On October 1st, 2019 - I had a whole gamut of blood work done to see where I’m at currently which was part of my ongoing process to getting approved for bariatric surgery. This was a full panel test showing that my body inside and out was begging for change.
Here goes..
I didn’t make my Asian parents proud by becoming a Doctor (so don’t take medical advice from me) but I worked with a really good one to tell me that I was pre-diabetic, vitamin D and calcium deficient, with a cholesterol problem.
On top of that, I learned that I was in Stage 3 Diastolic Heart Failure. The Cliff Note version is that my left ventricle was hardening up and working harder to pump the blood in/out of my heart. My then 39-year old heart was acting like a 65 year old person’s heart.
Read: I could have had a heart attack at any time and DIED. Stage 3 is reversible but once it hits Stage 4, then it’s the point of no return.
The solution: Losing a crap ton of weight, watch my salt, and take blood pressure medication STAT. Learning about the Diastolic heart failure made everything make more sense about my chest pains, anxiety attacks, and labored breathing that I had been experiencing.
From here, my cardiologist, PCP, and surgeon agreed that I HAD to get the surgery. Any hesitation or doubt that I may have had about getting the surgery was out the window and running into the distance.
If I continued to live my life the way I did and not made any changes, I would surely have died an earlier death and why would I want to leave my family and this world sooner rather than later?
I didn’t. So let’s get this shit on the road..