OK, let's review...

When I last wrote,  I told you of my many attacks of indigestion.  I already had a doctor's appointment set up for right after the first of the year, 2005.  What I write from here on, I have to tell you is difficult at best.  There will be some very personal details left out purposely.

Stacy accompanied me to the doctor's appointment that day in early January 2005.  I told the doctor of the bouts with indigestion, but there were also other oddities happening to me.  You may want to pay close attention here as maybe I can identify some health problems you may be experiencing.  I was also having a "gurgling"  in my lungs when I laid down flat.  My left ankle was swolen as was my neck and throat area.  I thought I had just gained some weight, but it turns out that wasn't necessarily the case.  I think in the back of my mind I knew what was happening, but denial turns out to be more than just a river in Egypt.

The doctor decided to run a 12 point EKG on me.  When she came back in the room after the EKG, she told us she was going to have me go see another doctor upstairs...a cardiologist.  She did give me an Advair breather in case the lung thing was some kind of allergy.  I never did use that it.

We went upstairs immediately and met with  Dr. Bissing.  As we sat and discussed the symptoms I had been having, he ask me how I felt at that moment and I said I felt like I was having some indigestion and my chest was kind of heavy.  He said he was admitting me and I should call in sick becausing I was spending the night in the hospital.  The rest of that day was filled with more tests, including a heart cath, which I snored through.  At the end of the day came the news.

I was suffering from Congestive Heart Failure.  A normal heart has an "ejection fraction" of 65%.  That's how much your heart contracts to pump blood.  My ejection fraction was 25 to 30% at best.  Those "indigestion" attacks I was having were heart attacks.  The doctors said that my heart was enlarged and the bottom part of my heart, whatever it is called, was "non-viable"...dead.  Maybe it didn't hit me at that exact moment what they were telling me so I ask what we were going to do.  They said there was nothing surgically they could do.  They said they would consider putting me on the heart transplant list but they said I probably wouldn't be accepted because of my diabetes. 

I guess what I had in the back of my mind all along was right.  After all, my Dad had his first heart attack and bypass surgery about the age of 50.  His Father died of a heart attack at the age of 44 and my Dad's only brother died at the age of 33.  It turns out my cousin had heart bypass surgery at about the age of 50.  Family history is one of the strongest indicators of whether you'll have heart problems as it turns out.

They  prescribed some meds and sent me home.  I didn't realize at the time that it was possible I was going home to live out my life.  I went back to work and didn't have any more heart attacks, at least until Super Bowl Sunday.  Stay tuned as the plot thickens...

That is all...Peters out!