Member Profiles
CHRISTINE
My name is Christine, I am a 39 year old mother
and wife living in So. Jersey and on Mothers day 2004 I had a heart attack. I am
still in shock. I had emergent open heart surgery May 9th, 2004 at 6 am. I had
five bypasses with the donor vein extracted from my right leg. I woke up after
the surgery briefly aware that I was on a respirator I remember wondering why I
didn't die. Why had I been spared??
I hadn't taken care of myself my entire life. I was overweight, had MS, Diabetes
and hypertension. I had risk factors that would scare off doctors and still I
ignored them.
I have a family to love and love me back. Why didn't I take care of myself sooner? As one of the surgeons put it, my family history handed me the gun, and my lifestyle pulled the trigger. Wow those are powerful words. I was killing myself slowly, year after year and now I am able to live and talk about it with you. Diabetes was a disease I did not pay attention to. Ice cream, candy, excessive eating, I did it all and had it all without ever taking the diabetes medication that was perscribed or testing my blood sugar. As for Hypertension, it was WAY out of control. Sometimes I would have chest pain, dizziness, shortness of breath and it would concern me I would take the blood pressure medication and forget about it for a while until it made it self known again.
I almost died two weeks ago today. Because I didn't take care of myself, because I thought I was invinsible, because I thought "It won't happen to me."
I want to embrace my life that I almost lost, tell my family how much I love them, hug anyone that will let me. I want to live!
Please, Please know that if you don't take care
of yourself you will die. Nothing is more important than life, it is a precious
gift that can not be ignored! The next time you don't want to test your blood
sugar, or take a blood pressure pill, or pass on the high cholesterol food give
me a holler hopefully I can change your mind. It all starts today and it all
starts with you. God Bless you. Christine
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