The day a heart attack struck me down is a hard one to remember.<\/p>\n
I remember the stuff before (or during?): the cereal, the pressure in my chest, laying down thinking I was just not feeling well. I remember being tested in a room off the Emergency Room\u2014but I do not remember the ER at all otherwise. I remember someone suggesting the first tests came back negative, and that maybe it was gastrointestinal. (Later tests would suggest otherwise.) I also remember them pumping me with all sorts of drugs. Maybe that\u2019s when most of my memories get a little indistinct.<\/p>\n
I have to admit, there was nothing pleasant about the whole thing.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t spend my Near Death Experience thinking about the things I regretted in the past. I thought\u2014well, insofar as you can say I had any actual thoughts at all\u2014about the things I hadn\u2019t done yet, about the unfulfilled potentialities, the unfinished novels, the unseen sights, the unconquered challenges. I admit it was all very abstract. But I know where my focus was.<\/p>\n
Three days later, I emerged from the hospital, slowly and weakly, with one collapsed artery and an arsenal of medications. Used to be, I took one pill twice a day for my blood pressure, which has been high since I was 19. Now, there were a dozen medications, some twice daily, and insulin\u2013thanks to the diabetes\u2013as many as four times a day, depending on my sugar readings.<\/p>\n
So now I\u2019m stabbing myself multiple times a day. First to check my sugar, then to add insulin.<\/p>\n
The first week, it was an effort to get from the bed to the couch.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t want to stay weak. I didn\u2019t want to stay dependent upon an assortment of pills and shots.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s my motivation.<\/p>\n
The fitter I am\u2013the lower my weight and the better I eat\u2013the more likely I\u2019ll be able to kick some of those medications. A few\u2013like a daily vitamin\u2013might stay forever, but overall I wanted to get rid of as many as I could. I told my doctor this. I said it was an intention. A goal. A purpose. I want to be able to go climb Kilimanjaro and not have to worry about accidentally dropping my supply down the side of the mountain on the third day. (I still need someone to provide me with the chance to climb that mountain and see those glaciers.)<\/p>\n
For me, this isn\u2019t going to happen overnight. But in the past twelve months, since the heart attack, I\u2019ve managed to drop my weight by almost 60 pounds. Additionally, albeit with the help of all that medicine, I\u2019ve got all my numbers\u2013cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar\u2013under control. I\u2019m no longer insulin dependent. Under medical guidance, I\u2019ve eliminated some of the medicine. I still take a lot. But they\u2019re going away.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s my motivation.<\/p>\n
Your motivation, if you don\u2019t already have one, should be to avoid this scenario. Don\u2019t go until it\u2019s too late, or almost too late, or close enough to too late that you simply cannot recover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"