Nasty surprise during a snow storm January 3,  2017  1:49am EST

I was asymtomatic just two months before but at 62 I was taking medicine for type 2 diabetes, Hypertension and Hyperlipidia . I had been on a buisness trip and I caught a cold which went to Broncitus then Pnemonia. My doctor treated my symtoms but I did not recover from the pnemonia. I gained ten pounds in my gut and my cough would not go away. I was having trouble breathing especially when doing anything strenuous. I went ahead and bulled through it like I always did. I went to Florida for Christmas and visited the Everglades. But back home the sumptoms were not getting any better. I got a fitness watch for Christmas and when it said my heart rate was always reading 120 BPM I thought it was just wrong. Finally after going to my doctor every two weeks for two months one physician's assistant was worried by my high heart rate. She gave me an EKG and immediatly scheduled me for a visit to my cardioligist. The day of the Cardiologist visit I almost stayed home because there was a snowstorm. The order from my doc to the cardioligist said "R/O CHF" and I knew what that was and I was worried enough to drive through the snow storm to the cardiologist. At the cardiologist I was diagnosed with CHF and sent to the hiospital via ambulance. At the hospital I had a EF of 15% and I had a prolonged episode of V-tac so I was shipped off to another hospital. I got a stent and a life vest but there is no fix for heart failure. I then got a PE and was put on Warfrin. I later got an ICD to replace the life-vest. When I got back home my wife changed my diet to one that restricted salt to less than 1800mg per day and my carbs to less than. I was then put on cardiac Re-hab. Today my EF is 40%, I have lost 50 pounds and I feel better than I have felt in years. I am off of the more dangerous drugs I was taking but I will be on most of the rest for life. I control my stage 2 diabetes with just diet along and I went from an A1c of 8.1 to one of 5.7 now. I though I had no mental problems at first but it is easy to fool yourself. When a close friend of the family commited suicide I realized that I had become more fragile than I thought. Depression was just near the surface. Today I am continuing my recovery with the help of my wife, my family, my church and my GOD. I have found that everybody needs help even if they think they are independant.