace a reason to carry on when things go so horribly wrong and take you off course. I had to change my goals and I panicked when I found out I had this it pushed me into a very real and early mid-life crisis. I was in a hurry to find a new meaning a new reason to live and all it did was push me into a very severe depression. We have no control over what happens in our life and some of us are faced with brutal challenges but maybe we are the ones that can make a difference for someone who is faced with similar and can’t find their way out of the dark…