Behind most people lie a hundred stories hidden in their pasts. They are what their lives are composed of. Each story retells an event in their life. Some have had a greater impact on a person's life than others. Some events have such a great impact that they are character defining.

When I was a child my father was a superhero. He was able to leap tall buildings and catch bullets with his hands. In my eyes, there was nothing he couldn't do, but that kind of naive thinking fades away with time, just like ideas of jolly men sliding down chimneys and tooth fairies that visit you when you're sleeping. However, I now know that my father is just a man and is vulnerable to the same afflictions that any man can suffer. He doesn't have super-human powers and he's not indestructible. Even worse, he can die. My father worked at night and was constantly tired and stressed out. He liked playing the super hero role in my house. As a Hispanic man, he took a lot of pride in being the provider and protector of the family and any kind of weakness was unacceptable. He was never able to show his pain and could never admit that he needed help.

I was eleven years old, and I had a dental appointment at the hospital. My father picked me up at school early. Since my father worked at night, he slept during the morning and picking me up from school was a big inconvenience for him because he lost several hours of sleep. Now that I look back at it, my father didn't look too well that day, but sometimes it's hard to tell because the man didn't know how to complain. He had had a hard night and for some reason he had a tight feeling in his chest and was having trouble breathing. We were in the lobby of the hospital when my father struggled to tell me that he needed to sit down. His hands were starting to shake and his face went pale. The thing that I remember the most about this moment was the look on his face. For the first time in my life I saw a look of complete helplessness and fear in my father's face. He tried to maintain the little composure he had left and whispered to me to get a nurse. He had just had a heart attack while sitting in the waiting room.

I guess my father was lucky that he was already at the hospital when he had his heart attack. He was immediately rushed to the emergency room and was treated right away. There is a history of heart disease in my family, so it didn't surprise me to find out that my father suffered from hypertension and high blood pressure. He was okay for the most part, but the doctors informed my dad that his arteries were very congested. Without major heart surgery another, more dangerous heart attack could have occurred at any moment, so my father got scheduled for open-heart surgery. A couple of days passed before he had his surgery. Most of my family spent these days at my father's bedside but I didn't see the reason to miss school. I thought that he would have his surgery and come home the next day. The truth that my father could have been living his last days still didn't occur to me. However, I visited him the day before his surgery. I saw the expressions on the faces of my brother and sister, and then I saw his face, and then I knew. I didn't say anything; I just started to cry. Everything changed for me that day. My father almost died. Suddenly a future with him in my life wasn't guaranteed. I gained a whole new appreciation for my parents. Some people aren't even lucky enough to have one parent and I still have two.

For More Information on Heart Diseases Go to:

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