Code Blue! for the Healing Powers Author: My Survival Story

By Cal Orey

(Excerpt from the newly revised and updated #1 hit, The Healing Powers of Honey -- Unveiled this summer! available for pre-order)

As a devoted health author, I’ve always been lean and active, never smoked or drank alcohol. So, I was shocked when one day I made a call to the paramedics. “Something isn’t right,” I said in between catching my breath. Fifteen minutes later, I was at the hospital.

 I was told later by a young nurse; she was the one to call out “CODE BLUE!” CPR for another fifteen minutes. My heart had stopped. I don’t recall the ventilator, or transport to another hospital for heart patients—a reality I never imagined facing. The diagnosis: coronary heart disease (CAD).  The cardiologist who performed an angiogram told me it was my diet and clean lifestyle that likely saved my life. He recommended NO open-heart surgery; and yes, to heart meds. He believed my clogged arteries were caused 70 percent by genes (thanks mom and dad).  Yeah, my mom was Type-A, a hardworking human honey bee like me.

I agonized. I don’t want major surgery. I don’t have any comorbidities. I never got COVID. I wanted a second opinion. I said no to the no name doctors who wanted to perform open-heart surgery. A few weeks later, a local cardiologist reviewed my angiogram. He looked like the kid in that Home Alone scene, where he slaps his hands to his face, wide-eyed, his amusing reaction to the sting of aftershave. But my heart disease was no laughing matter. The doc instantly called a cardio specialist at UC Davis. After a summer of statin hell (fatigue, memory loss, muscle weakness, and stomach woes), my CAD morphed into congestive heart failure!...