heart disease
1.
any condition of the heart that impairs its functioning.
I took this definition from dictionary.com. It's a pretty general definition.
If you have been reading my blog for any length of time or you are my friend on Facebook you know that I promote heart health.
February is National Heart Month. February 5th is Wear Red for Women's Heart Health. I am so passionate about this cause. I encourage all my family and friends to wear red the first Friday of every February to promote women's heart health.
I have done blogs in the past giving all kinds of statistics regarding heart health, etc.
Heart disease has no criteria. It can affect anyone at any time, from babies to adults. It is often called the silent killer.
I'm going to share what heart disease has taken from my family and I.
Nineteen years old I get a call that my mother had died. No warning. My youngest brother was a Junior in High School at the time. Mom sat down on the sofa and never got back up.
Gone
No warning - no time to say good-bye.
Six years and three children later another call. This time it's my dad. He's in the hospital, He has had a heart attack and they have him stabilized.
I flew home. What a lonely scary flight.
Two weeks I sat with my dad in the hospital. I saw him receive shock treatments. He was in critcal care. Visitors were limited to 10 minutes an hour. As long as no one else was there they let me stay in the room with him all the time. They thought he might make it. I made plans to fly home. Went back to the hospital to say good-bye and am told you need to get all your family here - he won't make it through the day.
They were right.
Six years - two parents.
My children grew up without grandparents.
My brothers and I no longer had a 'home' to go home to. My house became my brothers 'go-to' place when I moved back to Missouri. We lost 'home' again when I moved to Oklahoma.
There was no one for me to call when I had a question about child-rearing.
No one to take a call when I wanted to say 'What do you think, Dad?'
No one to enjoy my children being grandchildren.
No one to 'spoil' them as a grandparent would.
No one there when I needed someone to talk to.
No one
Can I say sometimes you just miss your mom and dad. No matter how long it has been some days are just hard.
I'm jealous of people who complain about the 'problems' with their parents. Yes, there are some who feel their parents are a 'burden' to them. Yes, I have been known to tell them how lucky they are that they have parents who need to be taken to a doctor appointment or to the grocery store. (Let me say that not all my friends or acquaintances complain about this. I don't want to give the impression that I have insensitive friends. But there are a few people who do complain).
So let me do what I do best -- PROMOTE HEART HEALTH -- for ALL. Wear your RED on February 5th. Get checkups and most of all
cherish what you have.
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