February is American Heart Month… The American Heart Association wants to hook you up to the real facts about ticker disease and the signs of a beating moment gone fa-dunky donk.
Sadly I’ve already lost your attention.
Come on! Where’s the fun in digging up dirt on the thumper? Nobody wants to be attached to pills for high blood pressure; forced to eliminate hearty steak burgers and steamy hot French fries, Chinese food and fresh from the sea shrimp only to hear a tiny voice on the other end of the phone busting your tail for not getting a cholesterol check up.
We’re convinced that heart disease is connected to old people. Really? My very good friend Mark passed at 43, Bryan wasn’t even 50 and I was only 47 with a mind still stuck in 1978. Heart attacks have almost become a rite of passage; they’re accepted when in fact we could’ve easily prevented the majority of them from unfolding your life and tossing everything out onto the lawn.
It’s amazing how many millions of dollars are spent on over the counter creams that wipe a cool set of crow’s feet from the corner of your eyes but it’s not going to save your life. Being aware of your family history will; studying the back of a soup can will keep your back off that cold ambulance mat, having yearly physicals and open conversations with family doctors generates history that can be studied.
It’s not fun being part of the crowd that’s been bumped to the B list because fate put something on your plate? Neighbors, friends and other bodies have taken on a new shape believing my life change has ripped the wind from their parachute of weekend entertainment.
A co-worker said to me, “I knew you were part of the brotherhood; I could see it in your eyes.”
Wow! Maybe that’s why I penned out the lyrics to this song:
There you are, standing in the mirror, still got those fun kid eyes.
Here we go, dressed up in adult clothes, still joking around about being along for the ride.
You and me don’t agree, just showed up one day pretending—to be me…and I don’t know what you mean.
There you are standing ever so tall, your eyes they look away.
You and I need to find, a reason to believe in each others dreams.
12/13/09
Heart attacks aren’t about clutching your chest and losing your breath. I walked into a doc in the box with a sore throat and came out with heart surgery. I totally didn’t listen to the radio commercials or stopped to watch those irritating pictures between my favorite television programs and ended up getting hit between the valves. The warning signs were there but an uneducated guess kept me looking a different direction.
There is nothing I can write or create that’ll expose how important this month really is. I’m nothing more than a husband that’s fallen short on coming up with the right words to share that convinces his wife to do what I’ve been preaching since the very second the man in the white suit in the very big building calmly said, “Mr. Collins you’re currently having a heart attack. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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