In Jim Lehrer’s autobiography “A bus of my own” he discusses his life changing heart attack.  As bad as it was,  there was a bright side.  He changed his unhealthy living habits to good ones. He began writing fiction again.  He decided to finish his bus sign collection, (get all of them).  He also did a sixty minute documentary on heart attacks to offer other people advice and help.

Before Lehrer had his heart attack, he smoked, ate unhealthy foods, and didn’t nap much,  After having his heart attack all of this changed.  Lehrer says that before his heart attack he ate  “like a pimply faced 15 year old” not really caring about the effect junk food had on his body.  After his heart attack he had to change this in order to keep his heart health, the new list consisted of mostly fruits, vegetables, and fish, none of which he really liked.  Before his heart attack he did a lot of smoking, after his heart attack, his desire to smoke was gone.  He also began daily napping.

While Lehrer was still in the hospital recovery,  he put together a couple of  lists, on these lists he wrote a healthy living list, and a life priority list, on the life priority list he put “relax, love, write,” he then thought  if he had five years to live, would he want to spend them doing a 1 hour news report five nights per week?  “Fiction” he  thought he must write more fiction, he did he began trying to write plays, most of them didn’t make it the one that did at the time make it, got a bad review but Lehrer kept on pushing, and became very successful.  Today Lehrer has had nineteen of his novels published.

Lehrer is a bus man,  he was raised alongside his fathers bus driving business in Kansas.  To nobody’s surprise when he was an adult he began his bus sign collection, he would get one here, one there.  While he was recovering in the hospital, he made the decision to finish his collection, (to get them all).

Lehrer, did a sixty minute documentary called “My heart, your heart,” it was a documentary on how people should deal with a heart attack.  At first he was reluctant, but he changed his mind after he received a phone call from a man he barely knew.  The man had just suffered a heart attack and asked Lehrer many question about recovery. he decided he would go on with the documentary, seeing as how it could help a lot of people.  When it began he warned the viewers that they should not mess around heart attacks are serious.  He discussed what it was like, and what to do if you began to feel symptoms.  Later a woman came up to him in public and described how this sixty minute show, had saved the life  of one of her co- workers.  It is very possible that there were many other cases of lives saved.