If you knew everything that could happen beforehand, you could go around the world on a dime is what my grandmother used to say to me, it’s a Dutch saying.
In the run-up to my heart attack, my health tracker already indicated that my heart had to work way too hard for it, but I didn’t recognize the signals, I thought I was just a very busy man (May 2 and 3).
Six weeks after my heart attack, check up time. This morning I woke up a little more excited than in the past weeks, today I had several appointments in hospital for the first check up on my heart.
At breakfast, I read the instructions for the appointment which told me I had to take the boxes of the medication I had taken in the past weeks, one of each and also the list they had given me at discharge from hospital days after I had it.
I have two best friends, we have been friends all our lives and often spent time together. We even went on holidays together sometimes, on our pushbikes or by car.
On one of these occasions we decided to venture into grounds where we were not supposed to go, we were trespassing. This adventure stayed with us all the rest of our lives as a great memory and anecdote, we often talked about it at birthday parties or the occasional reunion. Until now, we now have the pictures too.
So, this is a sensitive subject for me and I’ve been thinking for quite some time this morning if I should write about this or not. But I decided I should do it regardless the expected criticism of some people as it could be a benefit to other men dealing with the same issue.
The fact is, all men wonder after they’ve had a heart attack if and when it is the right time to have sex again and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
This week my Dutch Novel Kronkelroutes! (Winding Routes!) was published. In my last blog you can read more about that, it’s my fourth book that was published now, the first three being poetry books.
The response to the publication was overwhelming, I have received text messages, e-mails and telephone calls about it and people have been congratulating me on the book on several occasions.
I love model railways, always have done. This year I will be going to work on another model railway display and this time I will finish the job I promised myself.
As you can read a few blogs back I suffered a heart attack earlier in May and now I have too much time on my hands because I am relieved of most household tasks for the foreseeable future.
Ricketie ticketie boom boom
Oh you naughty Frikandel snack
Greasy monster in my mouth
You have given me a heart attack
And then you nearly killed me
But now that I am alive and back
Ricketie ticketie boom boom
I am teaching you a lesson
Most of my friends and family know that I have a great hobby: creating fail safe routes for senior drivers of moped cars. I call these routes ‘Kronkelroutes’ which is Dutch for ‘Winding routes’.
I also publish news about moped cars and their manufacturers at my website Kronkelroutes.nl. On the About page there you can read in English what the website is about and what my goals are.
In the midst of my darkest moment, my greatest fear and the most excruciating pain I experienced, I cried to God. Then suddenly this thought came to my mind: This is where you shut the door behind you for the first and last time and wait for the light to go on in your new room. And for a few seconds I got excited!
I really thought I wouldn’t have the chance to say goodbye and had to move forward to spend eternity in heaven. Physically I wouldn’t have been able to fight my way back, in a spiritual way I was led by a higher power, God, and would not have wanted to if He had taken my hand right then and there.
There are some things in life that you can not predict nor see it coming. This week I had a heart attack.
My Tuesday started like any other weekday, breakfast, shower, coffee. In this case, shaving my head was added to the routine as you can see. Little did I know, when I was making myself a cup of coffee, about the events that followed that day. And then it hit me, literally.
