I HAVE A FAMILY HISTORY OF HEART DISEASE??? NO WAY!!!! WHO KNEW? LESSONS LEARNED.

Let me start off my blogging journey by talking about a recent happening in my recovery process. It’s yet another experience I stayed clean through, and can put on the “shelf” to draw upon at some time in the future. Maybe my experience can help someone else.

I have a history of heart disease in my family.
Who knew?
I did … somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, at least.
I know I didn’t note it on any medical forms over the past 4 decades or so; and I don’t think I shared the information with any medical professionals I saw over the years - and there were many!
It’s not like I was holding back on anything. I just don’t think I truly understood the question.
That was, until last week, when doctors discovered my significantly enlarged heart, the unmistakable flutter (murmur) in my mitral valve, and my hyper-active thyroid.

Lesson learned.

Listen, I’m an otherwise intelligent, educated person yet I had no idea that I was at risk for heart disease and for a condition that kills quickly and often without warning. At one point in my youth, I thought I might have been at risk for lung issues because my mother smoked 2 ½ packs of non-filtered Camel cigarettes while pregnant with me and she died of lung cancer just after my first birthday.
But I thought it was simply heart “attacks” that affected several men in the family, not that it was a family history of “heart disease.”

Lesson learned.

Once again, I survived a medical event that routinely kills perfectly healthy teenagers with little or no advanced notice. And I can’t say it’s because of any early intervention on my part or good pre-planning based on notification of family history.

But, it could have been.

When I was 15 years old, my Dad had a heart attack. He was 54. He fortunately survived, but at the time, told me he’d been expecting the heart attack, as both his father and grandfather died of heart attacks at the age of 52! My dad would go on to suffer and survive 2 more heart attacks. And at no time did I think it had any effect on my life.

Lesson learned.

During my most recent hospital stay, I learned something from my brother about my 12-year-old niece – his daughter – who everyone calls my “mini-me.” It shows just how related and genetic our health is. It turns out she also has a heart murmur! It was discovered by her pediatrician during a routine exam when she was barely 11, and she needs to have it checked out by a cardiologist annually. I don’t even remember if I was told about this at the time but I do know that even if I was, I still didn’t relate it to “family history.”

Lesson learned.

Now, at 52, I’m forced to live a life of regularly monitoring everything I do, eat or drink; and routinely testing how my heart and thyroid are functioning at any given time. And still, despite my better-late-than-never corrective actions, it might come down to having a defibrillator surgically implanted.

Lesson learned.

This latest medical episode isn’t my first rodeo, either. Not by far.

I’m also a survivor of Bacterial Meningitis which I contracted in 2010! The emergency room doctors initially missed the symptoms and sent me home. Twenty-four hours later, I would return, semi-conscious. The infection had reached the lining around my brain and spinal cord. I was on multiple IV antibiotics and other medicines for 10-days in an isolation unit and yet I survived barely scathed. Not every Meningitis sufferer is so lucky. Many die within 24-hours of the infection reaching the brain’s protective layer.

Next on the list? I had advanced bacterial pneumonia near the end of 2011 requiring me to be intubated and put into an induced coma for several days. Again sent home by the hospital ER staff, I returned the following day in septic shock. Eleven days later, I walked out of the hospital with nary a malingering issue.

And now this latest episode with heart palpitations and shortness of breath.

Three near-death experiences, and I feel even more of an obligation to warn people who may be at risk for, or at the precipice of, any of these or similar illnesses.

Maybe that’s why I survived … why I always survive?

Maybe it’s all part of Gods plan.

Perhaps I was supposed to lose my job Dec. 31. When I realized I would also lose my health insurance coverage, I decided to make appointments with all my doctors. It was my new primary care doctor
who I’d seen just once before, that discovered my abnormal EKG and heart murmur and directed me to
the hospital right away, and then oversaw my care there. Had I not been losing my health benefits, I doubt I would have brought my shortness of breath concerns to this or any other doctor.

Lesson learned.

Either way, let me take this online opportunity to pass along some words of advice to readers of my blog:
• If you learn throughout your life that two or more people in your immediate family suffered heart-related deaths or other major heart issues before the age of 55 – heed that as a serious warning. THAT’S a history of heart disease in the family. Let your doctors know.
• Also let other immediate family members know they need to be checked out as well – siblings, children, parents, etc.
• If you, or a loved one, feel like you have the flu or a bad sinus infection, make sure you can touch your chin to your chest. That can determine if it’s something more serious, like meningitis.
• If you lose your job, and have precious few weeks left of your private health insurance coverage, make appointments with ALL your doctors – just in case.
• And last, but not least, if your Higher Power needs to go to the extreme of having you hospitalized in a critical care unit for several days - just to let you know you need to take better care of yourself - thank Him!!!

Lesson Learned.