Thursday, January 7, 2010

5 years!


Today marks 5 years for my husband's heart attack and 3-bypass surgery survival! No words can explain how horrified I was to hear the words "you need to come to the hospital quickly, it doesn't look good" from the doctor who called my cellphone at 815am that morning.

He had went in for a routine physical, he asked me to schedule it after having helped a friend move and seemed overly exhausted. The physical threw the doctor a bit of a red flag, so for precaution he scheduled him for a stress test. This exhaustion didn't stop him from playing with our oldest in the back yard and running a relay race with him the night BEFORE the stress test. The stress test did him in, within 5 minutes he had a massive heart attack.

Pure genetics and a fairly sedentary lifestyle (his work is a sit down at a desk type of job). He was slightly overweight, I say slightly because maybe 20#. Otherwise, healthy. So, 815am heart attack, 230pm open heart surgery. There were many obstacles along the way, but the end result is that he's healthy and has a new lease on life. Now we live by the Mediterranean diet, 95% of the time, and he walks almost daily on the treadmill. So far, in the 5 years, he's been told his heart is doing GREAT! We even managed to have a baby almost exactly 1 year after his heart surgery!!
So - 5 years, and his heart is stronger then ever! Whoohoo!
Go GET a CHOLESTEROL TEST! Ask for a lipid profile to show you ALL of your cholesterol and make sure you're healthy!!

We learned alot from the American Heart Assosication books that the nutritionist provided us with after classes we attended. Read up, it's not hard to make some changes and make your heart a healthy heart. We eat this way, our kids eat this way - so we're passing it forward to our kids since genetics (for both of us) plays a MAJOR role in heart health in our families.

3 comments:

Delia said...

I'm a 4 yr heart attack survivor. I had the attack the Monday following Thanksgiving and was released from the hospital on my
35th birthday. I always love reading stories about heart attack survivors. Thanks for sharing this.

punkinmama said...

I didn't know you back then, but I'm so glad everything turned out well for your husband (and you)! I can't even imagine how scary that was to go through, but what a great survivor story! So glad you're both making great choices now and all is well!

koreen (aka: winn) said...

I'm so sorry you've had to go through so much, and your husband too. And yet, look how much living has occurred since then! What a gift you have, and the information to pass on. (((hugs)))