So 2 years ago this evening I felt heartburn... but it was wider and deeper and then jaw pain and arm pain. I caught my heart attack before I died. Tomorrow 2 years ago, I had a CABGx4. My LAD had a 95% and a 99% blockage and 85+'s everywhere else.
My dad went through CABG4 like 30 years ago, I knew my life was over. I was 55.
2 years later, I'm sitting on a beach in Koh Tao Thailand. Actually at breakfast, on a beach in Thailand.
In the last 2 years, my wife had an equally large medical event 6 months after mine. We separated. We went on sabbatical (me Thailand her Mexico), we've divorced. We sold absolutely everything. I own 2 computers, a camera, some clothes for about a week and fins and a mask.
I've walked 5-8 miles a day for the past 10 months in Thailand. I started walking during Cardiac Rehab. The nurses there saved my life after surgery.
I wasn't in shape and I wasn't athletic prior to this. I wasn't in horrible shape, I've dropped 35 lbs., but I have friends that have dropped triple digits weight.
I got rid of my largest client and told the last one that I'm going away and will be working remotely.
Today, I'm just hanging out in Thailand. I'm going to meet with a yoga teacher who is helping me with my breathing.
Tomorrow morning at 7:45 a.m. I'm going to be like 15 meters under water, 2 years exactly after they put me under to do my CABG4, and according to me, make my life be over.
Not a single second of the last 2 years has been "easy". Even the easy moments take work to get to.
But I'm having a tough time typing because I'm crying because I'm so grateful that I didn't listen to myself and decide my life was over with CABGx4.
Not everyone will have the same experience, I know, but it isn't the end, or it doesn't have to be.
I'm so grateful. I've cried after every dive. I cry at breakfast (I went off my antidepressants 6 months ago, so emotions are interesting). But I'll take crying when the breeze comes up over being dead any dead!!
I didn't try and write this pretty. I'm just feeling so much. It's so beautiful. And so hard. And So easy.
I posted here during a really black moment a few weeks after surgery. And the people on mended hearts were very kind and helped me out.
I need to stop typing or I'm just going to keep saying grateful and someone is gonna get annoyed LOL
I didn't appreciate anything prior to CABG in the way I appreciate it today.
Thank you.
Mike