Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better. Oh, but wait, there’s more. On to April 8, 2021, I’m sitting at my desk working away, no different from any other day. My wife makes me some lunch and I actually felt bad for the tacos for a brief moment – but it was short lived. About 2 hours later at 4:45 pm, I thought to myself, whew, what did she put in those tacos. I’m not one for getting indigestion or heartburn, but I rolled with the punches. Tums, nope, drank some milk, nope, decided to lay down on the couch for a few minutes, and yet again, nope. Nothing was working and then the proverbial light in my head went off, seriously? Again? I grabbed my blood pressure cuff, when you have a heart attack your cardiologist and sometimes your wife, especially if she is a doctor, likes you to take your blood pressure twice a day and then jot it down in a little notebook.
So, I thought, probably not a bad idea just to be sure and check. My BP machine was like, uhm, not sure I can count that high. Ok, malfunction, let’s try one more time, uhm, I’ve already told you Ken, I can’t count that high. Then I called for my wife to bring her cool one over and see what it had to say, it basically said you should consider a trip to the emergency room. After a few expletives, I grabbed my shoes and off we go to the hospital. We get there, I walk in and tell the nice nurse that I’ve either got a serious case of indigestion or I’m having a heart attack. Straight to the front of the line we go. Standard approach, give the man an EKG and see what it says. I didn’t want the nurse to freak out when she saw my EKG, so I informed her that my EKG is always abnormally normal due to my first heart attack. She saw fit to immediately correct me with, no sir, you are actually having a heart attack right now. Ah, well isn’t that just great, chaos ensues, everyone packs into a tiny room, then it’s off to the Cath Lab where I should literally have a plaque on the wall due to the number of times I’ve had to endure that cold metal table. In the end, another widowmaker, this time LAD was blocked 100% again but we added in the Right Coronary Artery, coming in at a 90% blocked. A nice conversation and 3 stints later, I had them punch my frequent customer card – I’ve got to be getting close to a free something, right?
For those of you that don’t believe in second chances, please take a second to look around you, second chances do exist, just be sure to take advantage of it when it comes along. Even when the cards may be stacked against you, if you take the necessary steps regarding your health, you can make it through anything. It’s when you do nothing that costs you the most.