In their early thirties a lot of people are getting married, buying their first house, or even beginning to have children and start a family. At such a young age, they are probably not remotely close to worrying about having a heart attack. Unfortunately for Jose Velasquez this was not the case. Jose relives the day he had a widowmaker heart attack, how close he got to losing his life, and what it takes to bounce back.
The Day All Could Have Ended
It’s the year 2020, Jose Velasquez, aka “The Latino Lender,” is one of Long Island, NY’s premiere insurance brokers. He has recently lost seventy pounds and is feeling excited about the direction his life is going in. Little does Jose know that everything is about to change, and that his FighterHeart story is about to begin. Jose recalls that morning, “The morning of, I had been experiencing the classic symptoms of a heart attack. I had chest pain, as well as shooting pain down my arm and then up into my neck. It felt like an elephant sitting on my chest.” Many would start to panic in this situation but Jose kept his cool, “I was sitting at a point of acceptance. I remember thinking I’m having a heart attack right now and I'm going to have to fight like hell to not pass out from this ridiculous pain.” He quickly told his wife what was going on. They hopped in the car and sped to the hospital. Jose explains how important it was that they chose to drive instead of calling an ambulance, “...from when I left the house, to when I got to the hospital, it probably took about five minutes. Time is so essential that if I would have called an ambulance and waited, I don't know if we would be having this conversation today.”
One Motivation Kept Jose Alive
Once at the hospital, Jose was connected to an EKG machine that showed he had a 99% blockage. “They roll me into the back. As we rush past, people are screaming to get out of the way! Move!” he explains. As they rush him to the emergency operating table, Jose recalls his thought process, “I was like okay, I need to hang in there for just five more minutes. I need to get to that operating table, because if I can get there, I still have a shot...I could picture my daughter's faces the entire time, and that was my biggest motivation.” Luckily, Jose made it those five more pivotal minutes and survived the ordeal. Once out of the hospital he began his recovery process
Struggling Back Needs a FighterHeart
To me, having a fighter's heart basically is dealing with the struggle that's presented to you in the moment and being able to move past it. Those eight months of recovery, you do fall into a depression of sitting at home on your couch and not being able to do things, and just getting up is a struggle.
I would say that you just have to literally take it one day at a time.The recovery is a marathon. It is not a sprint. It becomes a lifestyle change. You have to completely revamp the way you think, the way you move, the way you operate as a whole, and have as much positivity around as you can.
