Be thankful for the Voices

My older brother had an aortic dissection when he was forty-five. The Widow Maker, they call it. You die almost instantly when your heart actually splits.  He survived amazingly. This shocked our family immensely.  Being three years younger and very close in genetics, this life event prompted me to become very aggressive in treating my own heart health. Eight years later, last month, my younger brother failed a stress test and ultimately was found to have blocked arteries that required a quadruple by-pass at the age of forty-six.  Again, shock. Doctors said both cases were seventy percent genetics. I travelled to see my brother the day of surgery and sit with his wife and child while he was in surgery and long story short, it was an extremely emotional time.

Since this time, I have scheduled a repeat stress test and scan for my self and even more aggressive conversations about genetics and heart health. Of course, now I feel every phantom ache and pain is my heart telling me that I must be dying. Never have I been a hypochondriac but now, I am now awful close.

On top of all of this, voices are ringing in my head and just will not stop.  Voices about returning to the doctor, eating better and working out.  I saw my first heart scan commercial. Who knew they had these? I probably heard them before but never listened. Ad banners have now changed to AARP ads. Seriously? Voices. More and more voices telling me to listen.  Weird, I know, but they sure are loud.

Now every other radio break is about a need for life insurance to protect your family. On top of all of this, a good friend of mine who is an eternal bachelor is getting married! Just great news for him, right? In his mid-forties he is marrying a widow and adopting her two children.  Excellent and so happy.  How did her husband pass? He was running a 10k and had a heart attack at the age of thirty-six. Of course, not cancer or some other dreadful disease…it had to be his heart.

So I write to you and hope you listen.

If you don’t have life insurance, get some. Even a little. If it is offered through your work, sign up. If it is not, find someone you trust who is licensed or apply online.  Also, investigate disability insurance for you and your spouse.  Technology and medical care are so good these days that if you have an ailment, the doctors and nurses will put you back together. You will more than likely live.  How you live and who pays for your disability is the question. 

Get your wills done. And, get a Medical Power of Attorney (MPA) and a Living Will. Just get them done.  Talk with that friend who is a lawyer or go online.

Lastly…call your doctor and take a physical. Take a stress test. It saved my brother’s life. If he had not failed his test last month who knows how dead he would be a few months from now? These are financial decisions that will help you and your family later.

I am thankful this Thanksgiving season for my voices.  I hope you listen to your voices and are thankful for them speaking up. Maybe you reading this now will be a voice? Go get checked out and then have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends. You and your family will be thankful you listened.

Greg Farrall is a registered financial advisor, owner of his own wealth management firm, Farrall Wealth, and hosts a weekly financial literacy show, Money Matters with Greg that is podcast on Apple and Google stores. He can be reached via greg@farrallwealth.com and www.farrallwealth.com and LinkedIn.