TIM YANCEY

Heart Attacks Suck…. really.

Earlier in the day, Trish and I had gone out and bought a TempurPedic Bed.  It was one of those adjustable beds, that the head and feet raise up on…. massage…. the whole thing.  Big ol memory foam mattress – the base alone must have weighed 300 – 400 pounds.  We hoofed it into the pickup truck I had borrowed from my next door neighbor and brought it home.  Pulling it off the truck, I noticed that my heart was burning… a lot of pressure.

I had felt this same pain for a while now – anytime I exerted myself, I would get this burning sensation in my heart.  It felt like when you really work out a muscle – like your legs when your running…. that tired burning feeling.  No mistaking the fact that it was my heart muscle, and it hurt everytime I exerted myself.  Now, having to hoof this bed into the house was killing me.  Trish and I would lift it and carry it about four feet, and I would have to stop and wait for my heart to stop burning.  About ten minutes later, we would drag it a couple more feet.  Finally we got it into place, took out the old bed and settled in upstairs to watch a movie.

A few hours later after we had finish the movie, I went downstairs to grab a quick shower before bed.  As I was chilling out in the shower, my heart started to ‘pump up’… as if I was running a marathon or something.  By the time I had dried off and made it to bed….  I was in a LOT of pain.  I laid down, trying not to alarm Trish… but she already knew something was up.  “Whats going on”?

I told her I was having chest pains…  and right when I said it – BOOOOM.  The only thing I can say is it felt like my heart just cramped.  I could barely talk… I could barely move… the pain was friggin holy cow wtf INTENSE.  Right in my chest.  I began to sweat waterfalls…. but I didn’t get that left arm numb thing at all.  Trish was already up and getting ready to call the ambulance.  I told her we could be at the hospital by the time one showed up – let’s drive.

We got to the hospital, and they immediately went to work; to make a long story short – they disagnosed me with Coronary Artery Disease.  The two main arteries that feed my heart were 95-98% blocked.  My cholesterol wa 263, and my triglycerides were so hard, that they could not calculate them.  They kept me overnight, and said that they would normally schedule a stress test… but not in this instance because it would trigger a massive heart attack.

Another long story short…. they peformed two operations to put stents in my heart.  A day of rest – and I was discharged.  Now, Im resting at home – the worst part of it is the bed sores on my ass from where I laid in bed for five days.  it’s…. not pretty : )

MORAL OF THIS STORY:  I came as clos as you can get to dying from a massive heart attack.  I knew something was wrong – but I didnt say anything, because it would come and go.  It got worse and worse… and worse… until I almost killed myself out of stupidity.  If you are experiencing chest discomfort, or pain in your chest upon exertion – then you and I both know something is probably wrong.  Listen to your brain telling you to get it checked out.  I wanna keep you around.  Go to your doctor, and explain what is happening.  My doctor told me that I was less than 24 hours away from a massive heart attack.  don’t let that happen to you!  A lot of people love ya – and want you to hang around : )

If you think something is going on, and you want to talk more about this – shoot me an email.  ALeave me your phone umbr, and I will call you and we can talk more about it.

Tim

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Grant Wilson

Grant Wilson is a founding member of ‘The Atlantic Paranormal Society”, and one of two lead investigators of the most popular paranormal themed show on television.  Known as “Ghost Hunters”, the controversial series has been on the SyFy channel for eight seasons.  On the 2/15/12 broadcast of the program, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson gathered the team together and dropped a bombshell that left everyone on the crew in shock; Grant announced that he would be leaving the show.  The surprise revelation has left the ghost hunting community both surprised and saddened, with a curiousity of wanting to know more about the circumstances involving Grant’s sudden decision.

In the past, I have been very critical of Grant Wilson, and his personal influence on the show.  Many of our “Encounters Live” broadcasts didn’t have a lot of kind things to say about the television show, or Grant Wilson.  I guess it was a feud that was started long ago, when I first heard him and Jason Hawes bashing a personal friend of mine on their now defunct radio program, “Beyond Reality”.  They were accusing an associate of mine of faking a haunting, which they felt portrayed and made a mockery of the paranormal community.  Quite frankly, after seeing their television program…  thats exactly what my friend and I thought THEY were doing : )

And so, my little personal feud between them and I began.  They were heavyweights in the paranormal community…  I had a much smaller but still somewhat recognizable voice at the time as well, courtesy of the radio program we were doing with Clear Channel radio.  It just personally pissed me off that they were accusing others of faking paranormal activity… yet doing the same thing themselves on a weekly television program, all the while labeling themselves and a team that was credible and honest in their research.  It hadn’t always been this way between us, but heck…. they started it : )  And even though I didn’t have nearly as strong a presence in the paranormal field – I decided to let them know that their “shit stinketh” in a lot of peoples opinions also.

Long before their television show began, I had met the T.A.P.S. team at Penn State University.  Ryan Buell (of Paranormal State fame) had invited George Lutz and I to a ghost conference he was organizing in 2000.  The T.A.P.S. team was also there, to teach a series of basic ghost hunting classes during the day.  I attended a few of them while I was there, and I really liked what I was seeing.  They seemed sincere, and had a real enthusiasm and passion about the field of ghost investigation.  Jason and Grant seemed intersted in what we had to say as well, and attended our presentation that evening.  They would later state on their radio show that they “walked out” halfway through the presentation, believing it to be pure fabrication.  A few years later, George Lutz passed away suddenly in Las Vegas, Nevada; Jason and Grant were less than kind in announcing it on their radio show.  Jason stated that he felt such fabrication of hauntings were a detriment to the field of Ghost Hunting… and that he wasn’t surprised than George was dead… ‘The guy smoked like a chimney”.  It personally hurt me that they would attack someone on their radio show, and then do the very same thing that they accused George Lutz of doing; in my opinion they were blatantly faking paranormal activity.

I struggled with that internally for some time, and finally decided to speak out against it.  From then until now… I have been pretty critical of them, and have taken every available opportunity to ‘poke them in the eye’ when possible.  It wasn’t particularly hard to do - in fact they made it pretty easy for me.  More and more over the years, the paranormal ‘evidence’ on their show came into question.  Some of the paranormal community began to doubt that what they were seeing on the show was genuine… in fact, they finally began to suspect that there was evidence of trickery at play here as well.

Grant Wilson, "CollarGate"

I would record their shows, and later play back a lot of the alledged ‘activity’ that was present as proof of the paranormal.  Small details began to uncover themselves as I analyzed the footage… things that I felt indicated deception on the part of someone involved with the show.  Others were doing it too - YouTube is now full of footage of ‘paranormal’ events on the show that has been analyzed by other investigators and found to be less than credible.  Probably the most famous incident became known as “CollarGate“, involving Grant Wilson.  During a live taping of their show, Grant claimed to have the collar of his jacket tugged at several times by unseen forces… it became the most hotly debated piece of ‘evidence’ on the show.  From that time forward, people began to question the validity of what they were seeing on the program.  There are now quite a few videos on YouTube that have possibly ‘exposed’ the show – a large amount of them seem to revolve around Grant Wilson himself.

Yet with all of that said… I sit here now, just having watched the episode of “Ghost Hunters” where Grant Wilson tearfully announces his decision to leave the show.  And I realize as I watch him talking to the rest of his team, I see a man who was clearly unhappy about his decision… someone who is experiencing a lot of emotional turmoil and regret about having to make this choice.  He stated that this was due to personal reasons… and I also noticed that during the episode, Grant did not appear to be wearing a wedding ring.

When I sat down to write this, I understood that we are no longer talking about the show; we are talking about a man who clearly has some personal issues that are affecting him and his ability to continue doing something that he loves.  The tears that began to well up in his eyes as he spoke came from a guy who was going through some tough times, and had to make some tough decisions in his life.  The tears were also coming from his friends, who were upset about seeing him go.

So for all the times that I was personally critical of Grant Wilson and his television show… I make no apologies for that.

However, I do feel an enormous amount of personal sympathy for someone who is going through emotional turmoil at the moment.  Television production is a tough road, and while most people may think it’s glamorous – it’s a lot of hard work, and a lot of time away from family.  Contrary to what most people think… the pay on the ‘talent’ level doesn’t compensate the amount of sacrifice and commitment it requires from a person.  I’ve said it before; we have seen more bodies in the wake of “Ghost Hunters” and “Ghost Hunters International” than the Titanic.  And now Grant Wilson is one of them.  At this rate, “Ghost Hunters” and “Ghost Hunters International” may be more cursed than “Diff’rent Strokes”.

Good luck to you Grant Wilson.  I wish you and the entire team the best in your future paths, and I pray that you come out of this healthy and whole in mind, body and spirit : )

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