Family’s Love: Dad’s Heart Recovery Journey

Well, I have been on a long journey, and now it’s all about lifestyle changes and health changes. I have been sick for years, 6-7 years to be exact. My health has declined rapidly, and I just kept saying I am a man and I will fight through it. I don’t need a doctor to tell me what’s wrong; men don’t go to the doctor. I progressively got worse. Then I got COVID four times in less than a year. Only once did I take medication. I am a man, and I can fight it off. That’s what I kept telling myself. I didn’t listen to the people who loved me and cared for me. I was hurting them just as much as I was hurting every day, and the pain was getting worse. I was selfish and never thought about how it was weighing on my wife or what it was doing to my kids as they watched me struggle. I was getting so bad the last four years that I couldn’t do my job anymore. I was losing my memory, and my eyesight was getting worse. I just blamed it on being a bigger guy and getting older. The last eight months have been absolutely horrible. Not being able to sleep or eat and in so much pain I wanted to cry 20 hours out of every day because of the pain I was in. Again, men don’t cry; real men find a way to work through it. Take a bunch of ibuprofen or Tylenol and hope it helps. I am a real man, and I need to push through it, and I will be fine and bounce back. I didn’t listen to the pleas from my wife or kids to go to the doctor to get help. I just kept getting worse, losing muscle at rapid speeds. Finally, about two months ago, I got really sick and thought I was seriously done for. I just kept taking every pill I could find, but the bacterial infection was winning, and I was losing my family and my battle. Finally, Sunday, May 4th, I broke down. I was in full body edema, and I couldn’t walk five feet without stopping to catch my breath. I went to walk in on Tuesday the 6th for blood work and an exam. I was called at 8 pm and told to get to the ER right away; I was in heart failure. So everything I thought I was being a man for almost ended me. I was so stubborn and thought that I could fight everything myself, and I was so wrong. My dad and Alexa brought me to the ER, and they said my heart was working at 8-10%, and I was being admitted to the cardiac floor. I was definitely scared. They were pumping me full of Lasix to get the water weight out of me so I could have an echogram and some right-side heart tests done. I was peeing almost 1000 ml per hour. My tests came back good, and I didn’t need a stent. My next ultrasound showed my heart was up to 20%. When I was released from the hospital, I weighed 242.7 lbs, having lost all the water weight. Now, today, I am on medication and have lots of food restrictions and exercise also. But I am down to 231.1 lbs and feel like I have a second chance. My wife and kids were a huge part in saving me. I have a strong support group, and I love all of them: my wife, kids, and my dad; my in-laws, who flew here as soon as they found out I was in the hospital; my mom and my sisters. I have a long road to recovery, but I know now real men will take care of themselves and go to the doctor to make sure they are there for their family. My other concern was with no insurance, how much in medical bills will I have and how much my medication was going to be. Especially since I haven’t found a job yet. They just keep piling up, which is still a stress every day.