First, I would like to preface this by saying this is a work in progress and it is not written as well as I would like it to be. Lastly, I do not want to offend anyone thru my words… I am simply pulled to share from the bottom of my hopefully healthy heart… Heart Disease - what exactly is it? Why is it so prevalent? Why do we Americans not take it as seriously as it takes us? Most of us who receive the diagnosis of having “heart disease”, have had an unexpected heart attack or are about to have one, which causes us to have our first heart procedure or surgery followed by rehabilitation and many serious talks with our heart doctors. This all reminds us, our days, are truly numbered. Then we take a week or two considering the meaning of life and how we can change our habits so this absolutely does not happen again, and no sooner are we back to pounding cheese burgers at the local Mickey D’s, vegan burgers at the local health food store, working 12 plus hour days, numbing out our reality, only to be back in the hospital a year or two later dead due to a heart attack not addressed in time or alive learning how quickly the heart disease has taken over our heart again. For those of us that have lived to this point we are blessed with an opportunity to question, again, what the hell is heart disease, and how I do I change my life so my life is not taken from me by it? Will I really change my life this time? Can I fight genetics? Can I reduce stress and increase happiness daily to set my body and mind up for optimal living? What does this even look like for me? Should I slow down? Should I sleep more? Should I take some extra time to just be? Why can one person pound the Mickey D’s cheese burgers or vegan burgers and work 12 plus hours a day and never have heart disease, but then another does the exact same and dies of a heart attack at 55 or even 40? Is it conditional or genetics or both or just fate? How does one whose family’s genetics that are plagued with heart disease not allow it to take their own life? The CDC.gov tells us 610,000 people die of heart disease in the US every year. About 735,000 Americans will have a heart attack annually. Coronary heart disease kills 370,000 people annually. More than half of the deaths due to heart disease are in men. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. What is going on with our country? If we happen to care or take time to research or watch the latest Forks Over Knives, Food Matters, What the Health, types of movies we will get a glimpse into the sad truth to why these stats are so high and what we can possibly do to help not become one of them. But when you’re me and heart disease hits home again striking your father’s fate life stops, and I am realizing his fate can be my brothers or mine. This has rattled my core causing me to look at things differently, AGAIN. Maybe this time for more than two weeks. Or maybe this time I’ll forget the seriousness of heart disease, of genetics, of taking responsibility for my own health and this will be just another challenge a bump in the road I’ll eventually try to numb or forget about. OR maybe this time it will last longer than a few weeks. It will last so long that I will change my diet, my sleep, my interactions with others, the way I go about my days, etc. and these changes will last a life time, my lifetime. AND I will be the change I need to change my genetics so heart disease does not take over me like it is taking over my father’s heart. I am hoping this change can possibly create a ripple effect positively impacting my future generations and even strangers who read this post. So I ask are you just waiting for life to happen to you or are you making your life happen? Are you aware of the status of your “health” and what that even means to you? Do you know how your ticker looks or your cholesterol? Look under your hood, and be proactive because your life depends on it. It is with my deepest desire to change my father’s genes. I’ll try to help as much as I can before I become a pain in his butt. But at the end of the day I need to remember I can only change myself. That’s it. We each only have control over our own health… our own thoughts and actions. So, what will you do if heart disease hits home? Or better yet what will you do with your life BEFORE heart disease hits home? Will you be the change you need or not? In honor of my father who has been and will continue to fight please take a moment to look at your own life and see how you can take responsibility to NOT become a statistic and not have heart disease come knocking at your door. What are you daily ingesting mentally and physically? Long term, are those things good for your mental and physical health? Thank you for reading my work in progress about heart disease continuing to hit home for me. May peace be with each and every one of you and may you cherish every moment you have here on earth.