If you are a male over fifty-five, slightly overweight, out of shape, and hooked on a
diet of greasy foods, you are a prime candidate for coronary artery disease, CAD. If
you are female over sixty, in menopause, with similar conditions, weigh more than you
should, less than in shape, and prone to eating whatever you want without concern
of fat content, you too are a prime candidate for CAD. Statistically, you are now in
a group with a high probability of contracting some heart or blood pressure-related
affliction. And it doesn't have to be. I know. What follows is my twenty-plus-year
chronicle of living with diagnosed coronary artery disease. I did not have to be a
candidate for CAD, and neither should you. If I knew then, before I suffered my
first heart attack, what I know now, I would not have had that first heart attack and
the eventual triple bypass operation.
You can rise above the statistics that one half of the population will sometime in
their life be a diagnosed with CAD. With conscious thought and daily management,
you too can defy the odds of contracting a heart related affliction, namely a heart
attack. If you have had a heart attack and pulled through, there is life afterward;
a good life in fact. A well-managed life filled with tomorrows without chest pains
is attainable. You can live more than the generally accepted projection of six years
between heart seizure events, heart attacks.
