During the early morning parts of April 24, 2016 I suffered a mild heart attack.
Before I go on with this story I just want to put one thing out there, don't ask me any questions about what happened or if I'm alright; that will simply annoy me and not want to talk to anyone. I know that comes off as insensitive and rude but I don't really feel like answering any questions about something of this severity at this point in time. It happened and it happened for a reason. I'm sure if you open your eyes and read you'll more than likely have your questions answered in the subsequent paragraphs after this one. Nothing is more annoying than a person who doesn't read at all.
I initially wasn't going to share this story because I'm a really private person at this point in my life and I realize that I control the narrative in regards to what it said about me, (for the most part anyways). So I definitely didn't want the news to get around that I had a mild heart attack before the age of 30 lol. But like all stories that need to be told, I knew that this is one of the main ones that had to go up on the site.
So with that being said, let me start off with why and how it happened.
So I wasn't actually feeling good for the past couple of weeks, didn't know why at the time but I just wasn't feeling it. I was slower, tired and I was in a sour mood for the whole ordeal. I just know that by that point I was to a point where I just felt like I was coming down with some kind of sickness; you know, regular people thoughts. So as I was at home and I was doing some cleaning and moving some heavy furniture around by myself I noticed that I was extremely winded and I was tired out by doing such, (something that rarely, if ever, happens to me). So I go to to drink some water and then it hit me like a bag of bricks.
I remember I was in the kitchen taking a drink of water I had in the fridge and then all of a sudden I had to take a knee. Usually when I feel dizzy or about to throw up I just take a knee and calm myself down. This situation was no different and I did what I've done for years on out. But this time when I went to take a knee it just felt worse and I gathered myself enough to go into the bathroom to go throw up. But as I went to go throw up I felt blood coming up, (I've dealt with a lot of bad instances with blood during my life and I know when it's coming up through my throat). At this point I couldn't stop myself to look because it was all coming up at once.
Then after I got done it all came rushing to take a playa out.
I sat back on the floor and I instantly blacked out for about an hour. I came to when my hand gave me probably one of the sharpest pains that I've ever felt in my life. I thought it was because I was just resting on my hand while being blacked out. But as I sat there I noticed I was slowly losing feeling and the only thing that I could feel were the numb / sharp prickly feelings you get when an arm or leg falls asleep. But as the time passed I realized that it wasn't getting any better by me just sitting there. That's when I realized that I was either having a heart attack or a stroke. I was praying to God that it was neither and if it was that it was the lesser of two evils.
So I gathered myself and mustered all of the energy that I had and got into the car and drove myself to the hospital. Now I know what you're thinking, I shouldn't have driven to the hospital in that condition. But the last time I took an ambulance to the hospital it ended costing me $3,000 out of pocket and I couldn't afford to pay that again. And I know you may feel some kind of way with me driving myself but I have to pay that bill and I alone. So I was going to take that chance and driving to the hospital and dying on the way there. Luckily the hospital is literally five minutes from my home and it wasn't strenuous at all.
God bless America's health care system.
But as I get there and pull up in the emergency lane in front of the building the male nurse tells me I can't park there but as soon as I get out of my truck he notices that something isn't right and immediately came and grabbed me. I definitely give kudo points to him because he didn't waste anytime trying to figure out what I was parked there for. But he asked me all the questions pertaining to a heart attack and I was wondering how he knew. Pretty sure I got a smart ass response because he simply said "I've been doing this awhile".
But in the process of giving my information to the female nurse, who joined the male nurse dude, I blacked out again. Next thing I woke up and got the information that I suffered from a mild heart attack and that my body was working at double the rate of a normal human beings. It was a combination of stress, a new found eating disorder that I didn't know had called Binge Eating or Compulsive Overeating and also overexertion. Basically I was putting too much stress on my heart and I need to slow down or else I'm going to die before I see the age of 40.
Oddly that wasn't as bad as I thought it was.
They pulled my files from my VA doctors office, (which is also on the same street as the hospital), and come to find out that the prescription drugs that I was taking wasn't helping my cause too much either. The doctor straight up told me that I could have died by simply being a black man that just so happens to be a war veteran. He said that I'm a typical sight for the simple fact that I have to deal with being a black man in this country and also a war veteran, whether I realized that or not. He also pointed out that I'm not getting any older and these things start to add up when you cross the 30 years old threshold.
Like I said, I wasn't too beat up about it, things happen for a reason and this was basically my wake up call to take things a little bit more serious than I normally do. I was feeling real mortal the last couple of weeks and I was in one of my depression stages, that's why I didn't talk to people for awhile. Being a African-American veteran with PTSD, depression, an eating disorder and now the possibility of dying from a massive heart attack sure puts things in perspective. Well it at least puts some kind of motivation of change into a persons mind when they're laying up at the ceiling wondering why they didn't just die.
But then again, there's a reason that I'm still here. Even if I haven't found that reason just yet.
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