My Battle Against Heart Diease

Low intensity cardiovascular training to strengthen the heart!!!  NO WAY… it’ll take away my GAINS!!!   Why does our ego think like this until it’s too late, the damage has been done. 

No one wants to face their own mortality... especially a fucking strength coach!!! I’m not mortal I have to be PUMPED UP for the next group!!! I’ll just eat a little at my desk before the group comes in... shit I had a good hard workout this morning.... even though I slept like crap from snoring so bad that I woke up more tired than I was before I headed off to bed… Funny thing about my sleep apnea and its not the damage that it did to my heart … actually it’s more sad to think that when I was with the Spurs the athletic trainer, doctors or anyone else never said anything to me and never intervened even when the players would not allow me to sleep on the same floor as them because they could hear me though the doors or walls!!!  Not one person spoke up and said shit to me that I was doing irreversible damage to my heart.  Sally sure hell did that’s for sure and she didn’t give me a choice in going to get a sleep study done and then using my CPAP machine once I got it but by then the damage to my heart could not be undone. 

Fast forward 6 years and I can add more to the cause of my heart diease with the asshole Dr. Marvin Brown of San Antonio Orthopedics and Associates who fucked up my Achilles and ankle surgery leaving me with infections that caused me to have an additional 9 surgeries in order to save my life, almost dying twice from septic shock or that I came damn close to having my left foot amputated and the 20+ weeks of seriously nasty antibiotics that were given to me through a PICC Line. That PICC Line was inserted into my brachial vein and it went all the way to my heart so those antibiotics that destroy the organisms or should I say all organisms (you can actually feel them burning as they run through your veins) can get straight to the heart and pumped out to where they need to be!!!  I could tell you more but you’d probably want to vomit…. I know it leaves me feeling that way.  It was barely 2 years later that I suffered my heart attacks.  Oh and a side note to the asshole politicians, lawyers and lobbyists that rewrote Texas’ Tort Laws making it next to impossible to sue for medical malpractice because the piece of shit lawyers can’t make enough money since they capped the payout!!!  Never mind the lifelong damage that was done to me from now having only 20% of an Achilles attached or the ankle ligament that was eaten away by the infection.  I’m left with permanent weakness and a limp….but i still have 2 feet so I guess I’m supposed to be thankful for that tidbit. 

I know the scenarios... I know the excuses.... I lived them and used them and now I have the damn +12” scar that serves as a reminder of the “prize you get for not taking care of your heart”! 

It all came to a head, 8 years ago late on a Friday night (6/5/2014) after coaching and training all day as I sat on the edge of the bed “bartering with God” looking into my wife’s beautiful eyes and said good bye to our bulldogs because I honestly didn’t think I was gonna be coming back home... and yet I still acted like I was invincible because I was taught throughout my life to never show weakness. I’ve battled through a childhood of violence to become an Airborne Ranger, Champion Strength and Power Athlete all while bouncing in some shit clubs and I never once showed weakness or fatigue, it’s just not in my DNA or I would have been eaten alive.  

10 June 2014 I believe that God answered my prayers to not take me just yet as I finally had a family to call my very own, blessed to be loved by Sally and our Furbabies but God had something in store for me, something that I feel is why he spared me that late Friday night into Saturday’s early morning hours.  I know this because the doctor told my that my heart was in bad shape, I coded twice before he finally got the stent inserted giving me a fighting chance by stabilizing me while I waited to have triple bypass surgery on 10 June. 

I felt compelled to write this after several of my friends and people I know from lifting have died from heart disease and many more have had bypass surgery.  I always reach out to them to prepare them for the journey ahead.  

I’ve had a lot of folks reach out and ask me questions on how I developed heart disease. I know that all of this that I’ve written about contributed to it along with that old strength athlete adage of “mass moves mass” so even though I was lifting heavy, regularly jumping on a 30” box and throwing heavy shit really far being 5’10” and weighing 286 pounds (130kg) and more probably wasn’t the best thing especially at the Masters level. 

In the coming weeks I’ll be writing and sharing my journey from barely able to walk to squatting and yes…. at week 16 I started snatching again!!  

Until then….. 

Play Hard… Train Harder… NO EXCUSES