This is a Prologue to tomorrow’s Testimonial Tuesday post, “Heart Disease Saved My Life”, which will feature my father’s story. This was an email sent from my dad in May 2010 in the cardiac intensive care unit in Covington, LA. It’s important to understand his medical background, which was an important part of his Paleo journey.
Dear Family and Friends,
For those who don’t know I have been at St. Tammany hospital since Monday. The proud recipient of two stents and a pacemaker!
I would like you to read my story and the message that I would like to convey.
My body clock is up at 4:00 a.m. since my cardiologist is a workhorse and has made rounds at this time for the last few days. I thought I would write my thoughts on what happened to me. The ironic thing about timing is that my body likes to break down prior to holiday weekends. Last year I had an unexplained TIA(now downgraded from stroke), on the Friday before Labor Day, causing me to miss my father’s big 80th birthday party. This time the week prior to Memorial Day, now forcing me to abandon a week in SanDestin. I realize in the grand scheme of things those are trivial events, but think that even next ground hog day, I will be anxious waiting for the next shoe to drop sort of speak. The other thing is that both events took place after a strict training regiment where I felt I was in top shape. When the TIA hit I was in my 9th week of P90X and feeling incredibly fit. This time I had joined a Crossfit studio, wanting to drop some weight and change things up. I was into those workouts for the last 30 days and actually dropped 13 lbs with the endorsed zone diet, and pretty rigorous combination of high intensity cardio and weight lifting. In hindsight the coincidence is no accident, but also probably saved my life.(I’ll explain).
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