Listen to what your body is telling you

I normally don’t post health stuff on here but maybe it can help someone. Pay attention to what your body is telling you. I have been exhausted for the past few months and then one day I was carrying a 50 lb bag of corn to my feeder about 100 yards into the woods and when I got back to the truck I couldn’t catch my breath and my chest was killing me. It only lasted for a few minutes and I figured it was a one time thing. Well a week or so later the same thing happened again and then I shot a deer about a week later and only had to drag it about 10 yards to the truck and it started hurting again. I normally don’t have a problem getting a 185 lb deer in the truck by myself but I couldn’t do it and ended up using the come-a-long and even that took my breath away. It was then and there I decided to call my doctor who referred me to a cardiologist. He talked to me and after telling him what I had been experiencing and he said there was no need to do a stress test and said I have a blockage and scheduled a heart catheter. Turns out I had a 99% blockage in my left anterior descending artery. He said blood flow is rated 1 - 3 with three being the best and normal. Mine was a 1. He called the surgeon to schedule open heart surgery but this was a Friday and the surgeon said he couldn’t do it until Tuesday. The Dr said it couldn’t wait so he had to balloon it and put in a stent. It worked and he put in 3 stents that day and scheduled more for two weeks and put in another stent and checked the previous ones and said everything looked good. He said I was extremely lucky that I did not have a heart attack and lucky that I came in when I did. Those of us that are getting up in age need to pay attention. I don’t want to retire and then drop dead and not get to enjoy it and really don’t want to go to my friends’ funerals.