I found this more than interesting, because my husband, my wonderful loving husband, in the year of 2005 died from a sudden heart attack, and I know, he never knew what hit him. He was 49 years old, and his death, shook my life more than any earthquake could ever shake this world. I miss him dearly, and their isn’t a day that goes by, that I wish he would had been more aware of his health, had realized because of his own father’s death at age 30 from a heart attack, that he would had been more proactive in realizing the dangers he faced. We have 2 sons, and we are very proactive in their care. Anyone can call me whatever they want, a consumer advocate, whatever, I don’t care, what I do care about is seeing, deaths of relatively young men and even young women, coming to an end. I want to see people live, and if that makes me, Miss Wonderful, I don’t care, because the only thing I care about is that no one goes through the pain in which I did in losing my husband at such an early age. I really loved him, and my life changed when his ended. So, I write this plea to make others aware to take heed in their lives with their health, and not to depend on doctors to “tell” you that you need this scan or that scan, I plead that you know what to do, incase you are confronted like my husband was, with a doctor who didn’t live up to his medical duties and left us all down. I write this for my husband, Tim, and, hope he can read this, or least know, how much I care. I am happy that Bill Weir found his early enough to take care of the problem so his daughter won’t lose her father.
BOSTON — Bill Weir, 44, the co-anchor of ABC’s “Nightline” program, could very well be thanking his job for saving his life.
Weir was recently in California, interviewing the doctor who had treated cycling star Lance Armstrong and the late Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs for a story on ABC News. Then the doctor performed a CT scan on Weir for the sake of his television report.
But the results of that scan suddenly made the assignment very personal.
“He ran me through a bunch of tests,” Weir told NewsCenter 5 Tuesday. “(The doctor) sat me down and brought up on the computer the CT scan of my heart, and it had an alarming amount of calcification.”
It was, Weir was told, the first sign of serious heart disease.
“He said, ‘Look, if you hadn’t found this, within five years you’d go out for a run, you’d be one of those seemingly fit 45-year-old guys who drops dead,’” Weir said. “The first thing that flashed in front of my eyes was my 8-year-old daughter.”
Weir said he “had to be reminded” that his grandfather had died of a heart attack many years ago. It was, perhaps, a warning sign that hardly seemed relevant to Weir.
Weir called himself a “knucklehead” for not being more proactive about his health. He said he works out every day and eats a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, but he also admitted to eating just about anything he wanted.
He said he now takes a cholesterol-lowering statin drug in combination with a daily baby aspirin and said his medical outlook is good, and his lifestyle improved.
“I didn’t realize that I had a predisposition genetically for this sort of thing, and because I ate everything I ever wanted, I was slowly killing myself. So it was a stunning, life-changing moment,” he said.
Weir underwent genetic testing, which he said cost about $500. He urged anyone who wants to know their personal risks for a variety of diseases to do the same, putting modern technology to use for patients who want to.
He said that testing revealed he has a 38 percent risk of having a heart attack during his lifetime. It surprised him to learn during his reporting, he said, that the average American man has a 42 percent risk of having a heart attack during his life.
Read more: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/health/30234379/detail.html#ixzz1jprILONu