What is your favorite day of the week? Mine is Tuesday.
On October 31, 2021 my wife and I started eating healthy to lose weight. We were both well into the 300lb range and it needed to change. We were active. Our tests like cholesterol and A1C all came back healthy but we were big so we aggressively attacked our carbohydrate, sugar, HFCS, fat and calorie intake. We did very well. Both of us have lost at least 100lbs.
Hurray us!
With this new regiment we adopted a healthy taco Tuesday. It's really the best gastronomical day of our week. We both are great cooks but something about our southwest combinations just makes me smile.
Tuesday August 30 was an excellent Taco Tuesday. Shredded beef, low fat refried beans, home made guacamole and salsa fresh out of our garden.
After dinner I felt stuffed. Which is odd because I didn't really eat a lot. We watched a show with the children, I took a shower and we watched another show as we laid down to bed.
Please understand that we are in bed early, like by 8pm. The alarm goes off at 3:00am and I'm at work at 4:30am for 10-12 hour shifts.
I felt off at 8:30. Tacos? Gas? I'll wait till poop o'clock and be right as rain. By 10:30 I was certain it wasn't gas. I was experiencing pain from my neck to my upper abdomen and from my right bicep to my left. Uncertain of what it might be I went and drank a large amount of water and downed a couple Naproxen Sodium.
11:30 was decision time. I woke Kelly up and we were off to the ER. I described my experience and the good people quickly ran me back. BP was 185/139 pulse rate 33. That's not good. Checked the electricals, pulled some oil out for testing, and started diagnosing the issue. Hour 1: nothing conclusive. Obviously something was wrong but troponin was at 20 indicating no heart attack. BP still way high. Hour 2: troponin level hits 44. Uh oh. Time for nitro!
The Hospitals in Kalamazoo and Battle Creek are related, they share resources and since the pandemic and manpower shortages they have shifted specific services to one hospital or the other. The coronary care unit for Bronson hospital is in Kalamazoo. I was in Battle Creek.
So my BP was stabilized. We still didn't know what was going on and now we were waiting on a bus to Kalamazoo. Since Wally doesn't control this particular bussing system I had to wait until Thursday at 7:00am.
At 2:00pm I went in for a heart cath to determine what was actually happening. 100% blockage of my Right Coronary Artery and two more spots that had more than 50%. Two stents immediately to open up the 100% blockage, scheduled the others for 2 weeks out and 24 hours later my wife is driving me home wearing this shirt.
I want to thank all of you that reached out while i was down. I've got about four weeks of "required down time" because it was a heart attack after all.
The bottom line is don't lose weight, don't create cliche' dinner days and water is bad.
Or
Listen to your body, because even if you feel great and are doing better something inside of you can try to kill you.
