Why call a website wake-up call health? Back in August last year I got my wake-up call. Let me give you a little background on what led to my wake-up call. I was a truck driver with over 18 years of experience. I started driving commercially back in July of 2006. It was my dream job at the time. (So, I thought.) For the first two years I loved it. I got to see parts of the country I’ve never seen. Along with being a truck driver came the lifestyle. At that time food choices were terrible. I had (for the most part) either fried or greasy. It never occurred to me that I might want to buy my own groceries so I could have more control over what I ate. I also smoked about 1.5 packs per day for 8 years. Exercise options were virtually nonexistent. So, I ate what I wanted when I wanted and that was where I went wrong. Multiply that by 18 years combined with a lack of exercise and that was how I got to where I am now.
What motivated me to start my driving career was my desire to get off government assistance. I achieved that goal in 2005 when I started working in construction. My time as a construction worker was short lived. In 2006 the housing market in Southwest Montana began to collapse. The company I was working for went under and I didn’t want to go back on government assistance. So, I reached out to a company I applied to previously and began driving for them and up until August of last year I’ve been driving ever since.
The food choices (for the most part) were terrible. I had either fried or greasy. At that point I didn’t care either. For breakfast it was biscuits and gravy with coffee. For dinner it was chicken fried steak and salad. Occasionally I might have thrown in a cheeseburger for good measure. And let’s not forget desert either. I had a thing for chocolate shakes. I ate what I wanted when I wanted. And I would frequently eat way more than I should.
The other thing I did that didn’t help was smoke. I smoked about 1.5 packs per day until I met my ex-wife. Her and her mom got me turned on to vaping. ( I later learned that it’s just as bad if not worse than smoking.) So from 2014 to 2024 most of what I did was vape. Now when my ex went down to Southern Chili, I started smoking cigars again. I quit those back in 2022. I finally quit vaping back in May of last year.
Exercise options were severely limited. Some of the major truck stops have only just begun putting in exercise equipment and it was marginal at best. Occasionally I would get out and walk around the truck stop for an hour but that wasn’t enough. Back in 2023 I was at my company’s yard in Alabama. I had to move a truck to get to mine. As I was getting in I noticed that the driver had a compact elliptical in his truck. I told my mom about it and I got one for Christmas. I think by the time I got it the damage has already been done. I used it regularly but got minimal results. I also found out that my thyroid was dead.
Fast forward a few months to August 4th, 2024. I was at the Pilot in Salisbury, North Carolina getting ready for bed. My chest started hurting. I thought it was acid reflux so I took some stuff I had for it. It didn’t work. I was up most of the night in pain thinking it was acid reflux. The next morning I was doing better. I was still concerned about the pain though. I got to my customer in Kernersville, North Carolina, dropped one trailer, picked up another and left. As I was making my way south on I85 I called my doctor’s office and got an appointment the next day. The nurse practitioner who saw me ordered two lab tests. One was to check troponin levels and I forgot what the other one was. She gave me a prescription for acid reflux and as I was picking it up I got a call from the nurse practitioner telling me to get to the hospital.
The hospital transferred me to Dothan via ambulance. (The ambulance had no suspension.)I got to Flowers Hospital and found out I had the arteries of a 90 year old. They were originally going to do a heart cath and put stents in but when they realized that wasn’t possible, I was rushed into bypass surgery. 5 bypasses later and I was done. Almost as soon as I was released, I got to work on my cardiac rehab. In November I had 3 stents put in me.
I still feel a little bit of pain when my heart rate gets up but it’s a lot better than it was. At first I was loosing weight. I was doing well with portion control and eating healthy. Then I started making some of the choices I used to make. As a result I started gaining weight again. Once I realized what I was doing I stopped. I’ve started lifting weights and doing more cardio and as a result I’ve started losing weight again. The outcome of all of this is quintuple bypass surgery, 3 stents, a diagnosis of rheumatoid vasculitis, rheumatoid arthritis, and coronary artery disease.
My wake-up call was waking up after surgery in the Cardiac Care Unit at Flowers Hospital with a breathing tube down my throat. The nurse wasn’t happy when I yanked it out. I’ve started this website because I don’t want to see anyone suffer the way I did and I want to help people make the same lifestyle changes I’m having to make.
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