STOP & LISTEN...

It was about a year ago that deep inside I heard a sound that wasn’t there before. At first it felt I had pulled a chest muscle and it was complaining. I was out all morning getting my daily dose of semi-exercise pushing an LP truck down the road and hauling a big old hose through knee deep snow. It really wasn’t aerobic exercise but it got the blood moving or so I thought.

There was a little pressure on my right side, then after several minutes it went away and so did any concerns I might have had. So up into the truck and down the road I drove that afternoon….but sometimes it takes a lightening bolt to get a person attention.

I was way out there you might say, 65 miles from home thinking about the dear wife who was on an aircraft carrier riding it home with my son from Hawaii, tough duty for her. Then bang the pressure came back and so did a thought in my mind. A pulled muscle is a constant, this wasn’t… and a picture of my father came into my head. He was flat on his back on LaSalle Street in Chicago. He hadn't live long after a large heart attack in 1962, only minutes. My younger brother Chris had bypass surgery six years ago and my oldest brother died of heart failure so what I was having I told myself could be called a genetic heart problem…

I was ten miles south of the nearest town, Rhinelander, and a phone both and or a hospital. Over the next ten miles I drove cautiously and waited for the next big hit. The pressure was there but there wasn’t the big eye closer. I called our clinic and they said get in there ASAP…. It’s been a year, two surgeries and two card-rehabs and I am almost in the semi pink. Thankfully, I listened to my body and the little voice in my head. Heart problems run in my family. They may not for you but I suggest you listen to your own body and not pass anything off as a GAS ATTACK.