Take care of your health-my past 2 days!

“TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH”

By Gary Kaltbaum
Healthy and feeling better!

Greetings all! How’s your day? Just wanted to tell you about my last couple of days. I thought I could send an important message as we are all getting older.

I had the privilege to be in the audience at the Fox Business Network’s presidential debate. I flew up to Milwaukee the night before, did a little TV midday and then came back for the debates. Everything was going swimmingly as I saw the first debate, got to visit with some friends at Fox and sat down for the main debate.

At about 20 minutes into the debate, I had blurred vision. Something was up. As soon as they went to break, I ran to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror. My face was contorted! (no jokes please) One eye was actually higher than the other. I started talking but could not utter any words. I knew what was happening because I experienced this a couple of times in the past.

I knew there were tons of security outside so went out and told them I was having stroke-like symptoms and to please call an ambulance. I called my wife but could not get any sentences out. She also knew what was happening. The ambulance came and took me to the hospital. I finally was able to explain to the doctors what was going on but they already knew. They did everything they were supposed to do for someone that may or may not be having a stroke. They did cat scans, MRIs and everything under the sun. The good news was that everything was clean. So what the hell was going on if everything was clean?

I have been told I just have migraines with stroke-like symptoms. I have also been told I may be experiencing a TIA! In case you did not know, a TIA is a transient ischemic attack. This is basically stroke-like symptoms that come and go. It can last minutes, an hour or longer but usually dissipate within a day. The problem is one never really knows if it is the big one or not so each incident has to be treated the same way. It is one heck of a warning sign. I actually had an episode back in college. Another one did not occur until 2008 as well as 2011. These episodes are all scary as I cannot begin to tell you how it feels when you can not say a sentence.

The amazing part, except for a little bit of high cholesterol, everything looks great. I have done echos, carotid, heart, MRIs, cat scans…you name it. I do not drink. I do not smoke. I eat well. I work out every day. I am fit and trim…but this still happens. I am writing this to you because I know my demographic and if I am experiencing some of this, I think it important to spread the word just in case. You may want to Google the letters TIA just in case it ever happens to you and also what to do to prevent one. It happens more often than you think.

Lastly, I finally got to watch the debate with Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo on my DVR and two words came to mind when comparing to other debates…CLASS ACT!