Originally Posted by
canx2k 
Holy....prayers up my friend. Time to cut hundred good yes's and keep the yes's that you do well.
Thanks my friend.
Not sure what's up with the "good yes's" but it sounds positive.
Originally Posted by
BenFenner Shawn, when you were sick for one of the conventions it made me think your body was holding off getting sick until it had some time where it would be acceptable to be sick. Or to put it the other way, I think at the time you were so stressed that when you got a break you completely crashed. I've been worrying about your stress level ever since. This new development seems telling. How is the stress in your life?
My wife, shrink, and myself all came to pretty much that same hypothesis about my collapsing every time I try to take a vacation.
The stress has actually gone down quite a bit as I have gotten more and more things on the farm settled, under control, and in order. Both the interpersonal and business aspects are much more routine and sorted.
From what my cardio-doc says, I did minimal to no long-term damage. They check chemicals in your body post heart attack, and can tell from the (enzyme?) levels how bad you damaged the heart tissues. In my case, I came out in very good shape. Which I find surprising because I drove around heart-attacking for a good 40 minutes. Went to the bank, filled up with gas, drove home all the time thinking I was having some bad food poisoning. Pulled into the driveway and was in mind-numbing, crippling, blurry-visioned agony. Got to the houses, laid on the horn, hollered at my sis-in-law to call an ambulance, fell out of my Tahoe into the gravel driveway and figured I was gonna die.
Took about 20 minutes for the EMS to arrive, another 30 minutes to the hospital. Fading in and out the whole time. Five minutes into the ER and I went into fibrillation. They shocked me back and a minute later I went back into fib. According to the cardiologist, you've got 90 seconds to live when you start fibrillating. I got about as close to dying as you can possibly get.
So they wheeled me directly into a surgery suite. Had me on morphine and a local. Went in through my hip, up into the heart, and popped in a stint. Another section of the same artery shut down, so they did another stint. Doc says I was down to 5% flow in that artery pre-collapse.
I start cardio rehab on Monday. 3 X week, 12-weeks. Hook you to an EKG, blood pressure cuff, work-out in the hospital with an RN monitoring everything.
No more tobacco, ever. Get down to 210 pounds (was at 239 two months ago, now at a very sexy 227). Take my meds. Watch my cholesterol, salt intake, stress levels, yada, yada....
Doc says once I fully recover I'll feel better than I have in at least a decade. Nothing like proper blood-flow to put some spring in your step.
Dying would have sucked, glad I made it.
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