A Fresh Beginning

I have refrained from writing about my initial reactions to a disturbing diagnosis twelve years ago and what has happened to me since then. Short bits of information about my experiences have been included in various responses in E-mail and have, I hope, been encouraging to others.

Today, I hope to encourage even more of you. During the past few years I’ve received thousands of E-mails from patients who have or who are experiencing the same diagnosis and prognosis that I did a little more than twelve years ago.

I didn't know it back then, but it wasn't to be the end for me, but instead a new beginning.

If there's one thing I've noticed above all others in much of the E-mail I receive, it's about what kind of future lies ahead, the initial fears, denials, and the understandable lack of knowledge about the no-salt world. And not just for heart patients, but for scores of other chronic ailments as well. From Meniere’s Syndrome and hypertension to nephrotic syndrome in children and adults and even some cancers.

The common thread that brings us all together is salt. Sodium in the salt is the culprit. And cutting it out helps every single chronic illness that salt has either led to or exacerbated.

When a patient’s EF gets below an established figure, medical science calls for a heart transplant. I fell into that group, but while being “worked up” for eligibility for the heart transplant list, I began to improve. The doctors held off. Something good was happening. In fact. so good I never needed the transplant.
Most Megaheart visitors and No-Salt, Lowest-Sodium book users already know about how I was able to improve my heart function and diagnosis thereby avoiding one of only two prognosis. Death or transplant. It was that serious during the early stages.

With the help of others I introduced a no-salt, low-sodium approach to eating and it worked. My approach did not allow for low salt use. It was, and remains, no salt. We get plenty of sodium in fresh (natural) foods.

Along with some medications and exercise, cutting salt out one-hundred percent and eliminating processed foods allowed for dramatic changes in my heart condition.

My heart returned to normal size, or as the doctors described it, "The heart remodeled" to normal size. My ejection fraction climbed back to 48% from a low of 18%. My breathing improved remarkably.
I was able to do physical things again, like heavy work in our yard or walking much longer distances. My first walk of any distance was up a sloped roadway, leading from The Point Cabrillo Light Station, in northern California to the parking area. Maureen was going to go up first and get our car, but I wanted to go for it on foot and we did it.
We have heard from literally thousands of our book users that our no salt plan has brought them back to good health, gotten them off the transplant list, helped immeasurably with Meniere’s Syndrome and kidney and other ailments. Some of these notes can be found at our <a href= target=”_blank” />testimonial page.</a>

The New Beginning Started

During the early stages when I thought my days were numbered shorter than I wanted, I took up doing a few things I always wanted to do. I think you can, too. I am convinced that putting my mind and body to work to achieve new goals has been a big contributor to not only surviving a potentially disastrous disease, but improving my condition. The first thing I did, with the help of our children, was to start painting. Brushes, canvases, acrylics and oils.

My first efforts went to the county dump in a hurry. But I kept at it and got better. More about that toward the end of this note.
I began writing articles and books more seriously and have seen four books published with two now in the pipeline, one a novel, another book dealing with health, and a third novel is about to be completed (I had a novel published by Signet Classics in 1986, but got too busy with my job to pursue a career as Tom Clancy the second.) The first article I felt good enough about to submit was published in the Marine Corps Gazette in August of 2000. I was happy about that even though they didn’t give it a byline. It was just listed as number six in a series on the same subject. But hey, it was in print and I had to feel better about that. A second article then followed in August 2006 edition of AOPA Magazine. It did have my byline.

During that time I had produced three of the four No Salt, Lowest Sodium Cookbooks with the latest effort involving my wife, Maureen. Together we launched ourselves into the fourth book, which was published a year ago.

It was indeed a whole new life.
I also learned how to design Web sites and have done a lot of that for others, some commercial efforts, others specifically for help with heart disease and other maladies requiring a no-salt dietary lifestyle. I learned how to write sites. That is, write the html language itself. This is labor intensive at times but I continue this way since I am a firm believer that keeping our brains active keeps us alive and much healthier.

During the early days of heart failure, about the time my heart started to improve, Maureen and I volunteered some of our time to a northern California lighthouse, the only lighthouse on the west coast with an original Fresnel lens (Third Order). The lighthouse is a completely volunteer effort that stays in operation with donated funds or from the profits produced at a small gift shop. The lighthouse now has a wonderful B&B, utilizing the original light keeper's homes, which were brought up to original condition by volunteers using donated and some grant money. We still work with them, mostly during the summer. It is that lighthouse you see in the painting at the head of this note. Needless to say I’ve done more than one painting at this location. (All my paintings are done on scene, which is known as en plain air.)
Not that I hadn’t loaded my plate, I was still searching for other things to do. Anything to keep my noggin working and my lungs pumped up and my heart beating. So, since I always wanted to play a saxophone, I bought one. And I taught myself to play it. (A picture with one of our grandsons is in the heart healthy Living magazine this Spring.) I am musically challenged as some might say, well, more than some. I was the curtain puller at our college songfest since no one would even allow me to get near the singing, not even a large group who could have easily camouflaged my disastrous out of tune singing. Still, with the new saxophone I learned how to read music, how to play the instrument and it has become a true joy and puts me into "relax" mode instantly.
Best of all however, are the thirteen grandchildren I would not have known had I not improved. They make life wonderful and each visit is a pure joy. Including today’s sojurn on the local lake with three of them aboard the bass boat I bought just a few months after my diagnosis. Nuts? Yes, it was. But I had no intention of not succeeding at improving my health and the kids love the boat.

This Can't Be Happening To Me
The above line is one of the more prominent notes I receive when new members sign on to Megaheart. It doesn't matter if it's a heart diagnosis or another of the many maladies associated with too much salt in the diet. It's a natural thought. It happened to me, too. And just as you might have thought at the time, I too figured I had been doing all the right things.
We quickly realize however, that the world isn't built for those who succumb to a disease that in a large part was contributed to by a world of food handlers who could care less about our health - unless they can make a buck off of it. I'm not speaking to just the fast-food chains. That's a personal choice and potentially a self destructive one that we have been made aware of. I haven’t been in a McDonald’s or Burger King or any of the others in years and years.

My argument then is with food processors who are theoretically producing "safe" foods in cans, frozen foods, diary products, and so forth, but aren’t. And they know it. They have added way too much unnecessary salt, MSG and other ingredients for way too many years. They know they can produce all that food without salt and MSG, but they march on, knowing that our palates were damaged years ago and “demand” salt in order to find processed foods “palatable.”

But our palates can be repaired. They can return to normal. Three months without salt and we’re good to go with fresh, natural foods. Unfortunately we face an uphill struggle.
Take low-fat foods for instance. Low Fat was a "fad" for food manufacturers until they realized it produced profits. (Most low fat foods have an increased level of sodium because processors add more salt to give the fat-free foods a "kick.") Fads make money.

Many usually disappear while a few stick. One that will pass on is the latest fad of "slow cooking." It is doing wonders for crock pot sales but nothing for food other than taking it longer to cook and if done on stovetop or in an oven it burns up more energy and our money.

Fads may come and they may go, but heart disease, Meniere's Syndrome, liver and kidney ailments and all the other chronic illnesses that require a low-sodium, no-salt lifestyle are with us forever. We cannot cure them, but we can reduce their violence to our bodies and we can increase our health to live at a very much higher level of enjoyment.

To succeed however, we must take charge of what we eat and rarely can it be processed foods. By the force of nature itself, we must select fresh vegetables and fruits, very lean meats, unless we go vegetarian. Some dairy products are okay, but not all.

Basically, it is up to us to change the marketplace, up to us to fix our bodies.
We never can go back to salt.

Lowering our sodium and our saturated fat levels is part of our life now. This is not a fad. This is life saving. Accepting that and moving on is the best thing we can do for our hearts, our kidneys and liver, and for our dizziness and vertigo, created sometimes by Meniere's, sometimes by high blood pressure.
Jumping back to the beginning of this note, I want to invite you to take a look at the artwork I've learned how to do. (I promise I’ll never push a CD of the saxophone on you.) It has moved to a level where the work itself can now help others. The original of this piece sold for a high price and it was all donated to a good cause. One that helps preserve the history of our country for future generations. Now, giclée copies are available with a full tax deduction since all the profits will be donated to the Point Cabrillo Lightkeeper's Association. Giclee prints last for about 200 years (maybe more, nobody knows for sure beyond the testing that has taken place). The prints are exact replicas of the original using pigment ink. They are available on acid free paper or canvas with stretcher bars.

A special page has been put up at megaheart.com for anyone interested. Mostly though, my intended message is that if you've always wanted to try drawing or painting, or playing a musical instrument, or fly-tying or anything you haven’t done but would love to try, then please go for it. It will, in my estimation, add years to your life.

Even if you don't think you have the talent, don't worry about it. It will come to you. And so will the peace and quiet you need in your daily life.
I hope this note has helped those of you who are working to improve. It can be done. It takes a great deal of effort and some real will power to drastically change your diet, so along the way, why not try a few of the things you've always wanted to do? That effort is now added to my former list of just three things to do for successful recovery. The four now are:
1. Cut salt out and lower sodium.
2. Take prescribed medications on schedule.
3. Exercise.
4. Do something you've wanted to do and relax with it