Rick M rearadml@highstream.net Indian Harbour Beach, Florida age 79 married 55 years to Shirley One son, one daughter 2 grandchildren

Before CHF

On December 7, 1924, just outside Boston, a little blue-eyed boy was born. The significance of that date wouldn't be appreciated until some years later, when it would catch up with the world and the little blue-eyed boy. Most of you who read this will not have had the perspective of looking at life in 3 stages: Life before the War, Life during the War and Life after the War.
     As a boy before the war, there were few telephones in private homes. You might have a neighbor who could rig up a crystal radio with an antenna between your two houses, so you could hear President Hoover speak ( barely). My father was a veteran of WWI, and parades, which were very popular then, featured the old veterans of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, so you had a feeling of the continuity of the country. During the Depression of the 1930's, you needed something to keep your spirits up. My father loved cars, so we always had one, and it was a very special trip which got you from Boston to Cape Cod without changing at least one tire.
     I have a brother two years my senior, who was brainwashed at an early age into thinking that he had to "watch out" for his younger brother. The fact that I am writing this today is evidence of his devotion to his calling. We were a musical family and all played several instruments, so the house was always awash in sound. My mother had been a professional pianist before her marriage and probably the finest I ever heard (she could play anything in any key at any time). People loved to sing with her because she could find their key regardless of the number of flats or sharps. My brother was a fine trombone player and I, who had started on the trombone, had to switch to the cornet, since Dad wouldn't hear of having two trombones in one house.
     Then came the war. My brother went into the Army in the middle of his senior year at college and I went into the Navy between my freshman and sophomore years. He went to North Africa, Egypt, Italy and finally Yugoslavia. I went to the Pacific on an LST, invading islands I had never heard of before (or since). Well, we won and came home and started phase three: Life after the War. My brother finished his senior year, went on to get his MBA, then decided to go to law school and became one of DC's leading barristers. I went back to college, studied pre-law and when my brother opted for law school, I went into History (just like the trombone saga, he always got his own way).
     Music decided my destiny. I played in all the bands and orchestras in college and sang in the Glee Club. While singing at a joint Glee Club concert with a well known girl's school, I met a stunning soprano who ended up becoming my bride in 1948. I also put out a Glee Club record album with RCA, which resulted in my accepting a job offer from a major advertising agency in New York and the rest, as they say, is history. It was an exciting time to be alive. Everything that is taken for granted today was just being invented or developed. The first computer was at my college, all vacuum tubes, no transistors and the operators walked around inside it, to keep the tubes glowing. In the advertising business, magazines were king, with radio a close second. There was no TV!
     I'm forced to admit that I was one of the people responsible for developing TV as an advertising medium (sorry about that). Originally, it was "radio with pictures" but then we got Hollywood involved and we got Hollywood's morality to go along with it. It was a Golden Age on a personal basis, too. My college roommate was elected governor of New Jersey, one of my wife's classmates was married to the president of the US, while another married the "world's richest man." Strangely enough, years later the president's widow ended up married to the same "world's richest man." Europe was a great place to travel because the dollar was so strong and Americans were still thought of as heros and saviors. At home, we were all having beautiful children, building beautiful homes, driving beautiful cars and living the beautiful life. It really lasted quite a long time but finally cracks began to appear.
     When everything you do is wonderful, they always want you to do more, and you do but then stress sets in and becomes the price you pay for doing too much. When I returned from an exhausting trip where I had eaten too much, had too much great wine, and stayed up too many great hours, my wife sat me down and asked me why I was doing it. I thought it was apparant but she said, "If you are doing this for me and the children, stop. We would rather have you." It was then that I started to notice things. One other man and myself were the only two on the Board of Directors who were still married to his original wife. While visiting a classmate of my wife, in Sun Valley, we discovered that my wife was the only one in her class still married to her original husband. Then we had the mother of all ice storms in Connecticut and when the fish died in the tank before our very eyes, we moved to Florida. That was 23 years ago and the second year of my retirement.

My CHF

So you might ask, how did you end up with CHF? It wasn't that I was just lucky or that all the really cool ailments were taken, it's like many of you, I just don't know. I never had a heart attack, no sign of stroke and having outlived several of my doctors, I had to go to a walk-in clinic on a Saturday to find out. We had just returned from a trip up North and I was tired and not much fun, so I humored my wife by driving across the river to a hospital run walk-in doctor's office. We filled out my history and I went in for my exam. They took one look at me and called for an ambulance to take me to the ER. As they were wheeling me out, they asked if I had a cardiologist and the only one I knew was a guy I worked out with at the gym. He turned out to be a top-notch doctor and we have been working together ever since. He's extremely bright, remembers everything and doesn't mind my showing him printouts from CHFpatients.com. In fact, he took Jon's Coreg writeup home to read and remarked that more CHFers should take a greater role in the management of their own treatment.

My Meds

On Friday, the 13th of June, 1997, I had a dual chamber pacemaker with 2 pacing leads and a sensor that adjusts my heart rate to my activity level, implanted. I liked it. In November of 2003, I had it replaced with a single chamber model.

My Faith

When I was standing on the first tee of the Country Club, waiting my turn to drive at the beginning of the club golf tournament, the starter asked me, "What's your handicap?" and quick as a flash I replied, "I'm an Irish Catholic in an immoral world" and it's still true. I take my faith seriously and always have. It's been with me in battle and in business, and it travels well.

  Rick -- January 5, 2004

All information on this site is opinion only. All concepts, explanations, trials, and studies have been re-written in plain English and may contain errors. No one here is a doctor. No information on this page should be used by any person to affect their medical, legal, educational, social, or psychological treatment in any way. This web site and all its pages copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Jon C.