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what is my life expectancy?
by jay1181, Jul 01, 2008 07:50AM
I had a heart attack at the age of 38 years. A year later I had to have a single coronary by pass using my mammary artery. I am on many tablets ie: aspirin, ramipril, thyroxine, esomaprozole, lipitor, hrt and insulin. I am concerned about the long term effects of these medications and how will it effect my life expectancy? Sometimes I feel I can't make retirement decisions especially financial because of this. Also I know that a healthy life style plays a large part in controlling my condition but will it ensure that I will not need another by pass?
This discussion is related to How long does heart bypass surgery last?.
This discussion is related to How long does heart bypass surgery last?.
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using my mammary arteries 21 years ago.I am now 63.I have cholestrol checks and take Atenanol.Do not think you are an invalid, enjoy life, and talk to people who have had the same problem it is a great help,
"Believe me"
Bry.
In light of the current state of heart treatment and the rapid progress, though, I'd definitely go ahead with your retirement program. You could find yourself alive and retired, and THEN you'd be mad!
While none of us are sure how long we have on "god's beautiful earth", I find it hard to focus on my "retirement" any longer.
It's made me fatalistic, but has also lightened the burden and the pressure of juggling all the financial balls in the air, playing the actuarial game. It just doesn't strike my fancy any longer.
Instead, I find myself pursuing my "Bucket List" while still trying to be professionally responsible. This approach has lightened the emotional burdens and given me a low BS threshold. People notice the difference in me...but no one has yet voiced to me personally if this change is good, bad or indifferent.
For anyone to say that I'm going to live to be 63 is a wash...may be I will and may be I won't. There are no guarantees. But I'd hate to be planning today for tomorrow and missing out on living today...which was the way I was approaching life.
I used to save for the rainy days...well my rainy days are here, and it's a downpour! So I've doffed my mac (raincoat), pulled out my brawley (umbrellla) and put on my galoshes (rain proof boots) and I'm out splashing around in the puddles ;) It's the only way I know how ....in my best Gene Kelly impression!
To not do so, and then find that a year or two or 6 mts from now I take a turn for the worse and I didn't follow my passions (or indulge them - they're all legal ones btw!) would be a travesty to myself and to life.
Now if I run through my money and find myself alive and kicking 20 years later, don't forget to drop a Qtr or two into an old lady's cup with a sign saying "I dared to take a chance and tasted of sweet capricious life - now help this old broad get a hot cuppa soup!"
Except the rain. We've had ten or a dozen years of drought, and I'm thinking perhaps I'll pack my Wellies and a couple of jumpers and fly across. Stay 'til I'm sick of the rain and mildew and 20 hours of sunlight, and come home to enjoy the heat and the drought a while longer.
Anyway, I really enjoyed reading your remarks.
There is a more serious side to all this and it is the heart break that comes with the uncertainty of a future. I found myself second guessing the other day whether I should get a 2-year magazine subscription, and just broke down in tears. Life is not the same anymore...no matter how much of a sense of "normalcy" I try to surround myself with...it is simply not the same anymore.
And with it comes a concomitant sadness that only those who are going through something similar truly understand. Everyone around you hopes and expects that you're back on your feet and to a large extent you are, but there is a part of each of us who has died a little.
My passions are indulged with a sense of urgency, celebrating friends' birthdays or family anniversaries are bittersweet...for I know not if I'll be around next year or the year after.
I'm trying to consume of life like a glutton - not sure when this will all come crashing down. I feel vulnerable and hardened at the same time...exposed emotionally to the foibles that are being thrown my way, and hardened in spirit to the exigencies that I must eventually face.
It is my fervent hope that I have not made light of a serious and heart breaking issue in my previous post, and I pray that all of us have the strength to carry on...
It makes good sense to me, and what is most important is that it gives a person a chance to live well and live long. If a person continues to practice the old lifestyle--and unfortunately many do--then the odds most certainly are against a normal life expectancy.
We also know that for all of us on the planet, there are no guarantees. But we can improve our chances by the choices that we make.
__________
Quite the contrary. Humor, even dark humor, seems to enhance communication and convey images that would be laborious to express otherwise.
I get in trouble from time to time for appearing flippant about something that is not light at all, but I figure that's the fault of the listener. ;-) Since your audience here is all pretty much in the same boat, it isn't like we misunderstand and think the writer (you) is ridiculing or doesn't respect the situation.
Anyway, I like humor. I'm not much of a humor creator, but I'm a big humor consumer.