Rich Z (WebSlave)
 

Hey, so what did you all do during Memorial Day?

Me? Well, I had a heart attack, took a ride in an ambulance to the hospital emergency room, thrown onto an operating table, had a stent placed in my right coronary artery that was real close to being 100 percent blocked, and then spent the last three days in the intensive care unit.

I was told that a third of the people who had my condition do not survive the trip in the ambulance to the operating table.

I will be back there in 5 to 6 weeks to have another stent placed in my left coronary artery that is 60 percent blocked.

Bet I had a lot more fun than most of you! :o

Famous last words.

So yeah, go ahead and throw those "I told you so" comments at me. I am deserving of them, obviously.

I am home now. But things just don't seem real nor relevant to me for some reason.

I suppose stuff has fallen behind here that I need to do, but you know what? It will just have to wait.

So sorry to hear that Rich, don't worry about things here.

Yeah well I don't take that advice either so... I won't say it.

I'm just glad you're still on this side of the grass.

I cried when I read your post. Good tears, that you survived. You and Connie are definitely in my thoughts and prayers. Did she have her chemo, and how is she?

Thinking of y'all.

So I realize that this isn't going to be a very welcome post and that is OK. I'm sure that every once in a while you probably had to take an Excedrin or three after reading some post of mine through these many past years.

I think you should give some consideration, after talking it over with your doctor, about if and when, to receiving the Covid vaccination. So far, I've had Covid twice, the first time it was much, much worse than the second time. I could not walk from one end of my apartment to the other. And post Covid I developed diabetes, I am convinced it was related to having Covid.

I know how very careful you have been to avoid infection these past few years. But there is no doubt in my mind that you will be exposed some time during your trips to and from the hospital. And I fear that with your present issues, having a bad case of Covid would be difficult. All I'm asking is that you think it over.

Don't be mad just because I brought it up. Please.

Yeah I think you have more important things to worry about, take care of yourself and Connie, we'll keep on chugging.

Absolutely right to let stuff wait that isn't crucial now. There was a wise saying my husband and I were told to take to heart while expecting our triplets. It's short. It's simple. It's SO correct. And sometimes it's hard anyway.

It's this: people before things. If you follow this precept it's pretty hard to go wrong.



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Rich, so sorry to hear this, but happy that you're okay. I was with my mom when she had her heart attack and stent placement. It was really scary to witness, and I can't even begin to imagine going through it.

Over the years, reading your posts, it seems that you and Connie have good diets - seafood, and fresh fruits and vegetables. You've always been active, with the snake and rodent operations, and all the stuff you do on your property. Obviously, there may be other risk factors I have no way of knowing, but it saddens me that this happened to someone who tried to do the right things. My husband and I eat like our parents are out of town for the weekend! Time to make some changes.

I hope you recover quickly, and hope Connie is doing okay.

Connie needed to walk over to the other building today, so I went with her to get outside for a little bit. Yellow flies are still a nuisance, of course. When she went into the building I walked over to the garage to take a look at the mailbox still sitting on the tailgate of Connie's truck. Darn, it is only plastic, but for some reason it feels a lot heavier than it did several days ago.

I walked down to the end of the driveway to see if the garbage had been picked up yet, and while I was down there I cut the strings connected to some stakes that kept the 4x4x8 post I sank into the ground on the day before "almost dying day". Then walked back to the building to fetch Connie so we could walk back to the house.

Damn I felt winded!! In a matter of days I have become a very old and feeble man. I sure do hope this isn't going to be the entire future for me from here on out. I actually felt better and stronger with that coronary artery being almost blocked off.

I have been having some visual artifacts the past few days. Like sections of my vision would just shudder or jump. Seems better today, but not 100%. I am not bothering to proof read what I wrote, so if things just don't read correctly, sorry.

Oh, late Wednesday when Connie's friend Debbie brought us home, Connie made me a steak sandwich. Well, I WAS hungry! After eating I felt exhausted and just laid down on the sofa I have been using for a bed the past month or so. Like a dummy I laid flat on my back and must have zonked out immediately. Until I had a bout of acid reflux go down my windpipe which launched me straight off of the couch coughing me head off. I haven't had something like that happen for years. I was able to clear my windpipe OK, but the stomach acid burned quite a bit. I still have a nagging cough as the damage heals, so my side muscles are hurting from the coughing. Hope I didn't hurt that stent in my heart with all the coughing.

Just seems like one thing after another. Connie has a cough too, and she is waiting to hear back about the x-rays she had taken on Wednesday to see if fluid was building back around her right lung show anything. It doesn't feel the same to her, so we are thinking the first chemo treatment must have irritated her throat lining or something. So we are both having our share of coughing lately. It is not something new, as she has had the coughing almost continually after the chemo.

Darn, maybe making two separate threads wasn't such a smart idea after all... :ack2:

Hope you and Connie catch a break soon. Keep getting better.

I just feel like a little weenie. Feel weak. Walking across the yard gets me winded.

Still got a bit of a cough from the irritation caused by that acid reflux episode, but I guess it is getting better. When Connie and I were in the emergency room yesterday, people were moving away from us like we were lepers. Oh well.. Can't blame them. I would have done the same thing.

A friend came by, heck, was it Friday or Saturday? I don't have a clue. Anyway, he brought some fresh tomatoes out of his garden for Connie. While he was here he asked me if there is anything he can do to help. Well, I sure wanted to get that mailbox installed that I started the day before my heart attack. What was left wasn't hard, but I just don't have the stamina to do even light stuff, it seems. We just had to put the plastic sleeve base over top of the 4x4 post, bolt it to the post, then mount the actual mailbox on top of it by just snapping it into place. I don't know why that seemed such a high mountain for me to have to climb.

But we got it done, and it looks pretty good. Maybe a little bit more wobbly than I would like it to be, but maybe I can figure out a way to fix that when I get to being more my old self. Lord, I HOPE I will become my old self. This being an old feeble man is for the birds!

Now, what is going to be interesting is that I have a 135 lb crate due to show up tomorrow via UPS. This was ordered before Connie's cancer was diagnosed, and certainly before my problem burst onto the scene. I have to run Connie to the hospital for her lung draining, so I hope I get back before UPS arrives so I can get the driver to put it on a wagon and I can just drag that into the garage until my muscles grow back and I can deal with it.

Being old wasn't too bad when I didn't FEEL old. :o

:iagree: and :exactly:!!

I am very glad you are doing better!!

:iagree: and :exactly:!

I am so glad you are okay!!

Hopefully the road to recovery won't have too many more potholes for either of you.

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I guess my biggest problem is that I just don't know how fragile I am right now. With the left coronary artery 60% blocked, am I in danger of another heart attack? Connie, of course, is watching over me like a hawk refusing to let me do anything strenuous. She is really worried about my right arm that they used to put in that stent, because the docs told us to be VERY careful of opening up that artery they used. I could lose a lot of blood very quickly if that happened. So Connie is scared to death about that.

One interesting thing happened when I was in the intensive care unit. They had me all wired up to monitor me, and had a blood pressure cuff that would take my blood pressure every 15 minutes to every hour, depending on how they had it set up. One of the nights I must have been having a pretty wild dream, because I could swear that some animal was swallowing my left arm. So using my right arm (the only that was used during the surgery) I just ripped the cuff off of my left arm. I woke up staring at this white "thing" that looked like some sort of swollen leech, that was buzzing at me. Yeah, alarms went off and people came in to see what happened. Kind of embarrassed, but they just laughed and said this happens all of the time there. But at least my right arm didn't pop that artery while I was defending myself from that arm devouring creature.

I am astonished at the number of people I have run into very recently that when I tell them I had a heart attack recently, they will say "Me too!" Yeah, and I had a stent put into one of my coronary arteries. "Me too! Two of them!"

Are there really that many people with heart problems, or am I just hanging around with the wrong crowd?

I really and truly believe, that many people, are having heart related issues.

Many Americans are obese and do not exercise at all, not only seniors but young people and children, more people now have diabetes type 2 and other diagnoses associated with cardiac issues. I'm sure that the after effects of Covid for some 'Long Covid' include heart trouble.
And of course there is the fraud subset, those who are falsely labelled and sometimes actually undergo unnecessary surgery by doctors who see that fraud as an opportunity to make $. Insurance/Medicare fraud in doctor's offices of all kinds is a huge problem.

Heck, I am down to 149 lbs now. So I dropped 10 lbs since Connie was diagnosed with her ailment.

Got an appointment with a cardiologist on 07-20. Not sure when my next stent insertion is supposed to take place.

In the meantime, I am just taking it easy. Still haven't opened up the crate that came in Monday with my laser. At least my friend came over and helped me complete the mailbox install, so I guess that is enough work for the month. :)

I do feel tired often. I would have thought blood flow opened up to the heart would have sparked more energy, but I sure don't feel that way. Coming home from dropping Connie off for chemo yesterday I could barely keep my eyes open. But yet when I laid down, I was too restless feeling to get much, if any, sleep. I did sleep like a rock last night, and got a good 9 hours of sleep. But still, I feel like I could take a nap right now.

But need to run Connie back to the oncologist today so she can get an injection for something to help with her white blood count. Supposed to make her joints ache, so hopefully that won't be real uncomfortable for her.

One good thing about the yellow flies marauding outside, it gives me a damned good excuse for not going out to do any yard work. That will just have to wait.

I just read through this thread again, and realize that I didn't post the symptoms here that I had when I was going through my heart attack. Perhaps it may help someone else to know what to look for if it happens to them some day.

Heck, I have always been moderately active, and VERY active in spurts. But this time of year, with the yellow flies rampaging the area, doing just about anything outside is pretty much an exercise in painful ridiculousness.

But that being said, on Sunday (day before "nearly drop dead day") I decided I wanted to install our new mailbox. We took it down years ago after local hoodlums kept on knocking them over or smashing them throughout the area a couple of times each year. And we were doing a lot of shows, so I figured just be done with it and get a post office box. Been pretty much nothing but headaches all along, but never reached the level to where I felt I should go back to the physical address mail box thing. Until recently.

I already had the post in the back of Connie's truck so I just put some tools in the bed of the truck along with the post and backed it up the driveway to the end where the mailbox was going to go.

I had to get up early anyway to bring in a grocery delivery made by Publix, and since it seemed rather cool out, and I wanted to wear long pants and a long sleeved shirt to fend off the flies, seemed like the perfect time to do this job.

So I spent several hours with a post hole digger digging down 56 inches so that the 8 ft long 4x4 treated post would leave 40 inches above ground, as needed by the sleeved mailbox I had purchased. I will tell you, that was pretty hard work, especially towards the end, when there wasn't much handle on the post hole digger remaining above ground. It was pretty tough going jamming the post hole digger down into that hole and then spreading the arms so I could lift the load of damp sand out of that hole. I knew I was in for some hurting muscles the next day.

I took several breaks when the heart started pumping pretty hard, and to gulp down some water to stay hydrated. Then after I had the post perfectly vertical, with a bubble level, and then tied in place with stakes, I dumped 200 lbs of Quickreet quick setting concrete into that hole. And the level of concrete came up perfectly even with the mark I had set for the 40 inches needed above ground. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, too. Of course, my clothes were soaking wringing wet by then and the temps were increasing. Why that heart attack didn't hit me then, I have no idea. I probably would have died then, because Connie wouldn't have had any idea that I had passed out down at the end of the driveway. So unless someone passing by noticed me, there I would have been for who knows how long.

I have worked just as hard many a time before, and never even had a thought of an impending heart attack cross my mind. I am not THAT old, I thought.

Monday morning I was expecting sore muscles, especially in my chest, arms, and shoulders, because the motion of closing the jaws of the post hole digger to lift it out of the hole with the damp sand coming up with it, was using those muscles a lot more than they have been used any time in the recent past. And yeah, I did have chest pains, but not until after I had gotten up to urinate, and then laid back down again. Then I just could not get comfortable, with those muscles yelping. Then I noticed that my left arm was feeling rather numb. Uh oh... That is odd. The left arm hurts and is numb feeling at the same time.

I was sleeping on the couch in the family room, because Connie was sleeping in the recliner and I still needed to help her in and out of the recliner. I got up quietly so as not to disturb her and got the blood oxygen sensor from the end table near the recliner. We were using that to monitor her vital signs.

I put the blood oxygen sensor on my finger and noticed that the pulse rate was only 44 bpm, but the oxygen was around 97%, so that looked pretty good. But the graph of the heart beat was very flat. Hmmm.. Almost flat lined looking, which certainly wasn't normal for me.

Connie was over in the recliner, still asleep, and I was thinking about how it was going to upset her when I asked her to take me to the emergency room. But I was beginning to think that was probably a real good idea right about now. It was then like someone threw a bucket of water over top of me, because I became soaked to the bone with sweat. I may have passed out then, but darn i I know. Next thing I knew, I felt fine. It was like the pains and the left arm numbness just went away. Still, something wasn't right, because of what just happened.

Just to play it safe, I woke up Connie and asked her to set me up on the blood pressure monitor to see what that looked like. I was still feeling OK, but pretty spooked by those earlier symptoms. So after I got her out of the recliner, I was getting ready to sit down on the stool near the recliner to let her wrap the gizmo around my arm to see what my pressure looked like. I had barely started to sit down, when the room began to spin and I started feeling pretty clammy and sweaty. So I straightened up and turned towards the recliner, figuring that would be the safest place for me to be if I was going to pass out. Next thing I knew, I was again soaking wringing wet, Connie had her hand on my chin shaking me, and was talking on the phone. I heard her say, "yes, he is unconscious, and not responding to me." I asked her who she was talking to, and she said "911". She was shaking like a leaf and crying. I am sure she thought she had just watched me die.

They got to our house within minutes, or at least it seemed that way to me.

Oddly, the thought uppermost on my mind was "Damn, Connie is going to be pissed if they don't take their shoes off when they walk on the carpet." I guess it didn't matter to her at the time, as the two guys came in and started checking me out.

Best I can tell, I was conscious the entire time, so they must have been pretty quick getting there. Interestingly enough, Connie told me that she was looking at me when my head fell back on the back of the recliner, and my pupils had dilated so much that she couldn't see any blue from my irises. Then my eyes just rolled up into my head, and that is when she dived for the phone. Quite likely she saved my life by doing everything right to get 911 out here pronto.

They hooked me up to do an EKG, and the one guy was looking at the squiggly lines on the paper. He just said something like "Hmm, you know, you may want to think about having us take you to the hospital." So, I am like "Sure. Can I get dressed first?" I was just in shorts and a light T-shirt.

I walked to the front door and onto the porch, but from there they put me on a gurney. When they had me loaded into the back of the ambulance, the guy who read the EKG told me, "Mr. Zuchowski, we didn't want to alarm your wife back in the house, but you really REALLY need to get to the hospital as soon as possible." Apparently, from what a lot of people told me, he was correct. And I was real lucky to have gotten there fast enough.

Anyway, may be some gaps in my memory, but that is how I remember it going. I remember thinking how strange it was being in the back of an ambulance watching the road from the back of a vehicle. They gave me four aspirin tablets to chew on and I remember every now and again someone asking me if I was still OK back there. Yeah, I guess I was.

That's quite a saga. I'm glad you survived it. Hopefully your take may help someone else.

Idk why it's so, but it is apparently not unusual to have heart problems manifest the morning after unusual exertion. At least that's what my friend the ER doctor told me... Seems weird to me, but maybe that's from seeing too many TV versions of heart attacks. In any case, we're all pulling for you to be "one and done." [emoji3590]



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How are you feeling?

That would be rather difficult to answer honestly right now.

Maybe I am just getting lazy. Earlier today I walked some compost down to one of the bamboo groves. I dunno, can't be more than 300 yards or so round trip. I figure the path we use(d) for a bike trail is about a half mile, and that sort of runs around the bamboo patch I walked down to. So that should be a pretty accurate questimate, I think. But heck, I am notoriously bad at estimating distances and such.

Anyway, I get back to the house and felt like I needed a nap. So I did. Sheesh... I feel like I have aged 10 years since Memorial Day.

But at least I guess I am still kicking.

I still don't understand why I don't feel like I have more energy after that stent was put into my right coronary artery. That should have increased blood flow to the heart, right?

I too, am notoriously poor at estimating distance. But, you are not getting lazy. That is part of your body "reacclimatizing to your new normal."

Awe, it will get better, I promise!!

That is very true and that is the right outlook!!

You are correct. But, it still takes your body a while to adjust. Plus, you will need another stent, correct? If so, you will also feel better, when your heart and or body has increased blood flow, overall.

Well, the question was asked of me, and I didn't have an answer for it, if two or my coronary arteries were (one is still) blocked, what about all the rest of the arteries and veins coming to and from the heart? Wouldn't they be affected by the same issue that blocked off the coronary arteries? Or is that a question that would be better off not asked in front of Connie?

Rich, Google "coronary artery anatomy". Those arteries are tiny, when compared to major vessels like the aorta, femoral, etc. That's why they're the first to become blocked.

I hope that you start to feel better. My brother had two stents put in at the same time, and said it took a few months before he had more energy. We credit the FAA with saving his life. He's a commercial airline pilot, and because he's also diabetic, the FAA required an echocardiogram for renewal of his Airman Medical Certificate. An abnormality in the echo prompted cardiac catheterization, where two arteries had 90%, and 95% blockages. What's weird, is that he was completely asymptomatic, and never would have sought out having those diagnostic tests done.

Anyway, they forced him to retire, as the FAA only allows pilots one stent. He was as active as you are, and never had a clue that there was a serious problem.

Probably a good thing he didn't sink a mailbox post into the ground. I know for a fact that that will weed out us folks with clogged coronary arteries. :)

Can't recall if I mentioned it before, but one of the cardiologists that I saw while in Intensive Care told me that I had an unusual configuration of the heart arteries. Only something like 15% of the population have a similar arrangement. Perhaps that helped me survive? So does that make me a mutant? X-man material? Wish I had other powers other than "able to survive a heart attack". Telekinesis would be cool. Wouldn't even have to get up to make a sandwich.

So, I wonder if I am going to have to wait for that second stent and then a few months later to start feeling more normal? I guess it is just as well. The yellow flies are pretty much gone around here, but it has been pretty darn hot outside. Connie is scared to death I am going to have another heart attack just walking down to the mailbox. When I am puttering around in the garage or the old reptile building, I can't be gone too long before she starts getting really worried about me. One of my mosquito magnets appears to need a new fuel nozzle put in, so that is on my list of things to do today, IF I feel ambitious enough. It is only a 15 minute job, so not too taxing. And I guess it isn't good to be a couch potato 100% of the day. I am actually up to 150 lbs, so I am no longer losing weight. But it certainly isn't muscle I am putting on. :(

Yeah, hard to say. The heart stays quiet, just doing its job, until it decides not to. You seem like you've been active all your life. Stayed a decent weight, and you two eat pretty healthy, judging from your past posts. Maybe we're all ticking time bombs!

Did your cardiologist put you on a low-dose aspirin regimen? Usually 81mg tablets, one a day. Because of my mom having a heart attack, and my brother's incident, my doctor said it couldn't hurt for me to start on it. Bayer even makes a separate product specifically for cardiac patients. Did they start you on a statin as well? (Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor)

Yeah...

• 81 mg low dose aspirin
• 10 mg Prasugrel (blood thinner)
• 80 mg Atorvastatin (I believe for cholesterol. Even though my cholesterol numbers have never been bad during my yearly blood letting checks)

Not sure that blood thinner is doing me good, since lately I seem to bruise a LOT easier than I have in the past. I could smack myself on the arm with a ball peen hammer and not get a bruise before all this. Not just a moderate impact or constant pressure in a small area will create a bruise. For instance, today I was putting some material on some brackets for my laptop and a mouse platform and I had to press in some plastic pins into holes to hold the fabric in place. Took a lot of pressure using my thumbs, and on my left hand the finger that wound up applying pressure from underneath got a bruise right at the crease of the fingertip. Then earlier I was carrying some stuff over from the garage to the old reptile building and I was carrying more items than I should have, so I was pressing them against my stomach with one arm as I fiddled to get my key out. Wound up with a silver dollar sized bruise on my stomach area from that.

Heck, I dunno. I always associated easy bruising with weak vein and artery walls. I have a call into my cardiologist (well one of them anyway) about this. Of course, my primary care physician called in for a refill of my Prasugrel supply, and she got me a 90 day supply of it. So if the cardiologist changes my prescription I'll have a bunch of useless pills on hand. And those things aren't cheap if you don't have insurance covering it. Sure would hate to waste them all. They don't have a mark on them to easily split them, neither. Well, maybe take one every other day instead of every day? :shrug01: Perhaps doctors don't worry about that since they get their commission anyway. :shrug01: :shrug01:

Hmm, I had one of the last of the yellow flies chew on my arm today, and drew blood. But I don't see a mark from that. Maybe with the blood thinner she got more than she bargained for and choked. :hehe:

We have a LOT of dragon flies around here lately, so I hope they are helping to keep the yellow fly and mosquito population in check. I talk to them a lot, and they seem like they aren't a bit afraid of humans. Probably my favorite insect type critter.

Talked with a cardiologist nurse today, and she said that easier bruising like I am experiencing is perfectly normal. Normal, maybe, but I sure don't like it.

I feel like I need to wrap rubber baby buggy bumpers all over me. I really, REALLY don't like feeling fragile. And, of course, that just makes Connie all the more worried about me.

Speaking of which, I had to walk down the road today to talk to the road grader, as apparently someone came down the road with a backhoe and widened our road in one spot. Anyway, I was talking with the guy for quite a while, and I see Connie coming out of the driveway to make sure I hadn't had another heart attack and passed out in the middle of the road. So she got worried because I was gone from sight for so long. But anyway, I had a nice long walk up and down our road for some exercise. Only had one yellow fly land on me, and she acted like she didn't know what to do while sitting on my arm. But I killed her anyway. No plans on making a pet out of a yellow fly.

Had to get up early this morning to take Connie to the oncologist office. Between that and the long walk, yeah, this feeble, fragile old man needed that nap..... :o

You've been through a lot, so please cut yourself some slack! You are going to be tired, and have low energy for awhile.

Regarding the bruising, it's common with anticoagulants, unfortunately. You don't want blood platelets clumping together, forming clots. Just be careful when working with tools, knives, or anything else that could cut you. The anti-clotting effects are good for your heart, but not good for helping wounds heal.

Poor Connie; another thing to worry about, but it's so good that you have each other. I couldn't imagine being ill, and by myself.

Honestly, that is the terrible black void I find myself staring into every day when I am alone with my thoughts. Even if I didn't have this heart issue, it would be not even the slightest less painful.

Did some yard work yesterday, using the hedge trimmer on an extended pole to cut some weeks and grass in the front yard.

Then today, I was feeling bad watching a bunch of little pumelo plants Connie had planted from seed that were dying on me. I have been trying to take care of them, but they are in small containers with just peat moss, and they tend to be either too dry or too wet, with no inbetween. Connie planted about 50 of them, and I have lost at least a dozen of them. So I broke out the hedge trimmer thing and clear an area around Connie's pineapple plants and put most of them in the ground there. We had gotten rain earlier, so the ground was moist, and then after I planted them, we got another good soaking rain.

I also planted a few of them in the small plots I had been using with my abortive attempts to grow watermelon. I have a tough time giving up, so every now and again I will plant some seeds, being every hopeful I will get some watermelons out of them. So I am done with that. With those little pumelo trees now in those spots, I won't be tempted to give the watermelons another try.

So I have been giving myself a bit of a workout the last couple of days. But I have to be honest, I do have the heebie-jeebies wondering how I will feel the following morning. :ack2:

Wow, life has been throwing a lot at you lately. I hope things get better for you guys, Rich.

That's absolutely genius! I'm gonna borrow that strategy.
That's the trick after a major health crisis or procedure, isn't it? Finding that very fine line between pushing yourself to improve, knowing you'll be tired in the immediate aftermath but stronger as a result of your efforts and pushing yourself too far, and finding that you've caused yourself harm, triggering slower healing or even a setback. It's a very difficult line to find. It's an even harder line to walk.

But it sounds like you are doing just that so far. I'm sure that your love for Connie is helping you do it. You're paying more attention to your own health so that you can be there for her, be there with her. That's good for both of you.

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Since I've been on heart meds one bump can make it look like I went 12 rounds with a 20 year old Mike Tyson. Skin very thin also. My arm is bandaged right now from bumping into a corner. Ripped skin back off my forearm pretty good. Oh and I bleed pretty darn good too.

Had an appointment with the cardiologist/surgeon who put the stent in my right coronary artery back on Memorial Day. Guy is easy to talk to and the conversation turned to my particular type of heart attack. He said that 50 percent of the people die in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. Then some don't survive the 48 hours after the surgery. He didn't give any percentages. And then after that some do not survive the following 30 day period. I think the cardiologist I talked to while in the ICU was pulling her punches when I asked her how close to the edge I had gotten. I was still in that 48 hour window then, and I guess she didn't want to alarm me. Thinking back, she did hesitate a bit before answering me.

I asked God to allow me to take care of Connie for the rest of her life, so I guess he heard me. He did tell me to trust him. I am thinking that I wasn't hallucinating when I heard him say that to me. I never had that sort of experience before, but I can't think of a time that I needed it more.

I hope and pray that you both have many years ahead to take care of each other and enjoy life.

Thank you.

I guess we will see what happens. I am going to have that second stent put in sometime next week. I asked the surgeon and he said that between every 800 and 1,000 procedures, there might be one (1) "complication" arise. I forgot to ask him how many procedures he has done since the last "complication". :o

But I guess these odds are better than going through another heart attack. Those odds don't seem so good. The doc said I should consider myself as a "HEART ATTACK SURVIVOR". Not everyone who has one can get to wear that T-shirt.