[Boatanchors] WA7LYO SK

[J. Forster]

> John, (and Whomever)
>
> I had a massive stroke on December 27, 2009. I am 5'10 and weigh 152
> pounds.
> I was sixty-three at the time. I was an athlete when in high school. I
> even
> had a chance to tryout for the Major leagues with the Baltimore Orioles
> AAA
> farm club, the Aberdeen Pheasants, in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I had worked
> out every day of the week for over four years and had all toned muscle,
> little, if any, body fat.
>
> All of that went away the night before I turned eighteen in October of
> 1964.
> I was shot by a stranger using a twelve gauge shotgun using #6 shot while
> I
> was standing in my parent's backyard. He was Pheasant hunting in a
> residential area! Totally illegal! No matter, when he turned and hip shot
> he
> hit me in the upper chest, neck and face from sixty feet away. So much for
> my future with another bird, the Orioles!
>
> Before the sudden and unexpected stroke, I had a total blood cholesterol
> level of 149. Well below the norm of 200. My blood pressure was slightly
> elevated, averaging 140/80. I was on a low dose of calcium channel
> blockers
> for that.
>
> I took nothing else.
>
> My health was considered by the doctors as excellent for a white male of
> my
> age.
>
> I ate no candy of any kind. I seldom ate any cookies, cake or pie. Never
> ate
> whipped cream, coconut, and so forth. However, I did eat some Cashew nuts
> for the Christmas holidays. In moderation, but I still ate the cholesterol
> laden things anyhow!
>
> Overall, I was eating healthy, exercising on a regular basis (exercise
> bike - going for endurance, not for speed, high repitition with hand
> weights
> (I hate the term "dumbells"!), some moderate physical exercises etc. Push
> ups, sit ups etc.
>
> For reasons nobody knows, my blood sugar hit 1,100 and I went into a
> diabetic coma. Normally a blood sugar level of 500 puts one into a coma
> and
> often times is fatal. The hospital that I was taken to is a level one
> trauma
> center. They told my daughter that I had the highest blood sugar level of
> any patient that survived more then twenty-four hours in the hospital's
> records! A title I was glad to be awarded, but I really would just as soon
> of not had the stroke to begin with!

The high BS is very bad for you. I doubt it went up very quickly. More
likely it went up unoticed. For every number over 7 on the A1C yoyu double
the chance of a heart attack.


> Now in June of 2003 I had a colonoscopy that revealed I had a large
> cancerous tumor right beside my liver. The upper right descending colon, I
> think. I had surgery to remove it on August 15, 2003. Remember that day
> you
> east coast dwellers? The sun fired a CME at the Earth and hit us big time!
> It knocked out the power in Canada first and then the failures trickled
> into
> Maine and just kept on going and growing!
>
> I remember hearing about people bringing gallon jugs of filtered water
> into
> the hospital. As well as the entire hospital running on the emergency
> generators providing electrical power to the operating rooms, patients
> rooms, elevators, kitchen and everywhere else!

Fun and games. No fun.

> So I survived Colon Cancer and a major nine clot stroke. I also was a
> victim
> of the Polio epedemic that hit the uSA in 1952. Nobody knew that I had
> Polio
> until an observant elementary school teacher noticed that I was limping
> when
> I ran. I did suffer muscle injuries from the Polio, however. It caused the
> vertebrae in my extreme lower back, the L area, to be diminished in size.
> I
> should have grown to be six feet tall, not five feet nine and one half
> inches. The three vertebrae have given me problems as I have gotten older.

:((

> Which I knew was going to happen. Unfortunately for me, losing my eyesight
> prevented me from doing the kind of exercises that I needed to do to slow
> down the progression of the vertebrae disintegration. Overall, however,
> unless one was watching my movements closely the problems with my lower
> back and legs would go unnoticed.
>
> Now let's add in the appendix problem when I was forty in 1987. Because
> the
> doctors, at least one of them anyhow, were convinced that I had a kidney
> stone problem! While they did tests on Saturday and Sunday, my appendix
> got
> worse and worse and ruptured about one hour before they took me into
> surgery
> to remove it! I nearly died from that massive infection! I spent
seventeen days in the hospital.

Doctors DO make mistakes. And are not often held accounbtable.

Best,

-John

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