Dr Brian-"The Day It All Changed"

One day, while at the office, I went to see a patient who was sitting on an exam table. I asked her how she was doing. She began telling me how she was feeling and I could not hear a word that she said. You see, normally, I am the type of doctor that really listens, hears all of the details, and pride myself in caring deeply about each patient and their situation. But that day, I couldn’t hear a word she was saying.

My heart was beating so hard inside my chest that I thought it was going to burst from my chest. I could see her mouth moving, but wasn’t able to hear what she said…I was so preoccupied with not dying in the middle of my own office. I excused myself, called my assistant over and told him what was going on and that I had to leave right then. I gave orders to give therapy to the patient and to cancel my appointments the rest of the day. 

After driving over an hour to visit my trusted MD friend, he immediately performed an EKG to check on my heart. He told me that I was in A-fib, which meant that I had an irregular electrical rhythm in my heart. He told me that I needed to go to the hospital for some more tests. I immediately told him that I couldn’t do that, that he knew me well enough to know that I was super busy and didn’t have time for all that. When he told me that I had 2 choices, go by ambulance or that I could drive myself…it hit me that this was serious. So I decided to drive myself a few miles to the hospital.

On the way over, I was stunned. I felt reality kicking in. My first thoughts were about my wife and 2 boys. I called my wife and remember her detecting the worry in my voice. I remember hearing the concern and worry and sadness in her voice. I reassured her that everything would be ok, but I really wasn’t sure. A sense of calm came over me and I forgot about everything else, all of my things to do list, everything. I just focused on being calm and relaxing.

After checking myself into the hospital and getting into a hospital bed, I immediately reached for my laptop bag. The only thing that I wanted from that bag were the magazines that I kept in the side pouch. They contained articles that I wanted to read but never had time for. I sat back, took some deep breathes, and caught up on the leisurely relaxing reading I had been putting off. After seeing my wife crying and worrying about me when she came to visit, I knew that things had to change. I had to DO something different.

The next day, after an overnight stay in the hospital, my MD friend came by and discussed the test results. The A-fib that I had experienced was due to stress and living an unhealthy lifestyle. I had burned the candle at both ends for way too long. I decided to not guess anymore about my health. I “knew” that I was diabetic, had high blood pressure, was overweight…but was too busy looking after everyone else but myself. When I received a prescription for Metformin (for diabetes) and some blood pressure pills, I told my MD (once again), that he “knew” how I felt about medications and didn’t want to take them.

He knows that I was one that was passionate about the body being able to heal itself naturally. He agreed with me, but said something that would change how I felt about these medications with horrible side effects. He said that he knew I was going to make the lifestyle changes that I needed to make…HOWEVER, I should use the medication as a tool in the meantime to not cause further damage, that this situation took years to develop and that it was going to take time to reverse. He reassured me that as I made improvements in my health, that he would be the first person to take me off the medications once they weren’t needed.

That made sense to me and I had promised my wife that I would set aside my stubborn beliefs about these meds I was placed on and listen to my trusted friend and doctor. I had decided that I would be making a ton of changes and get healthy again. The 2nd day that I opened that bottle of metformin, I just couldn’t take it. All I could think about was the many years of research in my head and all of the nasty side effects of this medication. I felt like a hypocrite. I called my wife into the bathroom and explained to her that I just could NOT take the diabetic medication. I told her that I was not breaking my promise, but rather, I was going to DO what I knew to do. I was not just going to take action, I was going to DO this 100%.

You see, I am not against medication. There is a time and a place for it and I am glad that we have the best doctors and hospitals in the world right here in the United States. But I knew that medications had become a crutch to mask the symptoms and allow most everyone to not make any changes or do anything different. That they didn’t really address the cause of the problem. That they were a temporary band aid approach that ended up causing people to pay a heavy price down the road. So that day, I told my wife that I was going to DO the things that I had been researching for years. She agreed and was going to do it with me. I knew I had to monitor my blood sugar and I did decide to stay on the blood pressure medication until I fixed the problem. That day, I started my wellness journey and took control of my own health