I Didn’t Realize I Was Dying Until My Body Forced Me to Listen

I used to tell myself I was fine. That the extra weight, the pounding in my ears, the way my chest tightened after the smallest walk—those were just “signs of getting older.”

But the truth was… I’d been falling apart for years, just slowly enough that I could pretend not to see it.

One morning, I felt off the moment I woke up. My head throbbed, the kind of pressure that makes you feel like your skull is shrinking.

I walked into the kitchen to make coffee, trying to shake the dizziness, and then suddenly… it felt like someone wrapped a fist around my heart and squeezed.

Hard.

I couldn’t breathe. My vision tunneled. I remember my legs giving out. But what I remember most is the fear—raw, primal fear—that I was about to die on that cold tile alone.

When my daughter found me, I saw something in her face that broke me completely: terror. Pure terror that she was losing her mother right in front of her.

The hospital was a blur of bright lights and urgent voices. I heard phrases like “hypertensive crisis, dangerously obese, stroke risk, cardiac arrhythmia.”

For a moment, I felt like I left my own body, watching a doctor explain the consequences of a life lived ignoring warning signs.

Then he looked at me—right into me—and said, “You are very lucky to be alive. This could have been fatal.”

I had spent years taking care of everyone else, convincing myself I was strong enough to keep going.

But in that hospital bed, attached to wires and machines, I felt weaker than I ever had in my life.

And for the first time, I let it all in. The shame, the fear and the greif. I cried—deep, shaking sobs that I’d held in for decades. My daughter held my hand the whole time, whispering, “I need you. Please take care of yourself.”

At my follow up appointment, my doctor reiterated the ever present risks of my condition. Despite making it out of the hospital alive, if I didn't make a change things were going to get worse. 

My doctor recommended an unconventional but effective costa rican tea made with natural ingredients targeting a root cause of high blood pressure and obesity.

Recovery wasn’t a straight line, I hated how slow I moved. I hated confronting the habits that brought me here. I hated how emotional I became over the simplest things.