In Sept of 2014 at age I 63 started having soak the bed night sweats and insomnia. Roamed the house at night just could not get comfortable. Put up with it for about a week and then called my family doc. Come in at 2 pm today he says. I did my usual 75 sit ups that am and edged and string trimmed about a 1000 feet of driveway before I got to his office.

DR did an ekg in his office, faxed the results to the cathlab and they said get here fast so I did. They were connected by a pedway and a nurse pushed me in a wheel chair. Once we got to the hospital lobby I got up and went to stand in line to sign in. The cath lab doc was on the look out for me and told me not to worry about signing in, just follow him.

I was on the operating table shortly thereafter and one stent was put in. Said I had 100% blockage of the widowmaker artery and that I was a lucky guy. I was conscious throughout and everything went well. Ejection fraction was low 20s day of stent but was in the mid 50s a couple months later after some rehab, pretty much normal for a healthy heart. I had to wear a portable defibrillator for a couple months and take that damned rat poison blood thinner for 6 months but now I take blood pressure med, 20 mg simvistaton, plavix plus a baby aspirin and am good to go. And a big swig of Bragg's apple cider vinegar every morning keeps things running smooth.

I do what I want but do exercise regularly and eat moderately well. Very little fast food and hold back on sugar is pretty much it. I never had the elephant on my chest type pain but I did ignore some early nausea symptoms by calling them indigestion.

I asked if what I had was a heart attack and apparently it fits the definition. I never had much pain and the recovery was a piece o cake. They gave me pain meds about 8 hours after surgery, just before the stent sheath was removed, and that was the last pain meds I took, not even an ibuprofen. Wasn't being tough, just didn't need any.

The Doc says my blockage didn't happen overnight and that my heart had adapted to reduced blood flow by using auxiliary arteries but it was subject to fatal failure at anytime and that I was very fortunate that they caught it when they did. Eighteen months later and it's like nothing ever happened except I'm in considerably better physical condition. Thank You Jesus.

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God spelled backwards is dog.