Eight years ago today (June 18) I woke up to plan a funeral. Well, truthfully, I had not really slept the night before having arrived home from the emergency room near two or three a.m. with my Mother, newly widowed. It was a black day.
It is surreal to imagine that this many years have passed since my father’s death from a heart attack. Seven birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases and Easters. A college graduation he did not attend and professional acclaim he has not seen. It does not hurt today, like you might think that it does, because time truly takes that away. Though the time takes away pain, it takes some memories too and it certainly gives nothing back.
I am using my loss as a teaching or motivating point for the men reading my blog today. My father died in 2002; in 2003 the amount of men living with any form of coronary heart disease in the US was over seven million. Over 245 thousand died from the disease with 89 thousand due to heart attacks. In that ONE year. This information is found in an American Heart Association report published in 2006. The CDC tells us that one in five deaths in the USA are related to heart disease and that heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women. It is said that persons with heart disease lose about 14 years of their life. That would have a person dying at 64 instead of 78 – and in my family, we had a couple of those losses as well.
Here is the most important message from the CDC and the American Heart Association. Heart disease is almost always preventable. It is almost always related to things that we do or do not do. My father lived as long as he did not because he was healthy but because he was medicated. Cholesterol, blood pressure and arrhythmia pills – he did exercise and eat right – after his first attack and his lifestyle improved intermittently – but he could not change that his arteries were clogged from many decades of not exercising and not limiting the meats, starches and gravies. OK and YES – he once smoked and he drank too much. He had had an aortic aneurysm at one point, also a cardiovascular disease indication and causally linked to smoking.
In reading about sudden death today, I learned that heart attacks leave scars and that the scars can lead to an electrical instability – in other words the heart doesn’t beat correctly. It can beat very slow or very fast. My father died when his was beating so fast it was fluttering instead of pumping.
My father was funny, smart, entertaining, gregarious, supportive, loving, compassionate and a few less positive things – but he was MY DAD.
Not everyone is a father – I get that, but if you are – as Father’s Day approaches – please, take care of your heart because your little girls and boys, no matter their age, really want to celebrate with you. And so, here goes Father’s Day number seven without my dad, as he died the Monday night after Father’s Day in 2002.
And don’t think you men without kids are off the hook either – eat right, exercise, don’t smoke, watch the salt, and slow down on the booze – 14 years is too many too give up.
http://www.americanheart.org/downloadable/heart/113535864858055-1026_HS_Stats06book.pdf
It is surreal to imagine that this many years have passed since my father’s death from a heart attack. Seven birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases and Easters. A college graduation he did not attend and professional acclaim he has not seen. It does not hurt today, like you might think that it does, because time truly takes that away. Though the time takes away pain, it takes some memories too and it certainly gives nothing back.
I am using my loss as a teaching or motivating point for the men reading my blog today. My father died in 2002; in 2003 the amount of men living with any form of coronary heart disease in the US was over seven million. Over 245 thousand died from the disease with 89 thousand due to heart attacks. In that ONE year. This information is found in an American Heart Association report published in 2006. The CDC tells us that one in five deaths in the USA are related to heart disease and that heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women. It is said that persons with heart disease lose about 14 years of their life. That would have a person dying at 64 instead of 78 – and in my family, we had a couple of those losses as well.
Here is the most important message from the CDC and the American Heart Association. Heart disease is almost always preventable. It is almost always related to things that we do or do not do. My father lived as long as he did not because he was healthy but because he was medicated. Cholesterol, blood pressure and arrhythmia pills – he did exercise and eat right – after his first attack and his lifestyle improved intermittently – but he could not change that his arteries were clogged from many decades of not exercising and not limiting the meats, starches and gravies. OK and YES – he once smoked and he drank too much. He had had an aortic aneurysm at one point, also a cardiovascular disease indication and causally linked to smoking.
In reading about sudden death today, I learned that heart attacks leave scars and that the scars can lead to an electrical instability – in other words the heart doesn’t beat correctly. It can beat very slow or very fast. My father died when his was beating so fast it was fluttering instead of pumping.
My father was funny, smart, entertaining, gregarious, supportive, loving, compassionate and a few less positive things – but he was MY DAD.
Not everyone is a father – I get that, but if you are – as Father’s Day approaches – please, take care of your heart because your little girls and boys, no matter their age, really want to celebrate with you. And so, here goes Father’s Day number seven without my dad, as he died the Monday night after Father’s Day in 2002.
And don’t think you men without kids are off the hook either – eat right, exercise, don’t smoke, watch the salt, and slow down on the booze – 14 years is too many too give up.
http://www.americanheart.org/downloadable/heart/113535864858055-1026_HS_Stats06book.pdf
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