Modern medicine saves lives, makes you wonder ‘what if?’

Last week, we peered several days into the future and saw tornadoes coming our way on the weather radar.

Worrying is no fun, and for a minute I wished I’d lived many years ago, before meteorology became a legitimate science.

That’s dumb, of course. Then I wouldn’t have been prepared for the tornadoes if they showed up.

Fortunately, they didn’t.

But it got me thinking about the advantages of living in 2017.

It’s nice to know that you’ve got some warning before a twister roars into your yard, snatches up your house and takes you with it.

And while I was thinking about mortality, I started thinking about other ways we can get an early warning.

In the early 1960s, before I was born, something strange happened to my maternal grandfather, R. Clayton Bowers, who was the first principal of Troup High School.

He was feeling tired and stressed and so he checked into the hospital. He was a thin, vibrant man who, as my mother remembers, never went back for seconds at meals.

He rested until he felt better, and then he went home.

Nobody knew he had a blockage of his left anterior descending artery. When it’s completely blocked, it causes a massive heart attack called the widowmaker.

Two years later, while working on his farm, he died of the widowmaker.

He was 58, the last of my four grandparents, all dead before my parents married in their early twenties.

My paternal grandfather also died of a heart attack. His wife, my grandmother, died of breast cancer. My maternal grandmother died of leukemia.

Two of them were in their forties, younger than I am today.

One time, my brother and I joked that with our family medical history we’d better just enjoy life while we can. It was one of those times when you start laughing and then all of a sudden you stop because it’s really not funny.

In 2009, my then-66-year-old mother, who was the picture of health, had a heart attack. She had the same arterial blockage as her father and didn’t know it.

She was saved by the grace of God, an ambulance driver who drove from LaFayette, Ala., to Opelika in 15 minutes, and modern medicine.

Today, she’s going strong, and I can’t imagine life without her.

A couple of years ago, I was feeling tired and stressed. Bess had already started criticizing my poor eating habits and refusal to exercise. She was saying things like, “I need you to stay alive until we get all the kids through college.”

I started laughing and she said she wasn’t kidding – except for the part about staying alive for only another dozen years.

I went ahead and got a cardiac stress test. No issues, but the peace of mind was worth it. Today, I’m not eating sprouts or running marathons, but I’m taking better care of myself.

Speaking of medical advances, when Bess’ mother was pregnant with her in the late 1960s, she thought she was carrying the most active baby in history. Nobody knew that this one growing child was actually two – Bess and her identical twin sister, Leslie.

That was a happy surprise.

But back in the day, most medical surprises were not happy ones.

Today, terrible diseases still claim lives, but early detection and advancements save more lives than ever. I wonder what it would have been like to know even one of my grandparents, and I’m thankful that my children’s grandparents are all still alive and enriching their lives with every visit, letter and phone call.

This story was originally published April 14, 2017 at 9:37 PM with the headline "Modern medicine saves lives, makes you wonder ‘what if?’."