Heart Attack + 1 [Year, that is]

Today makes the first anniversary of a rather important event in my life. I had a heart attack. Here is how I described it a few days later.

Why do I want to remember having a heart attack? Because I know I was lucky to go in to get help as quickly as I did (thanks to a wise and wonderful wife!), even more, I was lucky to come home at all, lucky to have a job with a large sick leave balance so I could recuperate at home without fearing for my paycheck, lucky to have excellent health insurance, and lucky to have caring friends.

I've made diet changes, some exercise changes (somewhat hindered by arthritis) and lots of medication changes. I'm 35 pounds lighter than a year ago and I'm told I look several years younger.

I want to remember my heart attack to remind myself not to do anything to increase my chances of going back there. There are no guarantees of getting to go back home.

I like stories about alternate histories--where the Civil War turned out differently, for example. As Data said in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "For any event there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. According to a theory, everything that can happen does happen in some other quantum reality." (In the picture, the infinite number of versions of a character get together.)

An unhappy alternate history: somewhere maybe I didn't listen to my wife or just things turned out a little differently. And I didn't come home. My wife would have been a widow for the last year, I wouldn't have gotten to see my son accepted to Georgia Tech (yay!), and I wouldn't have seen our absolutely darling little rat terrier, Hayley. The line between outcomes can be very thin. I don't want to test them again.

And, while I've been back to Red Lobster, I haven't had the fried seafood platter again. The broiled platter tastes just fine, thank you!