What a week here at the Lovell household. I just returned from Toronto after our team hosted the World Internet Summit’s Internet Challenge. This was after hosting it the week before in Dallas and the week before that, we had our Seminar in London. So, I’ve been an incredibly busy guy.

I got back from Toronto and started feeling pretty lousy, you know the deal, headache, body aches, stuffy nose, ears hurting, etc.. I thought I had my yearly bout of the flu coming on. I knew I had to get over this quickly as I was scheduled to fly out to Sydney, Australia on Sunday the 16th for a Rip2it Training Workshop.

So, I went to the family doctor and figured he would get me some antibiotics, decongestant, the usual cold and flu medicines. But…….

As with anything, life can throw some curveballs at you to keep you on your toes. What was to be a simple visit to the doctor for the flu/cold turned out to be a 4 day event with more doctors and numerous tests. When they checked my blood pressure which is standard procedure, the nurse looked at me and said, does your blood pressure run high? I said, not at all. It was 190/100!! So, she thought it might be a mistake and tested it again. Nope.. it wasn’t a mistake it was that high.

So, they put me through the normal procedures for the flu/cold and asked me to wait 30 mins. to take my blood pressure reading again…. no change in the reading it was still that high.

I was monitored for the next 24 hours and the readings varied from 190/100 to 160/88 but never lower, so off for more testing. You see, I have a very bad family history of heart disease and this worried everyone. My Father had a heart attack when he was 38 (in november of all months!), my Uncle Chuck has a heart transplant and my Father’s Mother died very young of a heart attack. You can see why we were worried.

An EKG and Blood tests were performed, no heart attack but there are some early warning signs and the family history is there so, I have to go through some other tests this coming week. They put me on some Blood Pressure medication and an aspirin a day to get the pressure down.

Time for some changes….. It sucks that it takes something like this to realize that it’s time to make life changes but I’ve been through some pretty scary medical issues before and I know how serious they need to be taken. I get my cholesterol reading this week and I think that will be the deal breaker.

I’ve been eating pretty well (when I’m not on the road) but that is the first step and I know it and the next is exercise, I have to get back into shape and start exercising once again. My goal will be to drop 25lbs and completely change my diet to ‘heart healthy’.

Stress…. oh yes, I have to eliminate stress. This is ALL on me. This last couple of years have been incredibly amazing, our company has gone from mid six figures to close to 8 figures and with that comes an enormous amount of responsibility. It’s not all about me now, there are company officers, employees and investors to think about and I put way to much pressure on myself. I will be making some serious changes when it comes to how I handle stress. I know this will take some time and effort but I know I can do it for my family and the company.

Don’t worry, I’m doing fine, I just need to take some time to re-group and make some changes in my life that will keep me here for many, many years to come :)