Good morning EXers.....
It's been a long time since I posted a blog...I've been out living life on life's terms.....
Smokefree has given me a vast amount of new freedom and physical ability that I simply did not have time to enjoy while I was a slave to the demonic powers of nicotine addiction....
That being said, I now sleep better, in that I am no longer waking up every two hours to either cough up golf ball sized clumps of phlem, or yield to the reflex of reaching over to the pack of death that was perched so close to my head on the night stand....only to light up another coffin nail and have it fall from my sleepy fingers and burn holes into either my carpet, or sheets....now that I remember that, geez did I ever burn up alot of perfectly good sets of linens when I was still smoking.....
So, as time has been passing by, and I am now mending quite well as a result of the absence of nicotine.....some other factors are starting to come into view with my age (68 come this April..) and reckless lifestyle that I used to live. Yesterday, I went to see the cardiologist for a followup visit after my heart surgery that I had done on Aug 28th of last year. I actually thought that the Drs would tell me how great I was doing and that I was a walking miracle...lol. Well, all was looking good, in that I had lost weight...15 lbs!, and my blood pressure was 124/70! All the doctors said, "we should all be so blessed to have blood pressure as good as that...However, my heart rate was 97 beats per minute, and they rushed me to get an ECG right away. Turns out, that I am in Atrial Flutter...not Atrial Fibrillation....It was explained to me that Flutter is much more desirable and easier to treat than the latter. Flutter comes from a small irregularity inside one of my upper atrial valves, and can be rectified via a camera led chemical burning tool through my aorta (from my groin) to the upper chambers of my heart and then they will burn down the irregularity, thus eliminating the flutter. This procedure has a 95% success rate of the flutter never returning after it is performed, conversely, only 5% of the cases ever experience an occurrence of the condition returning. This is all because now that I have been diagnosed as Flutter patient, I am in a high risk of a clot forming inside of my heart and dislodging to the blood stream and landing in my brain, causing a stroke....(oh how fun does that sound???...)
I am simply grateful that God has given me access to Doctors that are skilled and equipped properly to handle these sort of issues with a great deal of success in my lifetime. Our parents were basically put out to pasture to just fade away and die in their lifetimes. We, are much more fortunate having the wonders of modern medicine that is available today.
Can you possibly imagine how little my chance of recovery would have been had I still been smoking and taking in that blood thickening poison of nicotine? I am so glad to be smokefree, and hope that others might read this blog, as well as some of my other blogs and see just how fortunate I really am, and if I can do this....then what on earth could you possibly be thinking that would justify you into making a statement like, "well, that's good for you, but I'm different...I just can't quit?" Bull! Anybody can quit, but only after you have made up your mind that you quit, and then remember...you just don't smoke anymore...."PERIOD"!!!
Have a wonderful smokefree day today...
Pops w/154 DOF!
