by dkschmidt » Wed Apr 19, 2017 8:21 am
Memorial Day 2008. The pain in my chest took me to the ground. I rolled over on my back and hoped it would subside. After a few minutes it did and I resumed walking the yard. Seconds later I doubled over with pain in the chest and my back. What was going on? After a visit to the nearby emergency room, they put me in an ambulance and sent me to another hospital (being Memorial Day weekend they didn’t have staff to take care of me). I was rushed into emergency surgery and the doctor told me what would happen. “We have to go in and see what is going on in your heart. It looks like you are having a cardiac event”. Afterwards they told me, “You had a blockage in your LAD (lower arterial descending artery) also called the ‘Widowmaker’. We put in a stent.” I was now classified with coronary artery disease at age 49. Later I found out how lucky I was. 90% of people who have a heart attack in the LAD don’t make it off the operating table. I was part of a lucky 10%. I was told I would be on the heart medication the rest of my life. My cardiologist would see me once a year, give me a stress test and say see you again next year. He said I could eat 4 eggs a week and to stick to lean meats. He didn’t say anything about altering my diet any more than that. I decided to take matters into my own hands with the help of a wonderful general practitioner. My research lead me to Dr. Esselstyn’s work, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. I thought that it was too extreme to give up all the food I enjoyed. I would just cut back on meat and that would be good enough. A year later I had a scare which sent me back into the operating room. They did another angiogram but decided that I only had 60% blockages and we would just have to watch and see how it goes. They said I needed to have 70% blockages to warrant another stent. Not very reassuring. After that my wife and I worked hard to change to a Whole Food Plant Based diet with no oil (WFPBNO). Eight years later I am off of all medications, even a daily aspirin, and I am over 60 pounds lighter. I feel like I have found the fountain of youth. I am the leanest I have been since high school and I have the energy of a teenager. I ran my first half marathon in January beating out many others half my age. Needless to say, I will be eating this way for the rest of my life. I hope to live to 100!