Monkey 2.0, finally the mystery of why I blog so much is solved

It was almost three years ago when my love affair with trans fats, red meat, and cigarettes came to a crashing end when I slumped to the floor in a restaurant/bar in Knoxville TN. I had no idea that I was having a massive heart attack but I had a pretty good idea things were not going well for me that hot Tuesday night.

Wait, let me go back even further than three years to about 4 and a half years ago. I woke up one morning and I showered quickly, got dressed, kissed my sleeping girlfriend goodbye and I left for my appointed rounds on my sales job for Myers Tire Supply. But shortly after I left I noticed the I had developed an incredible pain in both my forearms and it shot all the way down to my wrists. I could barely steer my truck, hold my pen and order pad, carry my product catalogs, or hold a Marlboro Light to my lips without giving myself sharp searing pains in my arms and wrists. It got so bad that I finally stopped at one of those shitty walk in clinics and asked to see a doctor. They said they did not take my insurance so I left and drove to one nearer to my house. Finally I found one nearer to home and I went in. After a bit some quack came in and he asked me what was wrong. I told him about the pains in my arms and he gave me the once over. He took my BP and said it was sky high. He left and then when he came back he wrote out a prescription for Vioxx and he told me I had a variation of Parvo Virus. I figured out later the pain was from some of my arteries shutting down.

I thought that I must have picked it up from out from behind our condo. My gf and I used to play tennis quit a bit on a court where our idiot neighbors let their dogs shit and piss. So I took the quack at his word and I went home for the rest of the day. I still had searing pains all day and all night. It slacked off the next day so I went back to work.

Fast forward to a few months before I collapsed on the floor in that restaurant. I had been having tightness and pain in my chest off and on all that summer. I passed it off as heart burn or acid reflux. It would come and go so I thought nothing of it.

Now fast forward to that night I fell off my chair in Patrick Sullivans in Knoxville. After I collapsed I passed out for a bit and when I came to some dudes were fanning me and asking if I was okay. I had trouble breathing, in fact I could not catch my breath because it felt like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was standing on my chest. I was sweating buckets and I felt like I was going to vomit. Some astute person finally called an ambulance and they came and got me and they took me to Baptist Hospital in downtown Knoxville.

My pal Todd rode with me and he stayed with me until they figured out what was going on. The cardiologist on duty that night Dr. Stephen Hoadley told me that I was having a massive heart attack. He told me that if I wanted to live that they had to put a stent in one of my arteries to let the blood out of my heart. Even though I had no health insurance, the company I worked for at the time had cancelled my insurance because my sales figures fell below the targets they had set for me, I told him to go ahead and put that stent thingy in me. I told Todd to call my gf and to tell her what was going on, she was back home in Johnson City which is about 100 miles east of Knoxville.

Dr. Stephen Hoadley

So Dr. Hoadley puts a stent in me and my life, and my girlfriends life, got turned upside down. I asked him about going back to work but he said to not worry about that and that there was a chance that I may never go back to work. I was shocked. So was my gf.

They discharged me about a little less than a week later and Hoadley told me that I may have to have bypass surgery, if my weakened heart could take it that is. It seems that my heart had been bad for quite some time and I did not know it. It was enlarged, almost grotesquely so.

I went back to see my cardiologist and he said that I would probably be a good candidate for bypass surgery but he would let a heart surgeon make the final decision. So I went up another floor in the hospital and I met with a stocky little barrel chested guy who was a heart surgeon. He examined me and said sure I could stand up to the surgery and that if I wanted to have it done I could get it done in about three weeks from then. I looked at my gf and I did not think twice and I said, "Let's do it."

So three weeks after meeting the chest cutter I had quadruple bypass surgery. This was right at the same time that Bill Clinton got his, almost to the day. Trust me when I tell you that you do not want your chest cut open and have to be on a heart lung machine or have a tube shoved down your throat, but if you do, then it might just save your life even though it will hurt like crazy afterwards.

This all took place just before my 42nd birthday. How is it that something like this could happen to me at such a young age? Genetics is one reason. Both sides of my family have heart disease problems, and on my fathers side we have not only heart disease we also have mental illness. I guess I was lucky to get only one of those traits, he said with a maniacal laugh to his invisible minions.

Another reason I had heart problems at a young age was my diet. This is a typical conversation I might have had when I was younger:

Me: What's for dinner?
My Aunt: Meat.
Me: Fried meat?
My Aunt: Fried meat, baked meat, grilled meat, boiled meat.

Me: Vegetables?
My Aunt: Not many but what there are will be, will be swimming in lard.

Me: Desert?
My Aunt: Meat covered in jam and meat cakes with chocolate, with a side of meat.

And all of that meat was red meat or fried chicken or pork.

I also used to smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. I quit cold turkey the night they put a stent in me.

Stress and lack of proper exercise also did me in. I went to live with a rageaholic control freak after my mother passed away and I must admit I learned all her bad habits and I took them to the nth degree.

My gf did her best with me when we got together, she taught me to eat better but we still ate lots of trans fats, who knew all that chocolate cake was so bad for me? She also got me to calm down some and she taught me to let some things go. After the heart attack and the bypass surgery she was a saint. My bad habits and genetics put her through hell but she stood by me and she nursed me back to a reasonable healthy place. I would have been dead without her, and I know some days she wishes she could kill me but thank goodness she doesn't.

So the February after my heart problems my cardiologist told me that while the surgery helped me and that I would live many more years because I got it, it could not correct the damage I had done to my heart previously. He also ran some tests and found out my ejection fraction, that's the rate blood flows out of my heart, was hovering near 30%, which is the level the Social Security Administration says someone is disabled. So Dr. Hoadley put me on disability.
To look at me you can not tell I have a weakened heart or that my ef is low. I look healthy and I feel healthy but I know my heart is damaged and that the stress of working will make it worse faster. I'm not allowed to engage in some activities that will make my heart rate go up drastically, like playing tennis, and it's not good for me to be outside very long when it's over 85 or below 40 degrees. But all in all I'm glad to be alive. I can deal with those limits and we focus on what I can do and we do not dwell on what I can't do anymore.

My diet has changed dramatically, no more McDonald's, no more chocolate cake (except for when we have our birthdays), no more sausage, no more red meat five times a week, no more trans fats, and as little salt as possible. We eat much better now and I've learned to cook more Indian and Chinese foods because they can be made with little fat and they have a high amount of flavor.

So now you know why I blog so much. I have lots of time on my hands but when it gets a bit cooler I'll play golf a couple of times a week, the walking is good for me, but I'll may still blog a bunch because sometimes I get a touch of insomnia. But I'd rather have that than have another heart attack. Them things are a bitch. And if you don't have a great girlfriend like mine to help you afterwards, then you're screwed Sparky.