Chuck Handley

July 21, 2001

Hello LeRoy,

We all think we are invincible, especially us old "jocks." I have continued over the years to be active in various sports, most recently racquetball and senior softball. My teams have gone to the national finals the last two years in the latter. So you can imagine how surprised my family and I were when the doctor told me on July 3 that I need open heart surgery. The result was four bypasses on July 4th. They said I had 80% blockage but fortunately my attack was angina rather than heart so there was no damage to the heart. Angina is the term used for the heart starving for want of oxygen due to the blockage. Perhaps a better term than shortness of breath is "hard to breath." It seemed that I just could not get enough air for several minutes. It would pass after several minutes so I would just keep playing.

In as much as we are not getting any younger it is important that we all pay attention to the warning signals our bodies give us. Mine were shortage of breath and pain in the left arm during the ball games. I made an appointment with my doctor advising the nurse of the symptoms in late June. She asked me if I could wait until July 11. Of course, I said, as we were planning a trip to Southern California with a return to Las Vegas on July 8. I was also planning to play in a tournament on July 7 & 8 in Riverside. How wrong I was not to go to the doctor in June. Had I not had the angina attack and gone to the emergency room on July you might have been able to add my name to the growing list of "lost classmates."

So I urge everyone in our class and others to pay attention to the signs for heart problems. I was lucky! It could have been much worse for me because I waited. Don't procrastinate. If you have warning signal see your doctor right away.

You have my permission to pass the information on to the rest of our classmates. Who knows, maybe it might help save one of them the problems I had through early detection.

Best regards,
Chuck Handley

(The above letter is a merging and slight editing of two letters from Chuck on July 21, 2001)



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