Tell us about the last thing you got excited about.

I have answered this previously, but a recent event in my life has certainly taken place of the previous response.

Last week I had an appointment with my cardiologist. It started out as a pretty normal visit – discussing my meds, bloodwork levels, how I was feeling, anything new to update him on…important things to discuss. I went into the details with him about how the events unfolded on Valentine’s Day, 2021 – the day of my heart attack. I told him I didn’t have what I knew as classic symptoms/indicators of a heart attack – no arm pain and no chest pains that I thought were pertaining to a heart attack. I went to the urgent care for a backache. He gave me some good information on warning flags to watch out for and things to be aware of that, I did not know about. 

While discussing my health he mentioned something that really took me by surprise. I had recently had a heart sonogram and he was telling me that after he looked at the sonogram it looked as though my heart was not damaged very badly from my heart attack since I had reacted so quickly and gotten medical attention. Still I did have some minimal damage.

I was really taken aback from the shock of hearing this. A heart attack can cause heart muscle damage, and the lack of blood flow due to supply issues (like plaque levels) can damage (basically kill) muscle tissues in the heart. I had a 90%+ blockage when I went into the catheter lab from the ambulance and got a stent. I ended up with three bypass grafts after open heart surgery.

When I got over the shock of hearing this news, I became pretty overwhelmed with emotion and nearly broke down in tears right there. I had to stop myself from crying. It was the first time since my heart attack over four years ago that it really seemed real. I finally realized how damn lucky I was that I went to the urgent care when I did.

That was really exciting news to hear as you can imagine.