Happy Heart Month - An Unexpected Personal Experience

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  This Valentine's Day means a bit more to me than normal. 

On January 21st I suffered a heart incident out of the blue.  I've been a very healthy person all my life and I've eaten well and worked out regularly.  On January 21st while at a meeting I suffered an 'incident'.  I don't even know how to describe it because I really don't remember much about it.  I was so lucky to have been somewhere where someone immediately called the ambulance and they got me to the hospital quickly. 

My memory of the rest of that day and the next day is pretty much non existent.  I was lucky to have been taken to Scottsdale Shea Hospital and I was also lucky to have been treated by an awesome surgeon, Dr. Caskey.  They had to replace my aorta, and attach the new one to all those veins and blood vessels.  I'm told there was only a 20% chance of survival.  I'm very lucky to be here today to talk about it.  I'm happy to say that I'm 3 1/2 weeks past that event and I'm recovering well at home.  I'm finally back on my computer checking messages regularly and trying to get back up to date again.  It's probably going to be another week or so before I can fully get back into my business as I won't be able to drive for another week. 

Apparently I have something called Marfans disease.  I won't be absolutely certain about that until I see some specialists at Stanford University in May.  Of course, we want to get to the bottom of this so we're going to make the trip to San Francisco and find out for sure. 

I have to say that I can probably credit my survival to the fact that I'm in good health, I work out regularly, and I'm careful about what I eat.  I truly believe that had I not been so healthy, I would not have survived.  I encourage everyone to exercise and be careful about what you eat in order to maintain good health.  It's definitely worth it! 

Thank you to all my family and friends for your support.  It means the world to me.