Emile Barrios

I got a call last Tuesday from my old pal Beon. We were both Top-40 deejays on AM radio 30 years ago. He still lives down in New Orleans so I don’t see him very often, but we talk every couple of months.

“I had a heart attack and emergency triple bypass surgery,” was the news.

Beon was in Tampa on business, felt chest pains, went to the hospital and was told that he had to have the surgery that day if he wanted to live. He’s only 56, and on the mend now, with a positive prognosis – providing he cuts out salt, fat and just about anything else that tastes good. A real challenge in a food city like New Orleans.

I was still absorbing all this when my phone rang at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday. My brother Art calling. Something had happened to one of my octogenarian parents, I thought. Which one?

“Don is in the hospital. Emergency bypass surgery.” Don being our other brother. He’d been having chest pains and had gone to see a cardiologist for a stress-test. During the test, the doctor stopped him and said he had to go to the hospital immediately. He didn’t have a heart attack, but he had a 99% blockage in one of the arteries leading to his heart – a clot in a place so common that it has its own nickname: The Widowmaker. Don is 49 – three years younger than me.

Like Beon, Don’s surgery was a success and he’s home again. But to say that I’m freaked out by these two events happening in the same week is an understatement. I am seeing the world in a very different way.

There is a history of heart disease in my family. All my mother’s siblings either died of a heart attack or stroke, or have had a bypass surgery. My mother has had a heart attack. One of my uncles died of a heat attack at age 48, as did one of my cousins. Another cousin died of a heart attack at age 60.

I’ve always paid attention to this family history: annual physicals, careful blood pressure monitoring, a reasonably steady exercise regimen for over 20 years. All my “numbers” are OK. “You’re very healthy for a man your age,” says my doctor. But still, my first call on Thursday was to that doctor to get a referral for my own stress-test. And by the way, when did I become “a man my age” anyway?

It’s hard to hear news like this and not conclude that the Universe is sending you a clear and forceful message. My rate of salad consumption is way up, while burgers and pizza are down like home prices. The sweats and sneakers are out of the closet and I’m back out there walking.

OK, Universe. You have my attention.