Hi my friends. If you read my post history you will know all about my history. Not sure why I'm writing this but maybe as a stepping stone to me being a a happy place in my life after the events of June 22nd, 2013 at about 7:25am PST.

On this day driving to work I had the infamous Widow Maker heart attack. Yes, you read that right. I felt a sudden constricting across my check that went from right to left and made it near impossible to think straight. I knew exactly what it was but just couldn't believe it. At age 44 and being relatively fit and eating right I wanted to believe that it wasn't happening but I knew within a millisecond that it was happening to me.

I pulled my car over and called 911. I didn't know where I was per se but thanks to modern technology they could pinpoint through my phone where I was. As I sat in the car I looked around from inside my car just wondering if somehow I could be mistaken. The pain quickly convinced my brain to stfu though and forced it to understand that YES, this was a heart attack.

2 minutes later the ambulance is arriving and I am trying to hobble out of my car and they ask me to please stay where I was. I suppose on retrospect maybe they didn't want me to struggle out of the car and maybe bash my face into the pavement, not sure but I sat there as they worked on cutting my shirt off to get to my skin. Then BAM, fade to black.

I wake up with the sirens blaring and me in the back area of the ambulance staring at a tall man looking at me as we're driving. I close my eyes very tight and open them quickly hoping I can force myself to wake up. I couldn't. Twice I did this and maybe the guy thought I was crazy how I was looking but I explained to him that I MUST be dreaming. He looked at me and said "Sir, I can assure you that you are NOT dreaming." I'm stunned. Fade to black. I wake up and for some reason the people in the back are speaking in clicks and whistles and I'm trying to figure out why I can't understand them. My brain was being cooked due to lack of oxygen. Fade to black.

Rolling into the ER and many people are quickly surrounding me. Like from a movie. My shoes are off and I can see my toes. My 2 year old had painted my toe nails a week ago and remember joking that I better not end up in the ER because people would see my nails and wonder why they are painted. My words became real. Fade to black.

On a gurney waiting for an elevator. Everyone is dressed for surgery. Elevator arrives and a man waiting as well doesn't want to stare at me. Maybe he thinks he will get my "heart attack" germs on him. Not sure. I'm scared. Will I live? I have 6 kids.

In the operating room I'm given some sedative but completely knocked out. I remember them asking me to sign a paper for the stent. I'm thinking I can't even think straight but try to sign as best I can. Fade to black.

Wake up and am shown a video of the stent being placed and the beautiful bouquet of blood that flows where blood was not flowing. What a beautiful video but also scary as I see that half my heart likely didn't receive blood.

End up in Cardiac Care Unit where the sick of the sick go. I'm laying down and don't realize that I have a catheter in my groin on both left and right sides of my leg. On the left the catheter is a good 8 inches long and goes in my femoral artery and in a huge vein on my leg. The right side is where they placed the catheter that they used to place the stent into my heart. How mind numbing to think that someone can go through a leg artery and find the precision to place a stent smaller than the size of a rice into my heart at the exact position. They also place a balloon attached to a catheter that is larger at maybe 10 inches. The balloon is made to expand as my heart contracts and is made to lower the work load of my heart. How scary.

After surgery my wife comes in and is devastated. It didn't help that later that same day my lungs started filling with blood and fluid and I was, for all intents and purposes, drowning, in my own fluid. No one would help me because I'm convinced that no once can help as that is happening. They just stared at me as I told them that I couldn't breath and they mumbled about putting a tube down my wind pipe. As they started tying my hands I thought differently and struggled as I thought for sure I would die unable to let anyone know that I was suffocating to death. Luckily the Respiratory therapist MD was on her way and put that to a halt but it is the single most traumatic thing of that night.

It is day 7 and I am back home. Sitting down and wondering what will be the next chapter in my life. At 44 I will NOT get fat and will fight tooth and nail to get even healthier than I was.