I’d like to be able to say; “I’m a writer not a fighter”, because the fight I’m engaged in, is as much a personal, inner struggle as it is a social, outer conflict. I fight with myself and this causes me to be at odds with the world about me. I don’t litterally mean I’m engaged in hands on physical conflict, at least not in the conventional sense of the material understanding of life, but in some ways an inner struggle does seem to manifest conflict in an outer way just the same.
Can I write my way out of the fight and drag with me a few of my readers to a more peaceful and meaningful life?
I don’t really know, because I have not specifically tried writing in a serious way before, at least not too any great extent. To be honest, I don’t know if I can sustain a dialogue that would be interesting enough to capture a reader’s precious time. Non the less I am inspired somehow to give it a try. But what do I think I could have to say that might garner such attention to warrant a reader’s ten, twenty or perhaps even up to an hour of their time?
As you can probably tell by now, I’m certainly not skilled at selling myself, except perhaps ‘short’! Eskimo’s have nothing to fear from me as I approach them with a bag of ice. Now if you’ve managed to read this far, I’m thinking to myself; ‘quick, think of something interesting to say’. Okay then, I’ll give it a shot.
I survived a near fatal heart attack including approximately seven minutes in cardiac arrest. Did I have a near death experience? Possibly, but I can’t remember it. I did tell my wife that I saw angels and that I could see auras around about each one of us, except the atheist doctor who was tending to me. I don’t remember telling her that though.
I wish I could remember the emergency services helicopter flight from Brownwood Memorial Hospital too Abilene Regional Medical Centre. The last thing I remember before the heart attack was ordering some soda pop from Sonic there in Brownwood. I felt like I had indigestion like a ball of air trapped in the upper part of my belly just below the rib cage and thought maybe a soda pop would help me burp that air out. The next thing I remember after the heart attack was seeing my wife by the side of the hospital bed, she had an orange/red glow about her and was the most beautiful sight to behold. I remember telling her that I loved her.
I had spent two days in a medicated coma before I could have the surgery to place a stent in the one hundred percent occluded blood vessel. The surgery was performed by a Buddhist heart surgeon, who apparently did have an aura unlike the atheist doctor. I really can’t tell you much more about the experience of near death. It certainly isn’t one of the magnificent stories we often hear from some others who’ve recounted their brush with death.
I suppose the fact that I’m still alive now, adds weight to the claim of being a fighter, though life is not quite the same as it was before. Complications of reduced heart functionality, an apical aneurysm, 36% ejection fraction and a degree of hypoxic brain injury, which by a practical miracle I was not left completely speechless. That is putting it lightly, because the intensive care unit literally asked my wife to consider the chance that I might not be able to speak, to be for want of a better word, a vegetable. Apparently, I’m a walking miracle.
I don’t really want to get into all the medical problems of recovering from the ordeal which began almost eleven years ago now. I don’t really want to turn my first Substack post into a great big sob story, but really, the reason I am here now typing away on the keyboard is in a big way a direct result of that unfortunate or perhaps fateful day the 3rd December 2013.
The fact of the matter is, I haven’t been the same since, I haven’t been able to return to the work a day world and have struggled to find a new path, to make sense of what happened, to cope with the disabilities that have me seemingly trapped into a life of dependency too what I must be grateful but yet what feels like being a prisoner of the welfare state. Here we go with the slippery slope of doom and gloom. This is the very thing I don’t want to keep harping on about, but yet without speaking about it, the context of why I am here writing on Substack just wouldn’t make sense.
note: I must offer the disclaimer that I am in no way medically trained much less qualified. A BA(hons) in Fine Art Painting and Drawing doesn’t count. Anything you read below is not intended to suggest you follow my example and should not be considered advice. I am only recounting my personal choices. Please seek the advice of your own trusted medical practitioners.
For now, I want to get away from that part of the background information and skip forward to about 2018 when I began to start questioning the medical treatment that I was receiving for the heart attack. “Damn it” I hear you say, “I thought he didn’t want to talk about his heart attack”. Well, no I don’t, not really, but it has to do with allopathic medicine and potentially additional health issues arising from that medicine. These are things I think I want to talk about, they certainly interest me and I hope that what I learn may of be help to anyone else who finds their self in a similar place to me.
You’ll be happy to discover that I skipped the part about having a cardiac resynchronisation therapy device (CRTD) implanted in my chest in 2015, so count yourself lucky. But it is necessary to mention that during consultations for the implant, the Consultant Cardiologist mentioned one of the medications I was taking, Clopidogrel, which is an anti-platelet therapy to reduce the chances of blood clotting, that it should have been discontinued about a year previously and somehow was overlooked. If I hadn’t elected to accept the offer of the CRTD, I wonder how long I would have been taking that pill for?
This was the first red flag that started me on the road of questioning the treatment I was receiving. I’ll skip the whole failed CRTD implantation, at least for now as I’m trying to be brief.
2018 after a routine annual full blood serum test, the level of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) was off the charts, subsequent repeated tests showed that TSH was up and down like a yoyo. If it doesn’t rain it pours. Remembering the Clopidogrel incident, I started looking at medical papers online, mostly through the National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM) websites, specifically PubMed. It wasn’t long before I discovered that thyroid function could be impaired by long term use of Amiodarone, a medicine to help with cardiac arrythmias. I consulted with my cardiologist about the possibility that my condition was now complicated by Amiodarone induced thyrotoxicosis (AIT). The cardiologist having considered the infrequent and minor pacing treatments the compromised CRTD device was able to offer and that I was not experiencing significant ischemia (debilitating reduced blood flow) that he was happy to withdraw the use of Amiodarone and to my delight to also stop taking isosorbide mononitrate, a pill to help reduce the chances of ischemia. Three pills down, seven or so more to go.
Now I was on a mission to see just how many more pills I could stop taking, because I was seriously in doubt that the list of medications prescribed to me was helping my health more than they were harming my health. What a terrible state of affairs to find oneself.
Before the heart attack in 2012/13 my total cholesterol levels were above the national average, so I was diagnosed as having familial dyslipidemia and prescribed statins (cholesterol lowering therapy). I didn’t take the statins back then and was only convinced I should take them after the heart attack. But after having researched statins I decided I didn’t want to take them anymore. This whole statin affair needs to be discussed in a separate post as I’m trying to round up this post, that is if the statins haven’t impaired my nervous system too much!!!
Please let me try and cut this short before I run out of mental steam.
2020 ‘Plandemic’ occurred amid my questioning of medical practices already under way, which helped me be more vigilant and so was not convinced to accept the ‘coronavirus measures’ and completely avoided accepting the mRNA vaccines, thank God, whatever God is, or isn’t!.
My general practitioner doctor (GP ) was then trying to prescribe me thyroxine to treat what they were saying was hypothyroidism, despite my pointing out that in fact my TSH levels were unstable, that I had discontinued amiodarone and that I thought it wasn’t wise to treat a subclinical hypothyroidism which was in fact unstable with a pill for hypothyroidism. I elected to refrain from starting the suggested medicine in order to allow my body to attempt stabilising the thyroid function itself.
I have been taking a much more proactive attitude to making my own health decisions, increasing my intake of fresh foods as opposed to processed foods. My thyroid does seem to be leveling out, but I’m still monitoring it.
In a routine appointment with my cardiologist, he offered me a new pill to apparently help with post myocardial infarct (MI) patients, but after reading the list of highly undesirable, potential side effects, I rejected the offer. I’m pretty sure my cardiologist is now quite upset with my vigilance.
I then discovered that my vitamin D levels were much lower than they should be and have subsequentially been supplementing with calciferol D3. Now my D3 level is now higher than the GP is happy with, but I am not concerned, because I see the levels of cholesterol are lower than pre heart attack conditions, despite my increasing the consumption of full fat dairy products but paying attention to the reduction of consuming refined vegetable oils.
As a result of 2020, to present and the push for what seems like a medical dystopia dressed up as a health system that encourage self-help and yet at the same time a potential push for medical and climate tyranny, I am forced to try and learn what I can to make sense of the world I know find myself.
I suppose that is why I am here wrapping my fingers over the keyboard, hoping that I can at least help someone else besides myself and perhaps encourage others to help themselves too, because it sure as hell doesn’t look like the establishment really gives much of a rat’s arse about me or my family’s health and wellbeing.
Oh - and my ex-GP thinks I’m a conspiracy theorist… I ordered a microscope so expect some microscopy images too as a distraction from the serious stuff… and I might share some of my artwork with you as well…
There, I think I have finished my first offering on Substack. I would like to ask that if you enjoyed reading this message or maybe just feel sorry for me lol; please consider subscribing or leaving a comment, especially if there is an aspect I touched on that you would like me to expand on.
I ordered a microscope so expect some microscopy images too as a distraction from the serious stuff.
Please let me know if I am on the right track. I am a fighter not a writer, maybe becoming a writer not a fighter!