Ray Romano has gone on the podcast, “WTF, With Marc Maron…” to discuss the widowmaker heart attack he almost had and the treatments that prevented a major health catastrophe.
“I got kinda lucky that we found it before having a heart attack,” he started, explaining that, “Every time, I said, ‘Let me do it myself and I would go home, and I would eat right. Not vegan, but a little healthier, and get it down a couple ticks. But then I’d go home and think I was hot s—, I got it down already, and I’d start cheating, and cheating, and that was the cycle. Now because I’m on the meds, my cholesterol dropped right away. If I could go back 20 years, I would have gone on the meds. It was hard for me to sustain that diet stuff.”
He goes onto explain that while he was aware his health was failing for some time, the actual reality didn’t set in, until he was on the set of his new film, “Somewhere in Queens”, in which he directs and stars.
“I called my agent at one in the morning because I couldn’t sleep, I go, ‘I can’t do it, can’t do this,'” said Romano. “Because — I’m not joking — I had to go to my cardiologist in New York and get on the treadmill and do a stress test because I was getting chest pains.”
It’s notable that Romano’s longtime on-screen father in “Everybody Loves Raymond”, Peter Boyle, once had a heart attack on set, with Romano watching.
Now, Romano is taking steps to retain his health. He has had successful surgery to clear an almost totally blocked artery in his heart and is taking regular medication.
“Man, saying 50 was weird, but saying 60… it sounds foreign, it sounds fake, you know?” he told Maron. “I know in my head I don’t feel that old. In my body, I’m getting a couple of notices that I am that old.”
Sources:
‘Nashville’ Alums Team Up For New International Tour (outsider.com)
