Dead @ 41

[Karried]

Just a little warning to those of us who don't really like to or want to believe that something might be wrong with us.

My good friend called me this morning and her brother in law died of a massive heart attack last night. He was 41 years old.

Here 's the worst part. He went to a clinic yesterday, he had been having horrible muscle pain in his right arm and his chest felt tight ( well, he had slipped a few weeks ago and thought he pulled something in his shoulder, but it was getting worse and worse) ... the doctor told him to head straight to the Emergency room because the EKG was abnormal... his wife didn't have a ride home from FAA where they commuted together so he decided to go pick her up first... ( I know, I know, it gets worse)... he then goes to the Doctor, waits three hours and gets fed up with waiting.. just as he was ready to walk out, they did another EKG - nothing showed up. They rescheduled him an appt on a treadmill for tomorrow.. he went home, took a nap, woke up, opened a bill from the mail on the couch, gasped and died instantly.

41 years old. The whole family is in complete and utter shock.

Wake up call for all of us.

[jbrown84]

What hospital sent him home? I heard a very similar situation with a 40ish year old man being sent home from Norman Regional only to have a full on stroke that night.

[Martin]

he went home, took a nap, woke up, opened a bill from the mail on the couch, gasped and died instantly.

wow. that must've been one heck of a bill. -M

[Karried]

mmm !!! I think I'll edit my post..

I'll find out what hospital it was. In fact, my friend's dad died the same exact way. He had an EKG and it only shows something abnormal when there is pain ( I think that's what she said.. let's ask Patrick) anyway.. he went home and died that night as well.

[SoonerDave]

Geez, for a 42-year-old guy (me) who has at least a shadow of hypochondria about him, that's good enough for a rest-of-the-day downer.

Man, though, tightening in the chest and intense arm pain are HUGE warning signs. Karrie, did he or his family have any history of heart problems? Even under the worst of circumstances, 41 sure is young for a HA...not impossible, of course, but still..

I remember when my uncle had a heart attack; he was in Norman working on his airplane (he was a private pilot back then), and as he was starting to tow the plane to its parking spot, he got the same kind of thing; intense chest pressure and pain. Fortunately, *his* uncle was with him and took him to Norman Regional, and he survived. He had to have bypass surgery, and survived that to have a debilitating stroke about a year later.

That was around Feburary of my sophomore year at OU, which would be about 1984, I guess. I think he's about 73 years old now, which would have made him right at 50 when it happened. Smoked a lot, and had an intensely high-pressure job then, so none of that helped, to be sure...

Prayers to the family. I think about stuff like that for my crew; what would happen for them if that kind of thing hit me. Then I realize I could go nuts trying to think about stuff like that, and just try to leave it in God's hands and press on...

-SoonerDave

[Karried]

I know, it was scary for me too ...

The worse part, his wife is all alone, no children.. ( maybe that's good? - they would have just lost their dad)

I guess it's time for all of us to up the life insurance.

But I'm sure he had some sort of heart problem, I'll ask.

I just found out today ( and some may have heard of him) that

Roger DeSpain - a pretty prominant Real Estate builder/developer/ real estate instructor - died. Very sad.. he was a character.. funny, little crazy and made real estate school bearable.

Did anyone hear about this, I wonder what happened?

[CMSturgeon]

When I started my current job in June of 2006 there was a sales manager there that was only 42 that had heart trouble for a while. He was a very unhealthy and lonely man. He had surgery like a year before this happened I think and his heart had been fine up until then. Then he got all weird one day at work and a collector took him to the hospital where they told him he had diabetes. He went through multiple tests the entire week and they concluded that they only thing he needed to worry about was his daibetes and eating right health wise, literally that night he got out of bed and collapsed to the floor. They told his g/f, another coworker, that he probably died before he hit the floor. You should've seen the people coming out of the wood work trying to get money off this guy's death. His exwife literally showed up at work to get all his stuff and pick up his last pay check. He never talked to her when he was alive and the day after he dies she's there to get his paycheck.

[Thunder]

I remember back in high school, I came home after school, sat in the rocking chair in the living room and suddenly had chest/arm pain. I couldn't lift the arm. Mom was in the kitchen. What was odd is that I felt a burst inside my chest and everything was better. It was like blocking the water hose with your hand and removing it for water to spurt out under pressure.

Since then, I've had several similar episodes once in a while. One time, I think just before college or maybe during college, I was with my dad visiting family in Kellyville when I had the episode again that I was unable to lift my arm. I sat on the couch, just laid back with eyes closed and they clearly knew something was wrong. Dad was a bit paranoid, rushed me to the ER only to find nothing was to be found.

Last year, I was at the MWC hospital, again a similar episode, and they ran tests, but reported that everything is healthy.

Still, no one knows what the actual issue is to this day.

I'm only 23, soon to be 24 in October.