There's Something About Harry

This morning I have awoken to a relatively cold humid day.  It is about a day after my younger (little but not really) brother Troy experienced his second heart attack.

Troy is 34. 

He had his first heart attack when he was approximately 31.  Both ages are young, too young to experience a heart attack.

Troy is having to deal with things that I myself, his older brother have not yet had to experience nor cope with.  He is destructible.

I do not know why he has experienced two heart attacks at an age when most people’s hearts are at their prime.  Demographically, it makes no sense, but then again . . .

Weight?

There are anecdotal items that hint at the issue.  When Troy was in high school, he wrestled heavy weight.  My kid brother was always strong, usually stronger than myself.  He was a very good wrestler and bulked up.

After high school he kept the bulk, and added some weight to it.  He was never obese, just a big strong guy.

In contrast, not that it makes any bit of difference, I was always an extremely skinny kid, and as I aged remained a relatively skinny adult.  To enlist in the military back in 1990, I had to eat 5 meals a day to increase my weight from about 125 lbs to 133lbs.  I was six foot tall.

In the military, I bulked up in 10 lb increments, first to 145 lbs, then 155 lbs.  By the time I got out of the military I was up to about 165 lbs with a body fat percentage in the single digits.

Food?

Growing up and moving into our twenties, both my brother and I had relatively terrible diets.  We did not grow up wealthy, and frankly bad unhealthy food is cheaper in dollars.  We ate it.  Fast food, snacks and soda were a staple, the norm.

Troy’s diet before his first heart attack was as bad as my own, I think.  For the most part, I was not present during his every meal.  So in many ways, I tend to reflect on his eating habits with memories of my own, but its not the same. 

We grew up with similar tastes for food as kids, so as adults I tend to think that we have not changed to the point where our tastes have grown apart, that is until recently.

When I went to college and later moved to south Florida, I developed a habit for stopping at Dunkin Donuts on my way to work which stayed with me for about 4-5 years, until I left the corporate world in late 2005.  By that time, I probably reached my peak weight of about 188 lbs. 

I had bulked up a bit in the shoulders and arms over those years, but primarily that was belly fat.  Since then, my weight has fluctuated a bit from about 180 – 168, typically hovering in the 175 range.

My brother Troy probably out weighed me during this time by 50 – 75 pounds.  We joked with ourselves and our family about our penchant for bad food.

Exercise?

I’m skinny.  I’ve always been skinny.  I’ve also always been a natural runner.  From an exertion perspective, running is easy for me. 

I started to learn this a bit in grade school and later in high school.  However, in those years I was relatively short.  I was never fast.  I’m not a sprinter. 

I went from being one of the 3rd shortest kids in my high school to being 6 foot tall in the space of about 18 months through my Junior and Senior year of high school, which partially explains why I was stick thin going into the military.

When I enlisted in the Army, I eventually discovered that I was a good long distance runner.  At my best, I could run 3 miles in just over 17 minutes. 

I wasn’t the fastest runner I knew, but I was fast enough.  I didn’t really try, nor train exactly, just got out and ran.  For me, running slow was more likely to trigger shin splints from slow pounding, jogging steps, so I simply stretched out my stride and ran faster.

When I left the military, I stopped running for almost 5 years. 

Everybody knew that as time went by they’d get a little bit older and a little bit slower ~ White Album, the Beatles, Revolution7

During my time in the military, before and after, I had something else going for me. I was a good dancer, a club kid, disco bunny, what ever you want to call it.

I could, would and did spend hours in dance clubs dancing, which also played a part in my thin profile, although it also introduced me to some other unhealthy habits like coke.

I’m not talking about the coke that comes in a white powder, I’m talking about the coke that comes in a brown liquid form from the Coca Cola company.

I started going to dance clubs before ecstasy hit the dance club scene.  Back then as a minor it was common to drink lots of soda.  I also worked several jobs and drank soda while I worked, almost non-stop.

By the time I went into the military, I was still drinking soda non-stop.  I would deploy to the field and pack cases of coke to take with me.  I worked long long hours and drank more coke.

I later left the military and went to school while working nights for the postal service.  I drank more and more soda just to keep going.

During much of this time period, my brother and I did not live together, nor in the same state.  Somewhere along the way, he developed a nasty coke habit too.  Again not the white powder variety, but the brown liquid variety.

I’m not making light of cocaine habits.  I’ve known people that have had their lives turned upside down by addictions to narcotics.  I simply know a different addiction, and it too in excess, distant from anything remotely close to moderation can create severe problems.

By the time, I moved back to my home state, closer to my brother, he drank about as much soda as I did.  Again, I did not see him do this all the time, but from talking and comparing notes, seemed to be in sync.

How Much Soda?

I could easily and often did drink more than a 12 pack of soda per day. 

I’m drinking a soda as I write this.

Smoking?

My brother and I grew up in a household of smokers.  We called them Mom & Dad.  I lived at home full time for 16 years as a second hand smoker, give or take a year or two. 

My brother Troy was a second hand smoker for a similar time period.

I started smoking off and on as a teenager.  Later when I left high school and entered the military, I’d smoke when I drank, which was often.  But eventually, when I was 19 or 20, I stopped smoking.  It was mostly because I was a cheap bastard and poor on top of that in the military and couldn’t really afford to smoke. 

In my move away from the smoke that had been a staple through out my life, I became a coke addict as well, and I suspect that part of my addiction transferred from one evil to another one, possibly a lesser one, but when you are swapping demons, quibbling over which demon will destroy you is moronic.

I’m going to get a new soda from the fridge now.

Troy was not as lucky.  When I left home, he stayed.  I was not present when he matured and frankly blossomed.  The young kid brother I knew, who had a bit of a temper, grew into a very smart wise man.

In the years after I returned home from the military and then moved away again, I’ am still amazed by the transformation that Troy went through.  I’ve known many people that are twice his age and not nearly as together as Troy is.  In fact in many ways, he is more mature than I am.

But he also smoked.

Through the last year or so of high school and then into his early adult hood Troy smoked.  He developed a strong addiction to cigarettes.  He smoked non-stop pretty much, well as much as 2 packs a day.

He didn’t develop a running habit like I had either and for fairly good reasons.  Towards the end of his high school years, he fractured bones in his foot.  He would later learn that he had both a very high tolerance for pain, but also something of fragile bones in his feet, one of those osteo words that I’ve never seen in print and can’t quite remember, but have heard over the phone many times during our conversations back then.

He didn’t run because his feet, his heal would essentially shatter/fracture.

Troy experienced his second heart attack while he was on a treadmill at work.

So through his twenties he smoked and did not run.  Those were two major differences in our health profiles.

Workaholics?

Troy and I also shared another common trait.  We both work too much.  We grew up in a family business.  Our grandparents worked too much, our parents worked too much, and we grew into the same mold.  Like our eating habits that we joked about often, our work ethic was something that we suffered through and wore our strain like a badge of pride.

Sleep was inconsequential.  We both worked in jobs, projects and more that would keep us at it for 18 – 20 hours per day, fueled with fast food, coke and cigarettes.

I write this after coming off a night where I had just over 3 hours of sleep, but I did run 3 miles yesterday. I’m on my second or third coke zero and I’ve been awake for about 2 hours.

We both fast tracked through the corporate world.  I was a nut for education and within an 8 year period after getting out of the military double majored in accounting and finance and picked up a master’s in tax laws.  I did this all while holding down a full time job, or running my own business or both.

Troy did not finish college, but with his intelligence, his gift of practical wisdom and an ability to deal with people that I can not match, also rapidly moved up in the corporate world.  Where I worked to complete a ‘profile’ of requirements for one job after another, backing it up with results and too many hours, Troy worked his ass off always I suspect feeling a need to compensate for the lack of a college degree.

In truth, I’ve worked with a lot of people with a degree or even MBA’s that didn’t have half his experience nor ability, but on paper that is a hard thing to demonstrate.  Troy and I both grew up in a family business and pretty much worked from the age of 10 up. 

Where I left the family business and entered the military, Troy stayed.  In doing so, I think Troy learned a number of very important lessons about both himself, our family and people in general that I did not.  I learned other lessons, but one of the differences is that I was constantly tearing down my foundations and rebuilding my knowledge or experience.  Troy built upon his foundation of knowledge and experience and built a fortress.

Neither path is right or wrong, better or worse, just a different path.

Adding it All Up

By the time Troy was 31 he had been smoking in one form or another for 31 years, he had worked for 21 years.  His candle burned from both ends.

At the same age, I had worked for as many years, but had smoked in one form or another for only about 20 years.  From my the perspective of my lungs and heart, not smoking played a major role in my health.  Running during my early twenties and then in my late twenties, I started running again when I was about 28, casually doing a couple miles a couple times a week in sporadic bouts of exercise just to keep in practice with something that came naturally.

I had also lost my taste for McDonalds. 

Sometime around age 29 or so, maybe even sooner, I grew sick of McDonalds french fries and soon after quarter pounders didn’t seem so hot any more either.

I had eaten a ton of them.  Years earlier when I ultimately stopped smoking, I did it by purchasing swisher sweets by the box (the short skinny versions that resemble a cigarette in size but without the plastic filters).  I would then smoke them one after another till I was buzzing in with nicotine and couldn’t stand another one.

That is a very moronic way to stop smoking.  I do not advise trying it.  It worked for me.  Sometimes things that work for me, well they almost never work for anyone else.

I had moved to South Florida in 2000, and partly due to a larger salary, and partly due to the influence of friends who had better eating habits, I slowly started to change my diet.

They thought I was nuts (in a fun loving way). I famously went on diets.  The gummy bear diet, the Pie diet were two of my staples.  It was a joke.  In retrospect it was fun, but I don’t find it funny any more.  If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t do it the same, but I had to go through the looking glass to gain that wisdom so in the end I did the thing that helped me learn. 

I was lucky that I wasn’t more destructible myself.

I started to eat healthier food.  My wife, Becky, helped.  My crazy influence and shitty diet probably about killed her.  She gained a great deal of weight, partly with our first child, but mostly because we just bought bad food.  She smoked before she met me, and continued up until our son Corbin was born.  If I recall, I think she had one temporary relapse after that, but has been smoke free since.

While living in Florida, we started eating more chicken.  That was one of the first things we did right.  Our foods were typically too starchy, rice and potatoes for example.

Fresh vegetables were rare in the house.  Personally, I just didn’t know how to cook them.  We also had different tastes when it came to vegetables.  I liked lima beans, she hated them.  She liked broccoli, I wouldn’t touch the stuff.

Later we moved to Atlanta just before our second daughter was born.  I was exposed to even better food.  Eventually my office was located above an Emeril’s restaurant for example, plus our neighbors were a caterer and a chef.

My palette expanded, significantly.  We both grew to love spinach salads.  This was when I started to run again, even biked.  We walked quite a bit too.

Life Balance?  Fear of God vs the Mafia

When I was about 33, I went through a major life change.  I became a corporate whistleblower when I learned that my now former company was engaging in organized crime practices including: money laundering, income tax evasion & selling products on the black market which were picked up by insurgents in Iraq to make IED’s. 

I was not a happy camper and was happy to do what I could to try and take those evil bastards down.

It cost me my career in corporate finance.  Fuck it. 

No job nor career is worth spending 20 hours a day working for something where your efforts are used for evil purposes.  My wake up calls came in the form of death threats and crazy situations.

When I put the whistle blowing behind me, I had to figure out what I was going to do next.  To make a long story short (I’m such a good writer when it comes to being concise and to the point!  ) I chose to launch my own company and work from home.

I started exercising regularly, both running and lots of crunches and work outs with weights.  I dropped 20 + pounds.

Later, my wife decided that she need some rebalancing too.  We decided to move to North Carolina, partly to seek better care for our third and youngest daughter, partly to get our second daughter into kindergarten, and partly to get help with the kids and more support from her parents.

We temporarily moved in with Becky’s parents while we tried to sell our house.  That was two years ago.  We are still here and thanks to the grand economy we still can’t sell our house.

But during that time, my wife has gotten a great deal more support, our diet has improved even more, and now for the  first time in our marriage, we both run.

My brother Troy experienced a wake up call of a different nature.  He had a heart attack at age 31.  As I recall, he had 3 blocked arteries.  Two of those were cleared out manually, and the third was cleared with medication.

He had to change his diet over night.  He had to stop smoking.

He did both, initially.

Overtime, he started to fall back into some of his old bad habits.  Changing your lifestyle, your culture of how you live, is not easy.  It can change overnight if your are suddenly filled with the fear of god, but once the fear is removed, the stimulus that created the environment for change goes away.

Troy lost a lot of weight.  I don’t know how much exactly, but I think it was in the 25 – 35 lb range.  He removed salt from his diet, and watched everything he ate.  He tried one type of stop smoking medication and technique after the next.  I think he was smoke free for about 9 months.

I remember when I first realized he was smoking again.  We were talking on the phone long distance.  I vaguely noticed that the sound of a sliding glass door opening and shutting came through the receiver.

Then I heard the tell tale sucking of breath through teeth, the deep but shallow breath of smoke being inhaled into lungs.  I knew the sound well, it was the sound that marked emphasis in every conversation I had had with my father or brother through out most of my life.  My mother didn’t make the super sucking smoke sound very often and never for emphasis during a conversation.

I knew he had fallen off the wagon.   I didn’t say anything.

He told me a couple weeks later on a different phone call.  I tried to be supportive.  I knew it was tough to quit.  I had my own bad habits.  I had a coke problem.

By this time, I had switched from regular coke with sugar to diet coke.  I switched because I feared I might develop diabetes from the high level of sugar intake.  I did not realize that diet coke is probably more dangerous than a pancreas swimming in molasses.

Fast forward a year or two and my brother has had another heart attack.  Along the way, his doctor told him that he was better.  He was taken off heart medication last summer.

A year ago, his corporate fast track took him to Houston for a ‘promotion’.  He was running a branch that had severe problems, thousands of dollars of cash went missing each week, employees were stealing company cars, the accountants were inept, and his new executive support system was incompetent, non-existent in providing real support and ultimately Troy was worked almost to the brink of death.

He realized the peril and quit.  I’ve never been more proud of him. 

I think he saved his own life.

It is not easy to walk away from the best paying job you have ever had.  Not easy to make a choice that will put you in grave financial hardship for the sake of your family and health. 

People don’t like quitters.  People are fucking morons.  They don’t realize that corporate structures are built to sustain a culture that feeds on the sociology that people don’t like quitters.

A year later, Troy had found a better job with a better company that did provide better support, but something broke down in recent weeks.

He has had a case of bronchitis for 6-8 weeks.  He’s also been working 12 hour days as he tries to get a handle on the responsibilities and requirements of his new job.  I don’t know all the issues of the company, but they seem to be stuck in a realm of extreme unproductive behavior. 

Think Office Space TPS reports with computers that run at half the speed because the corporate offices in Altanta haven’t realized that their remote locations can’t access data through a narrow pipe as fast as they can themselves. 

There are probably many other issues, but issues are not the problem.  Troy has been racing to become expert at his new job.  We are competitive to a certain degree.  We do not have to be better than others, we don’t have to out do other people.

We do have to be great at our jobs, one of the stars on the team.  The person that anyone else would feel comfortable throwing the ball to in the final seconds of the game so we can score.

He’s been working there several months and has probably dazzled them, but he probably didn’t feel expert yet.  There were still some reports he didn’t yet understand, queries he didn’t know how to run, process he didn’t know forwards or backwards, some other person’s job there that he couldn’t do as well as his own.

These are the types of things that fuel us on typically.  So he worked long hours, even when he was sick for weeks.

I should have known what was going on but I didn’t.  I hadn’t talked with Troy for a couple weeks. 

I had been caught up in my own problems trying to solve our financial problems, heal my own business and a lot of that culminated in 3 back to back trips.

I talked with a lot of people, a lot of family during that time, but not Troy.

There was no reason, it just didn’t happen.

Its not my fault that he had a heart attack, but I’m not sure I helped prevent it either.  The problem in my mind (and it is in my mind) seems to hinge around two issues.

Even at age 37, I feel about as indestructible as I did at 19.  That’s ignorant and stupid and moronic and many other things, but it is true.

I don’t live like I’m going to live forever.  That has never been my problem.  I live in the now, I try to always do what is important to me.  Far too often I make the wrong choices, but I’m getting better.

The thing is that I’ve never had a serious illness.  I don’t look nineteen anymore, but I look younger than many other guys that are 37.  I might even look younger than my brother.

I don’t have a key to the fountain of youth, but since the guy I see in the mirror hasn’t changed much, I also don’t feel age and mortality creeping up on me so much.  I forget how old I am very often.  I’ve forgotten my age for years at a time.

I don’t do the math.  I could care less how old I am for the most part, but I should, maybe.

If I had a better sense of my own destructibility I wouldn’t change my actions, but I might be able to empathize better with the mortality of the people I love.  I might be able to be more charitable and supportive and even hard enough to stop them from doing things that harm themselves.

In my inability to see my own demise, I have a similarly difficult time, especially with my brother Troy, to see his potential demise.

How can my little brother die if I can’t die?

I’m not as fast as I used to be (about 10 minutes slower at 3 miles). I don’t dance anymore, my greatest personal loss, which says a lot for how good my life has been.  I am losing some hair.  I don’t recover as fast, and over-working is not as easy as it used to be.

I know my brother through myself.  Its not the right thing to do, but I see myself in him.  He is very much like me in many ways.  If I don’t feel destructible, how can he be destructible?

I’ve never lived with the knowledge nor wisdom that I was destructible.  I’m both ignorant and immature in this regard.  I feel like the crux of the issue is that I can’t help my brother find a better path, unless I learn how to live with being destructible myself.

I may have this turned around backwards.  Maybe its for my younger, wiser brother to teach me.  I’ve never had surgery, never broken a major bone (not counting toes).  If I were in a super hero movie, this would be the point in the movie where I’d realize, well maybe that isn’t normal.  Maybe I am indestructible?

That’s a bunch of crap.  But if I can only know it but can really KNOW it then what?