Dan, you know in 1998 I was two steps away from being put on a heart transplant list. We had already, family I am speaking of, made several visits to a physycologist to make sure not just myself but my immediate family could emotionaly handle walking around with someone elses heart. I was in a program at the Emory Heart Failure center in Atlanta. My Wife says they called one day and said a new medicine had been approved for CHF patients and they wanted to start me on it imediately. The medication was Coreg or Carvadiol, my ejection fraction was down to 20. They gave me a starting dose of the new medication and had me go to the snack bar and kill about an hour then come back. They then gave me 100 mgs. of Coreg and in three months my heart function had improved considerably. I still take Coreg today and Ibet you take it or have and I am sure by know there are other similar medications.
I have just never really come back from my heart attack three years ago, but it was the three strokes I had within a month that put me on my backside so long plus Parkinson's desease.
I have a friend right now that builds and restores hotrods/ muscle cars, he is 65 and never had a EKG and he can work two twenty five year olds in the ground. He gets so hot in his shop and works at a running pace and has had some chest pains this summer but I can't get him to get a checkup. I just wonder what percentage of men and women that experience some chest pain or tightness and ignore them go on and have heart attacks and don't make it?
Landspeed racing and dragracing and tinkering around in my shop has been the driving force in my recovery.
Take care
Garrell