A Brief History

I wanted to make my first post a brief overview of my life until this point. As I am now 34 years old, this is going to be a very brief history. I will not bore you with every detail of everything that has ever happened. I only want to give you a sense of who I was, who I am, and who I hope to become.

I have been mostly happily married for 11 years and I have a son who is going to turn 10 in January. He is crazy smart and funny and I adore that kid. It is never a dull moment with him around. He does come with his own set of challenges, but every struggle is worth it. He is going to be starting in the gifted class this fall and I could not be prouder of him. He is an over-achiever like his mom. We believe he suffers from anxiety and he has an overwhelming need to be perfect. The two make for a tumultuous combination, but we are doing what we can to help him cope. The poor kid just got a crazy mix of genes, but he seems to handle things better every year.

My son isn't the only one who didn't win the genetic lotto. I come from a long line of women that don't survive to old age. My grandmother died at 62 from colon cancer. My aunt was 48 when she died from melanoma. My mom is 54 and has stage IV colon cancer. I even had cervical cancer. I was lucky though, they were able to cure mine with surgery. I had a hysterectomy a year after I had my son, but I have been cancer free for 7 years. My doctor knows my full history and I get all my tests done regularly. We have always focused on the cancer history and didn't even think about my dad's health issues. My dad is a diabetic and he has heart problems. I don't know why I never worried about inheriting my dad's issues, but I never did. Even my doctor didn't really dwell on it. I had a stress test a few years ago and she checks my cholesterol, but there have been no warning signs.

So you can imagine my surprise when I suffered a heart attack at the ripe old age of 33. It came out of nowhere and blindsided me. I think I am still a little shocked now, almost 8 months later. They say it is really hard for young people to go through something like that. I think it is because it is just so unexpected. You are just sitting there minding your own business and the next thing you know you almost die. That shakes a person up a bit I think. I will go into the details of what happened in later posts.

I am glad that I waited this long to start talking about what happened. For the last 8 months I have gone through an entire range of emotions. I think I am better able to understand what happened and all the things I thought and felt than I was at the time. For the first 2 months I was in a fog of shock an disbelief. It is so hard to understand if you have never been there. I am hoping this blog will educate people a little bit about heart disease and help the families of those that have suffered a heart attack. I am hoping that sharing my story will also help me to heal in a way. I hope that you will stay with me through this journey. Please feel free to email me with questions along the way or post them on here. I promise to do my best to answer them.