His Lifestyle Got Him
AJ Robinson

David is another of my four brothers. He’s the middle son, third of five. Sort of sounds like a Star Trek character, right?

David likes slap-stick comedy, best.

Star Trek is not his style. Comedy is his favourite. He especially likes The Three Stooges. In his youth, he kind of looked like Larry and once got to meet the comedian.

To say that comedy is his forte is incomplete. Film, movies, the motion picture industry are his passions. David has quite the love of films.

The man also has stresses in his life. In fact, he’s has always had stresses in his life. He and our brother Steve are what we would call complete opposites. Steve was laidback and easygoing; David can be, well, let’s say, high energy.

That was the case until quite recently. David had a heart attack a little more than a week ago. Brother Greg called to break the news. Given the recent events in our family, I almost wasn’t surprise.

I mean, what’s next: frogs and locusts? Let’s review, shall we? Jo Ann had COVID-19, with renal failure, I need a spinal operation. Mom is still recovering from her accident. Greg has a mass in his lungs that needs medical attention. Now, David has a heart attack. I know that, as people age, they have medical and I do have a rather large extended family, but this all seems a bit much.

Of course, it is 2020. This is the year T**** attacks democracy, massive unemployment, COVID-19 and even Murder Hornets. What was that I said about frogs and locusts? We’re almost there.

David infarcted.

Greg called to say David’s wife, Shirley, had taken him, David, to the hospital about four in the morning. Ironically, he didn’t have the classic massive pain in his chest. As he was showing all the other typical problems: left arm pain, cold sweats, short of breath and so forth, she decided to err on the side of caution; it’s a good thing she did.

David was in major distress. The next day there was a heart cat-scan performed to see what was going on inside his heart. There was good news from the scan. He didn’t have blockage and there were no congenital defects.

The latter was something for which we were all grateful. For David, the problem was related to his lifestyle; he needed to make some changes in his life. There was his diet, which he needs to improve; exercise, which he needs to do more often and more intensely; most especially, he needed to learn to relax and de-stress.

That’s going to be the toughie. David is a bit of a Type A personality. I have serious reservations for his ability to relax and de-stress. He has a good wife, in Shirley, and our family is ready to help.

Who knows? He might pull it off. Given all that we’ve gone through this year, I’d say anything is possible.

What hurts is that we can’t visit him. Given the state of his health, his physician doesn’t want to risk exposure to COVID-19. Although I have a clean bill of health in that department, I don’t want to take any chances.

We call, text and e-mail David. The family tries to be as supportive as possible. Oh, and, of course, no one is saying anything to mom of this event. We don’t want to stress her.

Hope life will improve in 2021, for all.

I have to say, 2020 can’t go soon enough. I most sincerely hope 2021 is better. We shall see.