Celebrating My Life After a Heart Attack

Today is my anniversary. Not my wedding anniversary, but the anniversary of my first, and last, heart attack.

I will celebrate my life each and every day.

One year ago today, I waited for Dennis to come home and drive me to the emergency room. After a long day of first feeling completely run down and then feeling like I couldn’t move and finally feeling the worst pain I have ever before felt in my chest, neck and jaw, I came to the realization that something was very, very wrong. I was having a
heart attack.

As I look back over the past year, I look back with celebration and gratitude.

I am grateful that I am alive.

I am thankful that I was lucky to end up at a great hospital with fantastic doctors and nurses that kept me alive. I will be forever indebted to the people who figured out how to implant a stent into my artery and for the surgeon who dedicated his practice to this procedure. I am appreciative of the medications that I take that have lowered my blood
pressure and cholesterol numbers to healthy levels.

I celebrate my life style changes.

I enjoy cooking and eating healthy. I have always loved fresh vegetables and am learning to love fresh fruit as well. On Sundays, I make steel-cut oats for the week. On Saturdays I visit the farmers market and purchase a weeks supply of whatever vegetables are in season. I eat fish at least once a week and my goal for the coming year is to raise my fish consumption to twice a week. I make the best Thai turkey burgers and am beginning to play with tofu as a meat substitute.

I love my daily walks. In the evening I walk through my neighborhood meeting new neighbors and viewing the changes in nature. During the workday, I walk with a coworker and we laugh, share stories and coach each other to release the worries of the day.

On Saturdays or Sunday mornings, I walk with a client or my sister around one of Minneapolis’s great lakes or in a park. On Mondays, Dennis and I walk in the neighborhood patrol, serving our community as we exercise.

I rejoice in the turn around of the ways I deal with stress. I am adopting new habits for managing the stress that comes with living. I look forward to opportunities to practice my patience with others. I listen to people with an open heart and look for the commonalities in our beliefs. When someone is frustrated with me, I am thankful for the feedback they are giving me and find new ways that I can improve.

Today, as I celebrate my anniversary, I will set new goals for the coming year. I will write action plans to meet those goals. I will work with my coaches, friends and family to keep me on track. I will celebrate small and large successes and be grateful for mistakes that allow me to learn and grow.

By: Ann Osterhus, Noetic Coach

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