Please Allow Me to Tell You About the Heart Attack I Suffered at 34

Hopefully, It Will Help Someone

When I was 34 years old, I was lucky enough to suffer a heart attack and survive. Placing the word lucky before heart attack and survive is intentional. Without that heart attack I might not still be alive and kicking at 47.

The reason I am writing about it is to hopefully warn people of the signs that I ignored and to let people know of the poor advice that you can get from the medical community that could lead to your death.

I always knew that both sides of my family had heart issues. My father had a double bypass when he was in his early 40’s. Relatives on my mother’s side of the family had heart issues as well.

What I failed to understand is that a family history of heart disease made it highly likely that I would have heart issues as well, simply based on genetics and leaving aside other risk factors. According to the American Heart Association:

“Both the risk of heart disease and risk factors for heart disease are strongly linked to family history,” said William Kraus, M.D., a preventive cardiologist and research scientist at Duke University “If you have a stroke in your family, you are more likely to have one.”