This makes me mad

Tim Russert's recent death has me simmering (not quite up to boiling). He was 58 years old and dropped dead from a heart attack with his wife and college-aged son surviving him. What makes me so mad is the fact that heart attacks are preventable and the potential for a person having them are detectable. I guess it just hits a nerve with me. My mom died of a heart attack when she was 65 and that was too young, my brother has has one and he's 57 and a cousin had 90% blockage and he's 49! When the hell are we going to wake up and realize that the crap we do to ourselves is fatal? Genetics has some to do with it, but there are so many things we can do to keep this from happening.

Why is is that we are a country in denial? "Oh, that won't happen to me. I know that I'm 50 lbs overweight, have high cholesterol, have too much stress in my life and eat nothing but brown foods. But there's no way I will keel over from a heart attack." It just infuriates me! Cancer, automobile accidents, the stupidity of other people....these things we can't help. But we can help what we consume and how much exercise we get.

ARGH!