When we refer to "heart concerns," we don't just mean "love" or "heartbreak." Despite the fact that we can't see it, we actually need to take extra care of our physical hearts. Do you handle it with care in terms of its physical health? Most individuals don't realize how important their hearts are until they are already ill with a cardiac condition. Even though the heart can arguably be the most important organ in the body, people often neglect it and even push the organ over its breaking point.
Let's review what you already know. Three components make up our cardiovascular system: the heart, blood arteries, and blood. These three primarily help to transport vital nutrients to different parts of the body and aids in waste elimination during the process of metabolism.
Heart, blood, and blood vessels also control how warm or cold your body is. The cardiovascular system is in charge of sustaining the blood flow necessary for your body to survive. The following are some frequent diseases that affect people who have cardiovascular system issues including improper heartbeats, cardiac arrest, heart attack, congenital cardiac condition, cardiovascular disease, aorta illness, heart muscle illness, and deep vein thrombosis (DVT).
Our family suffered from the effects of a heart condition. My daughter was diagnosed with coronary artery disease, a heart condition that is common for young adults and is the leading cause of heart attacks in their age range.
My daughter's drastic decrease in weight was something we noticed. We assumed that because she was a contractor who goes from one site to another, her weight loss was brought on by the physical demands of her work. Every day of her working life, she was required to carry out errands and travel to different building sites. She was doing well and making money, which increased her workload because it was her own business. But I advised her to consult a doctor when the weight loss looked so extreme to me. Before then, she had likewise shown no desire to eat a substantial dinner.
We also had a look at her smoking habit as a possible explanation for her weight loss. In addition, she always drank with her partners in the construction firm—a component of her routine that she said was needed to build trust and rapport among her colleagues and clients.
I was able to persuade her to get medical attention. After a few weeks from the date of our consultation, the doctor called us, but we did not immediately receive a response. He explained to us that our daughter needed open heart surgery to treat her coronary artery disease. She declined. She did not want to have surgery because it was not only costly but also risky. However, she did give the surgeon the chance to walk her through the procedure. It was, to put it mildly, morbid. We also had a lot of financial worries. In addition to the surgery's inherent cost, it did not ensure that my daughter would regain the normality of her life.
But after some deliberation, my daughter was forced to decide in favor of open heart surgery.
She does not live with us anymore but we convinced her to move back. After all, we just live a few blocks away. Even though she occasionally had shortness of breath, she kept working. Before arriving in our area, she collapsed once in the street. Fortunately, one of my neighbors saw it and called me right away to let me know about the sad occurrence. We all hurried for her to get to the hospital in time.
Two weeks later, due to the deterioration of her condition, she was transferred to the ICU unit. My wife called to inform me that our daughter was passing away while I was at work. The doctor informed me that I just had a few minutes when I arrived at the hospital to say my one last goodbye.
I was heartbroken. Speechless. my life tearing apart before me. They never tell you how painful it is when a parent loses a kid. Our family would have to live with that pain.
But we tried to be strong and vowed to ourselves, to my daughter's grave, that we will start taking care of our hearts.
Upkeep of a Healthy Cardio
First is to learn how to handle our stressors, and learn and implement proper stress management. We also knew we had to eat food with proper nutrition. We must not drink alcohol aplenty and also avoid secondhand smoke as well as smoking ourselves. We bought a BP monitor so that we can regularly check our blood pressure and cholesterol level. And of course, we committed ourselves to an active lifestyle. We don’t really give that much time for exercise and physical activities as a family but the unfortunate death of my daughter was our wake-up call. While scuba diving sounded exciting, we wanted to get into activities that we can do daily such as tennis, biking, using the jump rope, dancing, and engaging in team sports such as basketball, football, and soccer. Aerobic exercises, commonly referred to as cardio exercises, were also our go-to. We then decided to declutter our garage and invest in gym equipment. We converted it to a weightlifting and boxing gym, while still of course leaving space for our belongings and the car parked in the garage. This was made possible by installing smart storage solutions such as overhead storage racks and wall shelves. We surely made it a point to exercise for at least 150 minutes a day.
We counted our steps and made sure that we didn't just sit around the house. We designed it in a way that will force us to move.
Because of the untimely passing of my daughter, we sought to raise awareness about heart diseases for people her age. In the long run, we envision to start sports clinics so that we can help the youth as well as their parents and the people they love to take care of their physical hearts.
