Patients with heart failure can reduce the risk of further occurrences by as much as 80 percent by using an experimental stem-cell treatment
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/15/MN771LUSHO.DTL
In the beginning
Heart disease ran in my family and I lost my father to heart disease at a very early age. I always believed that I would not inherit the disease. For years I had chest pain and was cautioned by my doctor that I should be careful with my diet, weight and to not push myself when I had chest pain. I knew he was wrong so I got another doctor that thought I might have acid reflux. Or at least he said so.
I did not watch my diet at all, was at least 50 pounds over weight and did not have a regular exercise program. When I hiked, skied or worked hard, I had chest and arm pain. I would stop, take two or three antacid tablets wait for the pain to stop and go back at it. This went on for six years where the pain got worse and my ability to do things diminished. I never went to a doctor because I KNEW it was acid reflux and it was unacceptable in my mind to have heart disease. I started to have a heavy feeling in my chest and spells of being nauseated . Still no doctor. I can tough this out.
We made rumaki for dinner. Chicken liver and bacon wrapped wrapped around water chestnuts and deep fried in butter. The perfect heart attack. I read a few years ago that if you had a very high cholesterol meal for dinner your odds of having a heart attack the next morning were greatly increased. It was true with me.
One cold winter morning I awoke feeling very nauseated and began having chest pains. I told my now ex wife and she said she had to go to work and I should stop complaining. Now home alone. I lived in the country and had no neighbors near me. The pain got worse, to a level where I could not walk. So I crawled into the bathroom looking for my antacid, as I was unwilling to admit that I had anything other than acid reflux. No antacid to be found, so I took two Alkaseltzers and crawled back to bed. I didn’t call 911 because I could tough it out. Pain continued to increase and I could not really move. This was about 8:30 in the morning. By then I could only watch what was happening. I was realizing that I was going to die. I thought about all that fun stuff I had put off and now would not live to do them. Then I flashed thru every bad thing I had done to anyone. That was really tough having to face my dark side.
My heart raced and my chest hurt really bad. The sound of my out of control heart was deafening, I then started to gray out. As this was happening, my thoughts went to how stupid I was for not responding to the heart disease warning signs. My speeding heart suddenly stopped. I could not hear or feel it beat. My vision seemed to go from color to black and white. My thoughts were “oh shit. I’m going to die”. My vision seemed to narrow and I blacked out.
Normally that would be the end of my true story.
At another time I will discuss what I believe I experience on the other side.
At 3:30 in the afternoon I woke up, my chest now felt like I had been run over by a truck. At that moment I accepted that I had had a heart incident. I thanked God for letting me live and then immediately switched back to thinking that acid reflux sure was painful.
My next post will be about my continued denial of reality and the facts about how much at risk I really was.
