Ever experienced a life altering event?

[Ziffelpig]

About 7 months ago I had a mild heart attack and was hospitalized, I was 41, the next day as I was being prepped for angioplasty, I had three more heart attacks and went into cardiac arrest twice. Well that meant I got to go to the front of the line, I had to have surgery immediately. Surgery ended up being a sextuple bypass,with about 80 to 90% blockage to the arteries overall all though I did not know that at the time.
I spent 5 hours on a heart/lung bypass machine, had 6 grafts, and spent 26 days in my Doctors words on "deaths doorstep" in the Cardiac care unit.
My wife was told right after the surgery to prepare for life without me,I wasn't expected to last the night. My parents and my children were summoned and our priest was called to administer last rites.
Well I survived the night but it was touch and go for me until about the 15th day or so.After leaving the CCU, I would spend another 41 days in hospital most of it in intensive care.
I remember nothing after the first heart attack while waiting for angioplasty until about day 20, but I remember having the wildest dreams after my surgery, and had a sense of another presence,something not real, actually several unreal presences, and I recall many converstions with dead relatives and a sister who died before I was born.I even recall a conversation between the Surgeon and the OR nurses about their vacations that they actually said. I realize it was probably events generated by my mind to aid my healing but I can recall them like I actually was there.
It's taken me months to recover and fortunately only about a quarter of my right ventrical is irrepairable, I'm even more fortunate that I am not stone cold dead as had I been anywhere else but in a Cardiac Care Unit in a hospital,with the cardiac specialist I would not be writing this.
I was a heart attack waiting to happen, high cholesterol, high BP, worked no less than 90 hours a week as a senior executive in a pressure packed, high stress corporate environment where ROI is everything. Don't get me wrong I loved my job, I loved the salary the regular bonuses,the status, the perks, the expense account,the hot young executive assistants, but most of all the ruthlessness of corporate competition.I got off on that, I just didn't realize the stress from it was killing me.
I've had to learn how to sit quietly, react differently, think differently which is a major achievement for an A type personality like me, I've had to quit my job,and just recently felt confident enough to have sex again
Everything is good again or as good as it's going to get, the treadmill has become my friend, my diet is green enough to almost make me a frickin vegetarian, I get lots of sleep now, no more smoking not even the good stuff, no more alcohol I refuse to give up coffee or white sugar.
You would think I would be miserable, strangely I have never been happier, my whole outlook on life has changed, in my old circles they would be dumbfounded to find I have a new occupation,my doctor suggested I take a course to learn something I've also wanted to do and to relax. I've always wanted to drive a Semi like the show Movin on with Sonny and Will(Claude Akin and Someone else) in the 70's it always kind of stuck with me. I tried it and found it to be so liberating and fun.The only challenge would be passing the medical, I did. I got my license and will be driving full time starting on Monday. The wage isn't quite what I'm used to but neither are the hours, there is absolutely no stress as my work experience assignment was with this company and it will be the same job I will start Monday.
Several weeks ago things seemed absolutely hopeless, now its just me and the road and life couldn't be better.

[kiki]

WOW 41! Glad ya made it. Best of luck with the semi thing. Glad yer back into the sex thing.
Better for you than not, as far as I am concerned.
HELL, what a better way to go than in the saddle.
A life altering experience????
When I was 12, I was told by a trusted seer that I
would not live to a ripe old age. It haunts me to this day. I have done many things and been many places. At 53, I am still waiting for the dark angel.
Get and STAY healthy, but most importantly, be happy. You only go around once, but, if you do it right, it will seem like twice.

Best of luck on your trucking endevours.
kiki

[aanaravs]

WOW 41! Glad ya made it. Best of luck with the semi thing. Glad yer back into the sex thing.
Better for you than not, as far as I am concerned.
HELL, what a better way to go than in the saddle.
A life altering experience????
When I was 12, I was told by a trusted seer that I
would not live to a ripe old age. It haunts me to this day. I have done many things and been many places. At 53, I am still waiting for the dark angel.
Get and STAY healthy, but most importantly, be happy. You only go around once, but, if you do it right, it will seem like twice.

Best of luck on your trucking endevours.
kiki

Waiting for the dark angel? Why? Live life and enjoy it

[ViRaL1]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I fully intend to ride this life til the wheels fall of!

[888888]

I wish you the best of luck Ziffelpig and I have a question.

I have heard that heart attacks are very painful. Is this true? Do you remember any of your heart attacks that you would know?

[Ziffelpig]

I have heard that heart attacks are very painful. Is this true? Do you remember any of your heart attacks that you would know?

The first one started out like the worst indigestion/hearburn I had ever experienced. It quickly advanced from intense to excrutiating as the pain traveled through my jaw, down my neck, and exstended through my arm. So yes extremely painful, post op was no picnic either.

[Capmaster]

Glad you came out the other side ziffelpig. 41 is awfully young to be getting a heart attack. It's also scary when you look at the fatality rate of heart attacks among relatively young men. It's higher than it should be.

Glad you're still among us

[ViRaL1]

I think a large part of that is that until a certain age most men will ignore the symptoms because they think they're too young to have a heart attack.

[MOVIEGEEK]

I'm glad you're still with us...better cut back on the pork.
I wonder what happened to jdizzy40,I knew he(her?) had cancer but I haven't seen him(her?) post in awhile.

[Shocker Milwaukee]

Just went to the funeral of a young man who died of a massive heart attack at age 32. He'd had high cholesterol & a quadruple bypass by age 25. He left behind a wife & two children.

[northcat_8]

Wow Ziffel, that's a pretty amazing story.

I don't think I could give up some of the food you have had to give up...bacon, sausage, gravy and biscuits.. (damn now I'm hungry..)

My life altering experience was different and it didn't happen to me, it happened to my dad. In 1978 my dad and his brother were taking down a CB antenna from a tower. There were 2 towers one for the CB one for the TV. Anyway.....as they were coming down the towers the antenna leaned and hit the high power line coming into the transformer. There was a flash and 2 thuds were heard outside. I looked outside and my dad and my uncle were laying on the ground with smoke coming off of them. Anyway, long story short, my dad spent the next 6 months in the hospital with severe electrical burns. He has one on his shoulder where the antenna was sitting, one on across the palm of his right hand, on the inside of the elbow of his left arm, one on the back of his head and one on his thigh. His left arm is not very useful, he still has his hand but cannot grip anything with it. Of course the scar tissue is obvious but on my dad's shoulder you can see his collar bone...the actual bone, the tissue doesn't cover it. My uncle lost his left hand. They didn't expect either one to make it.

So we were all gathered, etc, etc. He did survive it as did his brother. But it was at that time I realized that life can be cut short without a moment's notice...just working around the house, driving down the road, you just never know.

It was at that time that I decided to live life on my terms. Some years later, I stumbled upon my personal philosophy..."in the end, when you are on your death bed...the only person that needs to look back at your life and be happy or proud of it is you"...and you are right, several things that are important to most people have no value to me.

Sure I would like a high paying job..but the truth of the matter is that doing what I do (I teach)...I have more time. I work 5.5 hours a day for 182 days a year...1001 hours a year compared to 2080 for the 40 hour a week folks...to me the one resource that one cannot replace is time. Time is more valuable to me than any dollar figure or material item could ever be. I can't even begin to explain how much more time I have been able to spend with my family, going places or to the Lake, or whatever because of my job. Along with that goes liking what I do for a living. I've had much higher paying jobs but I hated them. Doing what I do making less money is a happier Northcat.

I also think that's one reason I joke around so much, I like to laugh and have fun...having a low stress life can get pretty boring sometimes

But congrats on pulling through and on the new career. My father in law is a truck driver, he loves it...but if I were married to my mother in law I think I would drive cross country too

[northcat_8]

Oh and on a side note....turns out the electric company had done something wrong, I don't remember what it was....high power line on bottom rather than top..maybe??....I don't know what it was but my parents didn't sue them and since then they get discounted electric bills and the electric company doesn't complain if the bill is late.

[NamPla]

The first one started out like the worst indigestion/hearburn I had ever experienced. It quickly advanced from intense to excrutiating as the pain traveled through my jaw, down my neck, and exstended through my arm. So yes extremely painful, post op was no picnic either.

I'm worried!!!

I get that all the time!!!

I have also been electrocuted when young, and have had a legit out-of-body experience WITHOUT drugs! Both were enlightening to say the least...

[kiki]

Aanaravs wrote
Waiting for the dark angel? Why? Live life and enjoy it

Trust me, I do live life to the fullest. I retired at 50
and have all the time I need to do all the things I wish to do. The problem is, its like an itch you can't scratch. It was a life altering event.
Everytime ziffelpig gets heartburn, he will wonder if it's a ticker problem. Everytime I feel ill, I wonder if the seer was right. Same thing. But, thanks for the advice.

kiki

[Madz]

That would be tough choice between nearly getting struck by lightening or coming within inches of being splatted by a cellphone-shoulder-cradler in a Ford Explorer while crossing at a pedestrian light.