My Amazing Heart Helper

Life can be so unreal sometimes. For the most part, life is predictable, but sometimes we are hit with big surprises, good and bad.

For example, I just got hit with a big surprise and not a good one. After having my heart checked recently, the doc called and told me that I needed a procedure, and it should be done soon.

What was it that needed to be fixed? Well, the scan they did showed that my heart was not beating correctly. So, they told me that I had to go to the hospital and have an ICD. Of course, I asked what an ICD was. ICD stands for Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator. It’s like a pacemaker but it does more than that. I was in shock at this. I have been in very good health for a long time and had no idea there was this kind of problem going on inside me.

So, what did I do? I went ahead and scheduled an appointment at the hospital and a few days later the doctors did their job, and a great job they did. I went home from the hospital the very next day and have felt fine ever since then. Now I knew why I had been so out of breath when climbing a bunch of stairs.

What they had done was very interesting. They cut a small hole in my chest then placed a very, very small computer device in my heart, complete with a few wires put down into some of my veins. This device monitors the heart to keep it beating with a regular rhythm and its one small battery lasts about 7 years before it needs to get replaced. I was so impressed that all that could be implanted and set up so fast. And the recovery was very easy.

So, after all that was done, I talked to my kids and grandkids and told them that now I have a better computer than they do, so they’d better watch out for me because I might be as smart or smarter than them. They got a big laugh out of that.

Isn’t it absolutely amazing what humans can figure out? So many inventions are absolutely incredible, and many of them have changed our world and our lives to make things better and to help us to live longer and in good health.

I now want to wish all my readers “good health” and encourage all of you to check into and do research on the latest discoveries that help us live longer and stronger and healthier than ever.

Increase Your Courage Factor

As you continue with that forward thinking, planning and goal setting for this New Year, consider and think about the level of courage you have and the possibility and methods you might want to adopt to increase your “Courage Factor”.  Why? Because it’s been pretty well established that without courage most of us wouldn’t get very far and our lives would be, and will be, far less than they could be.

So just what is this “Courage Factor? It is being so stubborn that you simply won’t accept defeat. It is the stuff that makes champions in sports, heroes in war, huge successes in business, and highly accomplished individuals in life. With it you can do almost anything.  Without it even a brilliant person accomplishes very little.

Our English word “courage” comes from the French word for heart. Whether you call it great-hearted, stouthearted, or strong-hearted, the people who accomplish what they are after and leave the world a better place along the way are people with courage and, of course, a lot of heart.  Criticism won’t turn the courageous from their path. They are too self-assured as well as being willing to take responsibility for their choices whether they result in failures or successes.

So this week as you continue working on plans for what you want to accomplish in the coming year, remember that “courage factor” and try to make yours stronger by pushing yourself to do what you want to do, not what other’s want you to do! See how that feels and if it feels right, hey, just keep on doing it!

Next week I will talk about my personal definition of courage and some more ways to improve your “courage factor” so you are the unstoppable force in your life that you know you can be.

 

Dodging a Bullet

All I have to say is a double WOW… I worried myself sick after the doctor told me there is a 90% chance that my right main heart artery is 100% blocked. We scheduled an angiogram and just before they wheeled me in the doctor tells me that if my left main artery is also blocked then they will have to do open heart surgery. Of course, that last comment scared me to death and I started thinking about dying. Hey, I’ve had a good nearly 69 years and a lot of people get much less than that.

So there I am in the operating room staring at the ceiling as the doctor gets to work. (They don’t put you under for an angiogram.) I think back on my life and that everyone has to die and maybe it’s my turn now.  Less than an hour later they wheel my bed back to the hospital room where my wife Kimberly is waiting. Then the WOW news!! And what was that news?

“We didn’t find any blockage. All the tests, cat scans and nuclear stress EKG’s that you had that showed a blockage were wrong. It was a false positive.”

Did that ever make my day … or life! But what a lot of stress I went through to get there. I guess that kind of proves the old adage that “What we worry about the most doesn’t usually happen.”

But there was a good lesson that I learned. It goes back to what the Buddhist have said for years … that everyone of us needs to mentally go through in our heads the process of dying (to die before we die) so when we do get to that point in our lives where we really are going to die, it makes that transition much easier to accept and to embrace.

So yes, I dodged a bullet. Even if I did have a stent put in or had open heart surgery the chances of survival would have been very high but still, dodging that bullet helped me prepare myself for the inevitable. It also gave me pause so that I took a good hard look at the relationships I have with family and friends and renewed my vow to do more with my life.

But you don’t have to go through an unnecessary scare like this to appreciate and reaffirm the strength and importance of your relationships and really see what you are doing with your life. Just ask yourself, if I died today, would I feel that I was the kind of person I wanted to be for the people I love and am doing what I really want with my live? Then listen carefully and well to the answers and make the changes you want to see while you still have the time here to do it.