Two "Construction" Workers Saved My Life

So throughout my life I've experienced many landmark events. Getting a driver's license at 16; registering for the draft at 18; my first (legal) drink at 21; first time doing a radio show on the air; first tv appearance; marriage; births; deaths; awards. I'm not braggin'...I'm just sayin'! My landmarks are of no less or no greater importance than yours, his or the guy walking down Main Street (to quote Sister Veronica Rose, St. Stephen's Catholic School in Monterey Park, California.) I experienced another such landmark January 22 at 2 A.M. My first, and hopefully my last, heart attack. A 100% occluded left anterior descending coronary artery. Yep, the cardiologist (Dr. Nassir Azimi at Grossmont Hospital) cheerfully told my wife he'd never seen the "widow maker" blocked quite like this one. And that he'd remember it for the rest of his career (and he's only 38.) He, along with Dr. Hassankhani, surmised they needed to perform an angioplasty and see if they could unclog this bugger. Why two doctors? Because I'm so damned important! Thankfully they think ALL their patients are so DAMNED important. So it really wasn't an "egotastic" moment. You see, Dr. Hassankhani is "the electrician" -- he's an electro-cardiologist who had performed two cardiac ablations on me in the past 24 months. Dr. Azimi is "the plumber" --he's the guy who unclogs the pipes. So together these two journeymen tradesmen set out to make me better. I didn't need to look for their union label, I simply needed to have the chest pain stop. And they did. And now, two weeks hence, I am planning my return to work to the KyXy Morning Show, Monday February 9th and a lifelong struggle against weight gain, salt over usage and consistent exercise regimens.

Along with a heart attack and it's subsequent physical recovery (glad I can use both those words/phrases in the same sentence) come psychological mending, too. Will I wake up in the morning? Will that artery clog again? Will I need a transfusion if I nick myself shaving (damn blood thinners)? What's that little pain in my chest? Oh, it's nothi....beeeeep...flatline!

So this is one of my landmark landmarks. Unlike my first "legal" cocktail, I could have done without this episode helping define my pretty much ordinary life. I could have done without the stress it had shoveled onto my Florence Nightingale wife. I could have done without the card I now must carry saying I belong to the "two stent gent's club." I could have done without all this had I only done without salt, sugar, excess calories and sendentarianism (not to be confused with Libertarianism, vegetarianism or disestablishmentarianism.)

I am thankful for all the landmark events in my life but none greater than this one. For along with this one comes the landmark opportunity to truly become "renaissance man" literally. In some regards a lot like Benjamin Button who grows younger and smaller with age. I'll never get younger, but I intend to grow smaller.

I am thankful to my electrician and my plumber for the chance to be reborn.