Get moving for your heart and loved ones

I live with heart disease.

I don't have it, but I've dealt with it, on and off, for the past 13 years. And with each passing year, it's strengthened my resolve to take care of my heart in all the many ways we know how.

Last Friday, my dad called me with the kind of news I've become used to for years. He had experienced multiple chest pains the night before and that morning. He and my stepmother were waiting in the emergency room, thankfully at Duke University Medical Center.

This episode, however, turned out to be more dire. A few hours later, tests showed that he suffered a "mild" heart attack and was likely headed for a major one. He was put on a cocktail drip of blood thinners and stabilized. Then, results from a Monday catheterization showed that his heart was the same as it was two years ago, with three "dead" arteries and two mostly blocked ones. This time around, though, his aortic valve also was severely blocked.

Bottom line is he has to have another open-heart surgery.

His first came 13 years ago and I'll never forget looking in on him all hooked up to machines, playing the role of his heart and lungs. Ever since then, he's probably repeated to me more than 100 times, "The surgeon told me that the surgery bought me 10 years of life."

Meanwhile, the weekend trouble comes at the same time when my dad had put off surgery on a carotid artery. So he's in for the fight for his life. And we, my family and his friends, will be joining him in it in the coming weeks.

In the United States, heart disease and stroke kill more people than anything else — more than cancer. And while there is a genetic component, I'm convinced it doesn't have to be that way. Reams of research, which seems to come out on a weekly if not daily basis, tells us to exercise, don't smoke, limit alcohol intake, eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and other foods, such as cold water fish, and avoid or limit "bad" saturated and trans fats.

It's that simple. Yet most of us remain stubborn, or downright dumb, by ignoring it.

Unlike some heart patients, my dad, who also is a diabetic, did little to rebuild his heart after his first open-heart surgery. He didn't even start walking. While he cleaned up his diet a little (partly to control diabetes), it wasn't a stellar effort. Modern medicine — technology and drugs — has enabled him to live into his 76th year, and I'm grateful for every day I have him.

Over the past 13 years, my dad has been my strength, the ever-supportive, understanding, sympathetic father in some trying times. He is a rock, brings a wealth of insight not only from being a father but a pastor to thousands for 55 years and loves me more than anyone on Earth.

Despite his health problems, he has continued to preach, teach and help others after stepping down as senior minister in a large Methodist church in Detroit. In that way, he has set an example for me that a life's work is never over and that "retirement" of the leisure-only variety is overrated.

He also has set an example of what not to be.

My family knows heart disease is in our blood. My grandfather, my dad's father, died from a heart attack at 53, the summer after I was born. He had just finished loading watermelons onto a truck on the family farm near Hamlet, N.C., and dropped to the ground. Gone. My grandmother has lived 44 years without him.

Pay attention to these stories. I've got mine. You've got yours. We need to learn from them.

All of us need to be active and eat right, but it's even more important for those who have been dealt a bad genetic card.

So get going now.

Develop a love of movement: walking, hiking, running, biking, dancing, playing games, climbing, lifting, there are so many options. Train your taste buds to crave a crisp apple, a cold glass of water, a big bowl of colorful salad. Learn to recognize and deal with stress. Love more.

Do it because life offers so many opportunities and experiences, and it only comes around once. Do it to keep from writing big checks to doctors and hospitals. And do it for your family and friends who love you.

Reach David Quick at 937-5516.

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