Bad Luck?

I was so blessed to be surrounded by my family who never left my side - and many friends that visited throughout the day. Thanks to my friend of 35 years, Fred Vanderwerf, I have this lovely selfie to remember the day.

Friday, November 16th was the longest night of my life. (PSA: to get in front of the line at the ER – let them know you have had chest and arm pain for a few days!). I arrived in the ER around 11:45 pm, by 1am I was in the cath lab having one stent to repair a 100% blocked left anterior descending artery. By 2am I was in my room with my family.

I survived!

Saturday morning I met my cardiologist – and we started going through my medical history.

Do you smoke? No.

Do you exercise? Yes.

Do you have heart disease in your family? No.

How old are you? 46.

What is your normal diet? Lots of vegetables, white meat, rarely any red meat, limited dairy.

The questions kept coming, and my cardiologist looked like he was just not getting the answers he was expecting to hear from me. Now, I was overweight by at least 50 pounds, and my cholesterol (176) and triglycerides (329) were elevated (ok, we were at the Spoon and Stable that night – eating a meal far from vegan).

I finally asked him, “What caused this heart attack?”.

He said, (which I can still hear him saying) “Bad luck”.