Why I'm Blogging

My name is Bill and I am attempting to become Vegan so that my cardiac disease can be stopped and hopefully reversed. I would like to live a few more years and I would like to not spend my lifetime of savings on tests and treatments - I am not insurable for at least the next four years (more on that later).

I am a serious meat eater - have been my whole life. It all started with my father - and no, I am not blaming here! My father grew up on a farm and didn't have much money. When he became successful and could afford it he felt that a powerful symbol of his prosperity was eating a steak every night of the week - every night! He had his first heart attack in his thirties and died at 52 from a massive attack. I never knew him when he didn't take nitroglycerin tablets for angina (chest pains) at least once a day.

My delusion until recently was that since I didn't smoke, drink heavily, or have steaks every night like him that I could afford to be less careful about my diet than my doctors were always telling me. When I wasn't being delusional I was being fatalist and thinking that with my family history (my mother died in her early forties eighteen months before my father) what difference did it make anyway?

So fourteen years ago I had a "cardiac episode" at the gym. Actually it started at work while I was acting as Master of Ceremonies for a Time-to-Market Summit for the company I worked for at the time. I was presenting to about 200 executives and the presentation was critical of the people in the room. I started to have shortness of breath and felt like I couldn't get a deep breath - I assumed nerves...speech was complicated, technical, critical. But after the summit the shortness of breath did not go away. So the day after, at the gym when my left arm started to go numb I knew that I was having "something" and I thought it was a heart attack. Turns out that the attack was actually serious angina and a procedure the next day showed that I have three coronary arteries blocked 90 to 95%. I had stents inserted to open them up and was sent on my way with a prescription for nitroglycerin tablets - like father, like son!

In the fourteen years since I have lost weight and gained it back several times but I've become a regular exerciser so I started to slip on my dietary choices. I think using a slippery slope metaphor is appropriate because by the time I entered the hospital two weeks ago for a heart cath my diet was one that resembled what I used to eat way before I had the first episode - in other words, NOT HEART SMART!

It shouldn't be a surprise then that the cardiologist said that I had 50 to 60 percent blockage in an important artery - not enough to stent or bypass but without changes it would need an intervention within a year or two. He further said that he would like to "go back in for a look" in a year and if the blockage had increased he would go right to bypass because the blockage is not in a place that would work with a stent!

A year from now I'll be 58 - I do not want bypass surgery at 58. Also because I lost my job at the company I worked for when I had the first one it is possible that I will not have insurance a year from now! The pre-existing conditions coverage in the recently passed Health Care bill addresses pre-existing conditions for children but not for adults. This means that insurance companies do not have to sell me a policy OR they can sell a policy that calls cardiac disease a pre-existing condition and not cover it! A heart cath with a by-pass without insurance would wipe out a chunk of my 401K meaning that I would have to continue work of some sort for the rest of my life. Stress from work would exacerbate my heart situation so it feels a bit like a no-win situation for me!

That is until I read a book suggested by the trainer I've been working with for 15 years - he suggested the book, didn't write it. That book is, "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary Scientifically Proven Nutrition-Based Cure," by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr.. M.D.

Dr. Esselstyn "proved" his diet by taking a bunch of cardiac patients as subjects who had been told that nothing else could be done for them. He was able to reverse their disease and some of them lived 20 years after the dietary changes! Sounds great until you find that the diet is even more "healthy" than vegan! It's vegan but with no nuts, no fat or oil of anykind (even olive oil)!! Sounds crazy BUT what choice do I have??

I know myself well and I know that an immediate move to Esselstyn's diet would create a failure for me so I'm moving there gradually. I'm writing this blog because knowing myself as well as I do (major extrovert) I need to think that other people are "involved" with my effort - if it's just me who knows I'll "cheat" but if I know that people may read about my choices - especially knowing that when I'm gone they could say, "well remember that time that he screwed up and ate a steak? Could have lived a year longer without that moment of weakness!" :-) Also at least six friends have asked me for recipes and this will be a cool way to discover, share and keep up with recipes I find that help with the journey to vegan.

That's me and why I'm blogging. Will I be successful and become vegan? Will I have the "big one" and die before I make it? Will I become vegan but get run over by a car? Will I find recipes or make up new recipes that wow me and my readers? Will I find ways to eat out and stay vegan? Stay tuned!