One Hundred Twenty Five Hours that changed my Life

Part One

Sometimes we are so busy living life that we fail to see or recognize things that may be in plain sight in front of you.  I recently had one of those experiences that oddly through the mental pain, the physical pain and suffering found a way that surprised me and probably saved and changed my life.

What I am talking about is a heart attack.

Through my blunders and somewhat set ways I came through this and survived but as my cardiologist told me I could have easily died as most people do that have the type of heart attack that I did.  I had what is often called the “widow maker” is a nickname used to describe a highly stenotic left main coronary artery or proximal left anterior descending coronary artery of the heart.  Mine was the LAD type and the widow maker term is used because if the artery gets abruptly and completely occluded it will cause a massive heart attack that will likely lead to a sudden death. Mine was also a silent myocardial infarction (MI) and came about with no previous signs or symptoms that are normally associated with a heart attack. 

Information from Wikipedia says “An example of the devastating results of a complete occlusion of the LAD (Left Anterior Descending) artery was the sudden death of former NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert.

From the minute a widow maker hits, survival time ranges from minutes to several hours.  Rapidly progressing symptoms should signal the need for immediate attention.  Symptoms of initial onset may include nausea, shortness of breath, pain in the head, jaw, arms or chest, numbness in fingers, often of a novel but imprecise sensation which builds with irregular heart beat.  Early symptoms may be mistaken for food poisoning, flu or general malaise until they intensify.  A widow maker cannot kill instantaneously but induce cardiac arrest which may do so within 10 to 20 minutes of no circulation.  A victim with no pulse or breath is still alive living off oxygen stored in the blood and may be able to be rescued if treatment is begun promptly within this window.”

To put some things in perspective I should give you a little back story or history of how things came to this incident and what possibly triggered the event.

Now I am a good Southern man who has spent most of my lifetime enjoying the fine delicacies of our great cuisine even with being away from my home area for the last 18 years.  Did I say eighteen years, it amazes me that time moves so quickly and that it seems like it was just a few years ago that my youngest daughter was born at Gwinnett Hospital.  I think as we get older we mark times in our lives with those incidents of our children’s childbirth, their school events, or other meaningful things that happen to us as we walk through the years. 

I have cooked and ate fine southern cooking for longer time than I can remember and enjoyed every bite of it along the way.  I have made over the years many dishes that would make my mama proud of what she had taught her children as we were growing up.  I am sure I have has that one too many BBQ’s and all the grillin’ down on so many grills I cannot remember them all but generally they lasted about two years before I had to rebuild the parts or get a new one.  Sixty years of great food I am sure contributed to my incident even with measures over the last year to change some of my eating habits along with getting more exercise and watching what I so easily put in my mouth.  Our Southern heritage has given many of us the ability to continually put great tastes of things in our mouth.  I am reminded of the Old Hickory House BBQ from my youth which had the slogan, “Put Some South in Your Mouth - Another Joy of Southern Living”. 

It seemed like as you were finishing one meal the conversation around the table always moved to what was going to be served at the next meal.  It was always about the food, hospitality, and the fellowship around the table.  It was somewhat strange for me as some of those times were not happy ones as we had to finish our plate and I always seemed to not want to eat one thing or another having to sit at the table for hours until I finished my plate.  Food had to contribute to this heart attack but there were other issues that also had me going and possibly put me over the edge.

My cardiologist told me that probably what triggered my heart attack was stress.  I asked him if my years of eating fried foods and love of bacon were the culprit and was told that those even after many years of abuse were only secondary causes of the attack.  He said usually for most people there is something that will trigger the blockage keeping the heart from getting the full flow of circulation of the bloodstream.  I was told the plaque and buildup were already present but that a stressful situation or incident could cause the break-off of the plaque buildup moving it to block the artery.  The other is physical over exertion usually causing some angina with chest pain and other symptoms prior to the heart attack.

To be continued . . .

Ice