How It All Started

Sure we all have reasons for why things happen. We're not always aware of them at the time but we do get a sense something is going on yet never put all the pieces together in time. And that's how it began with me.

I was fifty years old, feeling my years a bit but basically feeling healthy and well. I had a few extra pounds around the middle, losing some hair in the back of my head, (all that hard thinking right? LOL!) yet nothing out of the ordinary. Or so I thought. I was a computer consultant by day and a newspaper carrier by night. I worked for several clients locally and a few international ones. On call 24/7/365. In many ways I enjoyed the paper part because it was physical, met some great people and was doing 2 routes at the time because I'd gotten so efficient at it. If I was lucky I got about 5 hours of sleep a night usually on the couch because I was just too tired to move once I sat down.

Now the background in the 4 years leading up to this:
1) I lost my oldest brother to MS from Agent Orange in Vietnam.
2) Lost my Dad a few months later.
3) Lost my Mom a year after that.
4) Lost my job at a medical software company.
5) Got divorced from a lady who started out as my best friend who took our three kids with her.
She couldn't stand my long hours, being tired and rarely being able to do anything like enjoy a holiday without it being interrupted for work. I was also your classic nice guy who thought he was doing all the right things by letting her run things at home while I took care of funding the money, cars and homes.

So here I am at fifty in some ways feeling like 90 on an emotional level because of all the trauma that seemed to stalk everything I did. My first marriage went south for similar reasons and it took me several years to trust anyone enough to let them close again. When that one went south as well I figured I was just better off alone despite being lonely in that house with all the empty rooms. So I stayed as busy as I could to avoid thinking about it. Sure I read some books and made a few friends here and there but nothing to really get me over being stuck reliving all the mistakes and blunders I'd made. 

One of the things that got to wondering if something was up was while carrying newspapers around an apartment complex my chest would start burning. Also I would start sweating and getting tired much easier instead of improving as I expected. This all surprised me as I had recently quit smoking, was taking better care with watching what I ate and taking some vitamins on a regular basis. At least something was beginning to click in the health awareness side of things but nothing concrete as yet. Then one night while I was trying to grab some sleep, I was restless because I just couldn't seem to find a comfortable position to sleep. Then it hit. Felt like my chest just collapsed on me. Sweating, cold clammy moisture all over. Hard to breathe. Didn't hurt so much right then but it did get there. Called 911 and they barely got me in to the catheter room in time. A huge clot blocking on of my main arteries. 

They also ended up putting in 9 stents to open up other places in serious trouble. While they did however they found out my arteries were extremely weak and kept trying to split while attempting to put in the stents. After it was all over, they gave the rest of the news. By every medical measure they had I might be able to make it another 3 - 6 months without one of those arteries splitting and my bleeding out before anyone could do anything about it. It would be best if I went home, took care of all the things I needed to for what was coming. To say I felt depressed would be just scratching the surface. 

Next post I'll get into more of that and how I changed it all to be where I am today...