Like lounap, I too would like to share my experience, in hopes someone like me can avert death.
I was just 53 years young when I had my heart attach and died.
Having been hypoglycemic and on the slender side my entire life, with the metabolism of a road runner, I burned the candle at both ends and in the middle, sleeping a few hours a night or not at all.
I only took 2 vacations in 17 years and often worked as many as 70-80 hours a week, doing physically active heavy construction and tending to my rental properties.
I stood 5'-9" and weighed in at 186 pounds, with a BMI of around 2-ish, & wore pants with a waist size of 32, at the time I passed away.
How could I POSSIBLY be a candidate for a heart attack?
On a Friday evening to open December 2006, I decided to run down to the library before supper to see if I could pick up a few DVDs for the weekend.
I jumped in the car & drove a few blocks to the library, trotted up the steps to the library 2nd floor, sat down at a terminal to check my reservations account, and was stricken with intense heartburn, or so I thought - for all of the 30-45 seconds I spent quickly lying down on a padded bench.
My extensive science background and interest in medicine certainly came in handy at that point.
After that initial minute or so I realized this was probably no case of heartburn - too deep under the sternum for acid reflux, which is in the esophagus.
I quickly ran downstairs and fired up the Buick for the short drive up the block & across the street to City Hall and the EMTs located there, (volunteer F.D. here).
I pushed the buzzer and immediately laid down on the floor and informed the desk policewoman I was probably having a heart attack.
EMTs popped out of nowhere, loaded me into a meat wagon & tried to infuse me through the wrist with fluids & morphine for the pain. (Man, that angina shit hurts.)
No joy after 8 sticks so I took the needle away from the EMT and stuck myself on the first try.
(Not that weird, since my hands were bouncing as much as my body and actually provided a steadier platform than the EMT had.)
When we got to the ER, they cut off the only decent pair of non-work pants I owned, the bastiches. I COULDA just taken them off, f/f/s.
After about 20 minutes of them farkin' around I suddenly felt myself greying out and told the attending next to me to do whatever it is they do when people die, because I was checking out.
I died.
When I came to, 4 minutes and 20 seconds later, (4:20 always makes this old stoner chuckle but that's how long my heart was stopped for), some monster hulk was pounding the crap out of my chest & there were burning spots on my chest and armpit.
I looked up at him and asked him "What the hell are you doing, dude?"
He says, (in his booming Arnold Schwarzenegger Austrian accent), "You died, dude. We had to bring you back & almost didn't make it."
I looked over to my right and said to the attending, "Dude, getcher money back on that morphine, it suxed."
The Terminator then shoves a sheaf of papers into my mitts and says "Sign these. We have to get you down to the cath lab immediately or you'll die again - for good."
Of course, those of you here who understand HYATT™, know what came next.
I refused to budge until I had read every single word on all 6 pages. :18:
So off to cath lab we went after signing, and when I woke up again I had a pair of stents in my left anterior descending arteries, (the widow makers lounap spoke of earlier).
A couple days later I was back home, with a chunk of dead tissue in the interventricular septum that divides the 2 sides of the heart.
Ain't been right, physically, since, but my cholesterol and triglycerides are great & well managed now.
It was the plaque that got me - 2 buildups in a pair of small arteries that went unnoticed because I was physically active and in excellent physical shape.
Now for the part that COULD save your life.
For several months preceding the actual heart attack, there WERE signs, that had I heeded them, could have prevented the death of a small part of my heart tissue.
I experienced symptoms that I disregarded, even knowing full well what they MIGHT be, due to my extensive knowledge of medicine and science.
I just didn't want to believe a relatively young man like myself, in excellent health by all appearances, could possibly be having cardiac problems - which are virtually unknown in my family's history.
The symptoms I experienced weren't the usual pain in the arms or shooting pains in the chest, but they were symptoms associated with heart disease.
Both ankles experienced swelling, (edema), for months. Sometimes it was noticeable and sometimes it was slight and only the tightness of the skin gave it away, but it was always hanging around and wouldn't go away for more than a day or so.
I also experienced dizzy spells when I would stand up - some of them pretty intense, actually, but again, I REFUSED to believe I could possibly be ill and passed it off as an ear problem, or some bug I had going on - repeatedly.
They would come and go, which is why I was able to lie to myself so successfully, but looking back, I damned well should have been concerned and kick myself for being so willfully blind.
Not all people experience a cardiac event the same way, nor are all cardiac events caused by the same malfunctions, but knowing what to look for - ALL of the possible signs - and paying attention to them if they should occur, is a good place to start protecting yourself.
Age is no barrier to cardiac events either. Even young men in seemingly perfect health can be at risk.
Learn all the symptoms well.
KNOW that if you experience something at all like one, or more, it might not BE an actual cardiac event but it COULD be - and rather than play the macho man like HYATT™ did, hie yourself off to a doctor and get a full stress test and nuclear resonance imaging work up.
Get bi-annual lipid panels done to keep an eye on cholesterol and triglycerides, especially LDL cholesterol. (Low Density Lipoprotein)
It could save your life and at WORST, cost you an insurance co-payment that otherwise might not have cropped up.
The reduction in stress alone, that a negative result will give you, could add years to your life.
HYATT™ now says:
"Better to be seen as a pussy - than to be seen as a corpse."
There is some evidence to suggest older folks could benefit from added Lysine and Vitamin C in their diet.
World renowned scientist and double unshared Nobel Prize winner, Linus Pauling, believed that 9 grams, (9,000 mg.) of Vitamin C and 4 grams, (4,000 mg.) of Lysine daily fully restored the body's ability to produce collagen, which diminishes as we age.
Collagen is responsible for keeping tissues flexible and avoiding the effects of oxidants & free radicals that cause things like hardening of the arteries and veins as we age. As a side effect, it also keeps your skin stretchy and less lined by age, thereby looking younger - which is why women get cosmetic collagen injections to appear younger.
Too much Vitamin C can cause kidney stones, so one always has to be aware of the possibility.
HYATT™ takes 2,000 mg. of C & 1,000 mg. of Lysine each day and empirically it does seem to have provide effects as advertised, over the past 9 years - though there is no hard conclusive proof it does.
In a strange way, because of the outpouring of sentiment here, Cy may well have saved someone else's life, in his own death.
Bon voyage old friend, and may you get all 72 virgins and an especially adept old whore to teach them all they need to know, wherever you ended up.
I was just 53 years young when I had my heart attach and died.
Having been hypoglycemic and on the slender side my entire life, with the metabolism of a road runner, I burned the candle at both ends and in the middle, sleeping a few hours a night or not at all.
I only took 2 vacations in 17 years and often worked as many as 70-80 hours a week, doing physically active heavy construction and tending to my rental properties.
I stood 5'-9" and weighed in at 186 pounds, with a BMI of around 2-ish, & wore pants with a waist size of 32, at the time I passed away.
How could I POSSIBLY be a candidate for a heart attack?
On a Friday evening to open December 2006, I decided to run down to the library before supper to see if I could pick up a few DVDs for the weekend.
I jumped in the car & drove a few blocks to the library, trotted up the steps to the library 2nd floor, sat down at a terminal to check my reservations account, and was stricken with intense heartburn, or so I thought - for all of the 30-45 seconds I spent quickly lying down on a padded bench.
My extensive science background and interest in medicine certainly came in handy at that point.
After that initial minute or so I realized this was probably no case of heartburn - too deep under the sternum for acid reflux, which is in the esophagus.
I quickly ran downstairs and fired up the Buick for the short drive up the block & across the street to City Hall and the EMTs located there, (volunteer F.D. here).
I pushed the buzzer and immediately laid down on the floor and informed the desk policewoman I was probably having a heart attack.
EMTs popped out of nowhere, loaded me into a meat wagon & tried to infuse me through the wrist with fluids & morphine for the pain. (Man, that angina shit hurts.)
No joy after 8 sticks so I took the needle away from the EMT and stuck myself on the first try.
(Not that weird, since my hands were bouncing as much as my body and actually provided a steadier platform than the EMT had.)
When we got to the ER, they cut off the only decent pair of non-work pants I owned, the bastiches. I COULDA just taken them off, f/f/s.
After about 20 minutes of them farkin' around I suddenly felt myself greying out and told the attending next to me to do whatever it is they do when people die, because I was checking out.
I died.
When I came to, 4 minutes and 20 seconds later, (4:20 always makes this old stoner chuckle but that's how long my heart was stopped for), some monster hulk was pounding the crap out of my chest & there were burning spots on my chest and armpit.
I looked up at him and asked him "What the hell are you doing, dude?"
He says, (in his booming Arnold Schwarzenegger Austrian accent), "You died, dude. We had to bring you back & almost didn't make it."
I looked over to my right and said to the attending, "Dude, getcher money back on that morphine, it suxed."
The Terminator then shoves a sheaf of papers into my mitts and says "Sign these. We have to get you down to the cath lab immediately or you'll die again - for good."
Of course, those of you here who understand HYATT™, know what came next.
I refused to budge until I had read every single word on all 6 pages. :18:
So off to cath lab we went after signing, and when I woke up again I had a pair of stents in my left anterior descending arteries, (the widow makers lounap spoke of earlier).
A couple days later I was back home, with a chunk of dead tissue in the interventricular septum that divides the 2 sides of the heart.
Ain't been right, physically, since, but my cholesterol and triglycerides are great & well managed now.
It was the plaque that got me - 2 buildups in a pair of small arteries that went unnoticed because I was physically active and in excellent physical shape.
Now for the part that COULD save your life.
For several months preceding the actual heart attack, there WERE signs, that had I heeded them, could have prevented the death of a small part of my heart tissue.
I experienced symptoms that I disregarded, even knowing full well what they MIGHT be, due to my extensive knowledge of medicine and science.
I just didn't want to believe a relatively young man like myself, in excellent health by all appearances, could possibly be having cardiac problems - which are virtually unknown in my family's history.
The symptoms I experienced weren't the usual pain in the arms or shooting pains in the chest, but they were symptoms associated with heart disease.
Both ankles experienced swelling, (edema), for months. Sometimes it was noticeable and sometimes it was slight and only the tightness of the skin gave it away, but it was always hanging around and wouldn't go away for more than a day or so.
I also experienced dizzy spells when I would stand up - some of them pretty intense, actually, but again, I REFUSED to believe I could possibly be ill and passed it off as an ear problem, or some bug I had going on - repeatedly.
They would come and go, which is why I was able to lie to myself so successfully, but looking back, I damned well should have been concerned and kick myself for being so willfully blind.
Not all people experience a cardiac event the same way, nor are all cardiac events caused by the same malfunctions, but knowing what to look for - ALL of the possible signs - and paying attention to them if they should occur, is a good place to start protecting yourself.
Age is no barrier to cardiac events either. Even young men in seemingly perfect health can be at risk.
Learn all the symptoms well.
KNOW that if you experience something at all like one, or more, it might not BE an actual cardiac event but it COULD be - and rather than play the macho man like HYATT™ did, hie yourself off to a doctor and get a full stress test and nuclear resonance imaging work up.
Get bi-annual lipid panels done to keep an eye on cholesterol and triglycerides, especially LDL cholesterol. (Low Density Lipoprotein)
It could save your life and at WORST, cost you an insurance co-payment that otherwise might not have cropped up.
The reduction in stress alone, that a negative result will give you, could add years to your life.
HYATT™ now says:
"Better to be seen as a pussy - than to be seen as a corpse."
There is some evidence to suggest older folks could benefit from added Lysine and Vitamin C in their diet.
World renowned scientist and double unshared Nobel Prize winner, Linus Pauling, believed that 9 grams, (9,000 mg.) of Vitamin C and 4 grams, (4,000 mg.) of Lysine daily fully restored the body's ability to produce collagen, which diminishes as we age.
Collagen is responsible for keeping tissues flexible and avoiding the effects of oxidants & free radicals that cause things like hardening of the arteries and veins as we age. As a side effect, it also keeps your skin stretchy and less lined by age, thereby looking younger - which is why women get cosmetic collagen injections to appear younger.
Too much Vitamin C can cause kidney stones, so one always has to be aware of the possibility.
HYATT™ takes 2,000 mg. of C & 1,000 mg. of Lysine each day and empirically it does seem to have provide effects as advertised, over the past 9 years - though there is no hard conclusive proof it does.
In a strange way, because of the outpouring of sentiment here, Cy may well have saved someone else's life, in his own death.
Bon voyage old friend, and may you get all 72 virgins and an especially adept old whore to teach them all they need to know, wherever you ended up.
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