httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj9pBrHYYMY
I felt cold and clammy, and I was certain I was having some sort of heart event.
At the hospital, medical professionals confirmed I was having a heart attack, and I was rushed to the catheter lab to clear any blockages in my arteries.
The doctors performed a coronary angioplasty to relieve the blockages, restore blood flow and ease the pressure on my heart.
For me, heart disease is very personal; my father was a heart patient, and – like father, like son – now I was as well.
On the way to the catheter lab, lying helpless on the hospital bed, I thought about my father who had quadruple heart bypass surgery years ago.
According to the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, a patient who suffered a heart attack in the 1950s was typically treated with weeks of bed rest and pain medications.
Now, approximately 96 of every 100 heart attack patients who receive treatment not only survive, but are usually released from the hospital and back to work within a week.
In my father’s case, open-heart bypass surgery was the only way doctors could restore blood flow to the heart.
My father was my hero and someone I tried to emulate in many ways, but in this case, it meant I did not have to follow in my father’s footsteps.