Episode 12: Anthony Christie - I control What I can Control

A lean, disciplined runner with decades of clean eating and meticulous checkups doesn’t fit the stereotype of heart disease—until a quiet pinch of chest pain during a run reveals a 70% blockage that advances to 90%. Anthony takes us through the surprise diagnosis, the three stents that restored blood flow, and the sober truth that genetics can outrun even strong habits. His story is more than a scare; it’s a blueprint for how informed action, consistent monitoring, and mental resilience can change the arc of a life.

We walk through the early warning signs many men dismiss, from “heartburn” mid‑run to a post‑race collapse during the pandemic’s most chaotic months.  He breaks down the stent procedure in clear language, shares the new medication that has finally stabilized his cholesterol after years of statin struggles, and details a practical recovery plan that returned him to sprints, hills, and half-marathons.

The heart of the conversation is mindset. Anthony’s stress playbook includes sleep protection, time‑blocking, midday resets, and filtering toxic inputs. He shares a mental model for right‑sizing problems, along with a simple framework—wisdom, understanding, and knowledge—to turn fear into decisions. We openly discuss family history, the roles of spouses and siblings, and why sharing our stories helps other men identify issues sooner. If you’ve ever put off a checkup, ignored a nagging symptom, or doubted that change could matter against your genes, this one offers both clarity and courage.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a nudge, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations. Your next checkup might be the pivot that saves your life.

Promote my new consolidated website: grantleymartelly,com

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Intro
• 1:35 Anthony’s Life, Work, And Fitness
• 5:30 Tracking Health And The Cholesterol Battle
• 9:10 Genetics And Familial Hypercholesterolemia
• 11:30 Subtle Symptoms And First Tests
• 15:45 COVID Detours And A Scary Run
• 21:05 Diagnosis Confirmed And Treatment Plan
• 24:35 Stent Procedure And Hospital Care
• 28:55 Recovery, Ongoing Meds, And Mindset
• 33:35 Returning To Training And Races

Transcript

Anthony Christie: 0:00

I am very logical and cerebral. But in that scenario, initially I went through denial because I thought I was protecting myself by eating properly, by exercising and doing all the correct things. However, 12 months of doing bad things can erode or reverse some of those gains. And additionally, if I have a propensity because of my genetics towards a specific outcome, that could happen eventually if I'm not careful.

Grantley Martelly: 0:47

Welcome back to Real Health Black Men. We hope you've been enjoying the program so far. Today, my guest is my brother-in-law and a friend for many years. His name is Anthony Christie. He will be telling us his story today, sharing his story with us today. And I hope that it's going to be inspiring to you, our listeners. We're actually doing this podcast recording in Barbados. So we will see how it works because this will be my first podcast that I've recorded in another country. Welcome, Anthony, to Real Health Black Men.

Anthony Christie: 1:24

Thank you. Looking forward to this session and this chat with you.

Grantley Martelly: 1:28

I'm looking forward to it too. So as we normally begin, introduce yourselves, tell our listeners and our viewers who you are, where you live, what you do, a little bit about your family and your background.

Anthony Christie: 1:39

Okay. 62 years old, and um I'm married to your beautiful sister for 38 years. Two sons, two daughters-in-law, two grandsons. So I'm hoping that the second son makes some contribution to that grandson legacy very soon. I'm an accountant by training. I've been doing this for about three decades now, self-employed. And my passion really is to help people and companies with their finances. So people very often have worries about their finances. So my role is to provide them with tools and understanding to help them to be able to earn money and to manage their assets. I love jazz, listening to jazz. I'm also a recreational runner. I travel to Europe and to the US, and I've done one marathon, done so many half marathons. So I'm usually very physically active. Come from a big family, six children in the family. There are four boys. We would have spent some amazing times having growing up in St. Thomas. So that's the general background relating to me.

Grantley Martelly: 3:10

That's a great introduction. It gives a good full picture of you and growing up and your family and your lifestyle, which is our next topic, is you talked about your lifestyle as being physically active and a runner, exercise. Um and the topic of this is telling your health story. So there's there's gonna be some links between those two things. So if you could talk a little bit about your your lifestyle over the years or even before your diagnosis and your challenges.

Anthony Christie: 3:44

Okay, great. So I've always been physically active. I'm six feet tall and I weigh about 170, 72 pounds. My weight hardly changes. I will have to go on um extensive vacation and start working out in order for my weight to change. So I've always been physically active as a teenager. I would have been into soccer, football, and I would have done mainly sprints at the time, 100, 200, 400 at that time. And after university, children, work, and career, all that slows down. Uh I've still started going into evening events, getting home, having long working days, working six days a week, and stress associated with being at the top of the tree. And I've always been very careful to do my annual physical, dental, medical, those kind of bits and pieces. Uh we have a routine that on our birthdays, birth month, we go to do our annual physical physical. Uh, we get a complete panel of physical, which would look at PSA, heart, and H the high blood blood sugar. And then in all these cases, I also have monitoring. So I I keep an extensive record of my health things. So of my health conditions, I I keep an Excel. It's interesting to hear that an accomptant has an Excel spreadsheet.

Grantley Martelly: 5:33

So you keep all your numbers on a spreadsheet, your health numbers on the screen.

Anthony Christie: 5:37

All of my numbers on a spreadsheet. So I go to the doctor, I can pull up my phone, and I can tell you what my blood sugar was, blood pressure was, my um cholesterol, and I do a whole panel of all those things. And I've I've had that for probably about 20 years, a little, a little excessive.

Grantley Martelly: 5:58

Wow. That's that's a good history because it's something handy. It is a good history.

Anthony Christie: 6:07

That is true. So when I went to the doctor, I had a printout for her of all of my medical history. But coming out of that, it did show one issue that I've always had problems with, and that was my high cholesterol levels. So intermittently, I would be on statins um for a period of time, a couple of months, go on and off, and I would always have a horrible reaction to them. Joint pain, um, pain and joint arms, tingling in the legs. So I would have a very low dose satin, or I would use it for a month or dare belt. So it was very difficult for me to control my high cholesterol with the medication. So that's how I got into running. I decided that while running is obviously something that is supposed to help um cholesterol, and so I started into running, and generally I would eat very healthy. I I would not eat um lots of meats because that was one of the precursors for things that w r were into high cholesterol. So that was very clean, almost a vegetarian. The only meat I would probably use was fish and chicken breasts in that whole scenario.

Grantley Martelly: 7:35

So you had you had your physical, regular physicals, never missed those, kept a good stat sheet of it.

Anthony Christie: 7:41

Yeah.

Grantley Martelly: 7:41

And but you still had high cholesterol. So do you attribute that to uh genetics?

Anthony Christie: 7:47

Yes. So I have what is called familial cholesterol that doesn't respond very well to medication. And it it it even turns up in vegetarians or people who have a very good um lifestyle. So um my father has had issues with his heart. Um, I assume he had high cholesterol, and I know that brothers and sisters also have similar issues in terms of managing their cholesterol.

Grantley Martelly: 8:18

Okay. So you you you're doing all the right things, you're eating well, you're exercising well, you're keeping good stats of what's going on, monitoring your body.

Anthony Christie: 8:27

Right.

Grantley Martelly: 8:28

And then you had uh then you had a health challenge, a couple of health challenges. Tell us about that, how you discovered what was going on and how you responded to it.

Anthony Christie: 8:37

That was an amazing one. I did not go to the doctor to have any issues checked. Margaret, my wife, went to the doctor. The doctor asked me, How am I doing? I said, I'm all right. Just sometimes when I'm running about eight minutes into my first run, I have a little pain in my chest. The doctor looks startled and saying, Okay, did a chest x-ray and no issues. And then on I was referred to a cardiologist. So I'm a runner, I don't have health issues, I do crossfit, I work out virtually six days a week. I did not pay any attention to it, I did not really think it was gonna be an issue. But my doctor says, go get this thing checked out, go check a specialist, see if there's an issue. So I'm not even anxious, I'm not worried. So, series of tests, stress tests, whole set of things. And eventually I had to have the die tests where you um inject radioisotopes. The radioisotope, I know radio is something. So on the um the image, I could see that my right coronary artery had a restriction. At that point, it was 70% restriction. And uh then obviously we had several things going on beyond that. So let me give you a little background story though. COVID-19 started in 19 December 2019. In 2020, we went into shutdown. And um, my lifestyle changed in 2020 because one, you couldn't go out and run anymore. And I would walk around my house, run a mile around my house, depending on the restrictions. And my house is not very big, so my so normally I would run like sometimes like 20 miles in a week, not kilometers. So 20 miles is about 32 kilometers. So I would normally run that level of activity, and I would go to the gym four or five times a week. So my activity went from being a 10 out of a 10 to being a 2 out of a 10 during that period.

Grantley Martelly: 10:55

Similarly, like many people.

Anthony Christie: 10:57

Yep. I started baking, I started using lamb, ice cream was my comfort food, and occasionally I would have a beer or something of the sort. So, I mean, that went on for about a year. So in 2021, there was a volcano eruption in St. Vincent, which is one of the neighboring islands. The volcano erupted at night. The following morning, got up as usual, 4.30. Let's say if we can get in this run, because the ash plume was supposed to be hitting Barbados like 8 or 10 hours later. I did my run, and during the run, um we could feel the ash started to accumulate. So I did a half marathon that morning, went to the beach, jumped in the car immediately after the run, came home, and um when I got home, I had a vomiting spell, um, pass out, could not walk, all these things. So I'm assuming I've ingested um volcanic dust. I should not have gone running, a whole set of things. And the asphalt was so severe that I wanted to go to emergency. I did not go to emergency, so I waited probably an hour or two and I felt better by the midday. So I did not go to a medical emergency. What I found out was that was one of the early signs of having ischemia in in terms of heart restrictions. I've also learned that the heartburn that I was having during running at that seven-minute period is also one of the um uh early signs. So I do not attribute it to COVID. I know that the change of lifestyle during the COVID period contributed to the diagnosis of it. Because one, I did some of the negative things that will not promote managing my cholesterol better. Um, I was primarily dealing with the emotional thing again, through cholesterol, and then the reduction of the activity.

Grantley Martelly: 13:17

What was the treatment?

Anthony Christie: 13:18

The treatment was I had to get three stents in my right coronary artery. So a year later, after the diagnosis, I went to a hospital for one day. They went through my groin, inserted the tube going up to the right coronary artery. The blockage had moved from 70% to 90%. So imagine there's a branch that has um two arrows. So I have a stent at the bottom branch and stent at the left and the right branch to expand the artery so that the blood flow gets better.

Grantley Martelly: 14:03

And it was it just a in-and-out surgery? You didn't have to spend any time in the hospital?

Anthony Christie: 14:08

I had to spend a day following that for observation. And my blood pressure was being checked every 30 minutes, and this was for a 24-hour period. I had to stay stationary for eight hours. It was not inconvenient, it was inconvenient because of my lifestyle, but it was not a major issue. Um, I had excellent, I had an excellent doctor, the team. Up to now I go back and have my routine visits every six months, and I had the some of the best care possible. And this was at the um National Hospital in in Barbados. So quite good cure. Perfect.

Grantley Martelly: 14:52

How do you feel you were treated? It seems like you feel good about the outcome.

Anthony Christie: 14:56

Yes, um, I feel very good about the outcome. The bedside managers of all of my doctors, especially my main cardiologist, she was able to explain all the issues that I had, all the concerns. So I obviously had a concern as to you're going into my heart, you're really gonna um put a wire into my groin and go all into my heart. And so, I mean, you go and watch YouTube videos, you talk to people who've done it, and you listen to the the experience of the people who go through all that whole process and they do it on a daily, day-to-day basis. It's new to me. I don't know about it. So I'm talking to you from the logical side of it now, but there are there was obviously the emotional side of it. I understood the risk of the surgery. I'm giving it a very simplistic approach now because I am three years after the product. But but uh there was the emotional trauma. I still get chest pains from I I when I do weight lifting, I get chest pains when I'm stressed. But um none of these are related to the current problem. But obviously, my mind goes to the scenario of you're about to get a heart attack. So you have to talk yourself off of the ledge very often and realize that my my mind is like my mother trying to protect me, and it's giving me all possibilities, and I need to interpret those possibilities so that I do not get startled or worried or necessarily worried.

Grantley Martelly: 17:08

So you made a comment earlier about the actual process. You're looking at it from the logical standpoint now, and you mentioned a little bit about the emotional. How emotional was the experience for you when you heard those words? And then you have to go through this experience. And like you said, they're going into your heart, and you only have one heart, and it needs to keep eating. So, I mean, how was it really emotional time for you?

Anthony Christie: 17:35

I am very logical and cerebral. But in that scenario, it initially I went through denial because I thought I was protecting myself by eating properly, by exercising and doing all the correct things. However, you can erode 12 months of doing bad things, um, can erode or um reverse some of those dose gains. And additionally, if I have a propensity because of my genetics towards a specific outcome, that will happen, could happen eventually, if I'm not very careful. DNL was part of the whole process and going through the thing. Um, you gotta explain it to your family members, people in your group. Um, you had to make sure, okay, my insurance is up to date because if I go in here and something goes wrong, I'm not gonna come back on the other side. I have to make sure these things are in place. Talk to your children, talk to the brothers and sisters, everybody. So that part was challenging, especially you prepare your speeches internally in your head, but then those people have their concerns, and those concerns blow back to you.

Grantley Martelly: 19:03

How did your family take care?

Anthony Christie: 19:05

Most people did it well. My mom didn't have an issue. Well, my mom has dementia. I don't think she fully understood what was happening in the whole process. I I've asked my wife how she felt in the whole process. She had a very clinical approach to it, and she was not thinking of the worst-case scenario and the risk. And I had confidence in the surgery team uh in terms of what they were doing. And in terms of level of severity, um, this was not a category 5 hurricane. This was something that they did repeatedly. The challenge was in that during COVID, the operation kept being pushed back because of um they were doing only elective surgeries or things that were critical. And in my case, I had very little side effects of the ischemia. At most, when I stood up, I had a slight giddy head. I was still running during this whole process. I ran before my operation. Um, the worst I had was two weeks of rest, and then the restriction I had when I was running was to avoid hills, walk on the hills, and do not get my heart rate over.

Grantley Martelly: 20:31

So that was the that was the recovery that was part of your recovery. This is after the surgery you went back to running within two weeks?

Anthony Christie: 20:39

Before the surgery, all of that happened as well. I did not stop running. Two weeks of recovery, of no exercises, no lifting anything heavy, not nothing strenuous. And then after that, two weeks I went back running. I avoided lifting heavy weights for about a month or six weeks. And then all activity resumed as normal.

Grantley Martelly: 21:03

Yep. So have you had any side effects that you are noticeable or you feel as though you made a full recovery or as close to full as you can?

Anthony Christie: 21:12

I don't know if you fully recover. You can go through something so traumatic. And not have a different perspective of life. So let's talk about it from two aspects. Physically, I have to be on, well, for I had to take blood thinners to make sure that the there was no rejection from the stents. I took those blood thinners, I don't remember for how long, beginning of for before the operation, after the operation, and for some reason, I am still on blood thinners all like now. Um, because cholesterol is still existing. It doesn't go away because I've had this physical intervention. I still have to maintain my good health and good eating habits. Physically, I don't have any immediate noticeable changes. I am on statins now for the longest period of time. I am using a new injection for people who have familial cholesterol. And my cholesterol monitoring, I have to take I do cholesterol tests every six months. I do injections every six months, and the new the new um injection is working really well. So my cholesterol has not been this stable um for a long time. So it's very consistent and very stable at this stage. The emotional side of it, so let's not ignore the emotional side. When you're tired and all the other things are going on around you, and you have a chest pain or you have some giddy head or something, you have to stop yourself from going to the worst-case scenario. So the emotional side is still there. When I restarted running, I would constantly be thinking and listening to my chest. So I do I no longer do that. I don't even remember now that I've had a procedure. Um I still run hills, I do sprints, I do 100s. Since then I did, I got involved in the senior citizens games, did 100s, 200s, 400s, 800s. So I am still very active. I'm still travel and do marathons, half marathons. So uh and still I think I'm more active now. I take my exercise more serious than before because I realize that I feel better emotionally as well as physically if I maintain a regimen of exercise.

Grantley Martelly: 23:54

So, how do you how do you deal with mental and emotional challenges? What specific signs do that you use to help you indicate when you're getting under too much stress or too much mental fatigue? Have you developed any habits around there to help you manage those things?

Anthony Christie: 24:10

Good question. That's an excellent question. One, the very nature of what I do is stressful, managing money and managing people's money. So I first of all I identify my stressors. But in the whole process, I don't think take a lot of things very seriously. I deal with a lot of stressful situations where money's involving. I try to manage my time better in terms of being proactive to give myself enough time to complete tasks. I take breaks during the day. I work for it for myself. I can take breaks. Sometimes I take a pause during the day. I love my midday naps. I love my my recovery naps. I make sure that I sleep well in a cool, nice air-conditioned room. I make sure I get I go to sleep sometimes at 8:30 at night. So I manage the stress better. Sometimes when I have stress, I schedule my stressful meetings early in the morning or when I'm not tired. I do not have more than one stressful meeting in a day. And all those things I I try to work towards. Intermittently, I travel, get rid of the stress, take a break, take time off, all those other things. And then learn to enjoy life today. Today is all that I know about. And I plan for the future. I'm a very good planner, but today is what I know about in terms of stress management. Then there's some mental things that I do. Um Bible study, prayer, listening to motivational things, watching the amount of toxic things that I get coming through the social media feeds and the various other things. Listening to motivational things. So one of the motivational things, you learn to control what you can control. And the things that you cannot control, you you just you just park them. One thing that I've learned recently from a podcast called Pursuing Excellence is that you can have a category five problem, but if you don't have a category five approach towards solving a category five problem, you are gonna be emotionally bankrupt. Or sometimes you have a category one problem, but you're trying to apply a category five solution towards it. So you gotta know when is appropriate, when to defer discussions, when not to get involved in certain things. So those are the things. I control what I can control and then manage all those other things. There's one more thing I'll tell you about when you ask me the other question.

Grantley Martelly: 26:59

You have a health support system, and how is is it how important is it for you to have other black men in your circle of accountability and shared experiences?

Anthony Christie: 27:09

That is a good question. I don't have a formal health support system, but um I go through specific routines of dental checks twice a year, vision checks probably every two years, and then I go see my cardiologist every six months, and my GP every year, or if there's an issue. So those are the professionals. Then I discuss with my family members, my brothers and sisters, about health issues. Then we, in terms of our family, we discuss health issues very openly because of some of the issues that we have in our family, so that um the next generation learns from it. I talk to my children so that they are aware of the things that could potentially be coming their way because of genetics, and hopefully they will pass that on to their children. Every time I get a chance to chat with one of my male friends about their health issues, I would tell them about mine and my experiences so that it will help them and that they will not be casual about the routine things that they need to do in order to prolong their life. So you and I have had quite a few of our friends who've passed away this year as well. And yeah. So that brings it into reality that a lot of our schoolmates and friends are not at this stage getting to the benefits that we are at. So you you have to count your days and realize that you don't get to go through the experiences that we go through and come out on the other end without having a story to tell. And then you better you better use that opportunity to help somebody else who's maybe casual or just needs a prompt. And as males, I think sometimes we are not as open about it. So we need to be more vocal about telling our stories so that other people can take heed and make some changes quicker.

Grantley Martelly: 29:18

Yeah, that's really important that we share the story with other men and members of our family, men and women, uh, not minimizing the role of women in our network and support systems, because many times um they are the ones who spot things that we may not spot or will to talk about things that we don't want to talk about. Like you, you went to the doctor with your wife. Yes. You end up being the patient.

Anthony Christie: 29:46

The patient, very much so. I would not be here because uh had not for her.

Grantley Martelly: 29:52

Yeah, so they play an important role in in our in our lives and in helping keep us accountable and remind us that we have responsibility.

Anthony Christie: 30:01

Yeah.

Grantley Martelly: 30:01

What are the things would you like to share with our listeners?

Anthony Christie: 30:04

Right. One thing that has really stuck out to me is a proverb from 243, where the scenario is talking about three levels of things. So sometimes we pray about things because we don't have an answer to it. But prayer does not remove ignorance. Prayer is not always a solution for ignorance. If you don't know, you don't know that you don't know. So the first thing that we need to recognize is that um Proverbs 3 is talking about getting wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. So wisdom is really taking the knowledge, that information that you you don't have, getting the understanding as to how it applies to you, general knowledge, and then applying that knowledge. So there was a quote by Miles Rowrow that I want to give you. You can't apply what you do not understand, and you you cannot understand what you do not know. So get as much research as possible. There's lots of information out there about it's it's widely available now. Use it. But you gotta be able to get what I call WUK W U K. Get your wisdom, understanding, and knowledge so that you can make informed decisions. And that also helps from the mental side as well. Sometimes you will start to assume the worst case scenario because of ignorance. And the worst, some of the worst things is really to be uninformed about something that you don't know. And you realize uh the more you know about something, the more you don't know about it. And that there's new information all of the time. So you are in a better position by talking to the professionals, doing your research. But even when you do your research, just also have a sounding board as to what applies to you, what is in your scenario, so that you can make better decisions. And then it also stops your mind from filling in the blanks and filling in suggestions that don't make sense.

Grantley Martelly: 32:19

Basis in reality, right?

Anthony Christie: 32:21

I have no basis in reality. Or maybe based in fear.

Grantley Martelly: 32:26

So one of one of the things that keep coming up on this podcast is you know they don't want to go to the doctor because every time they go to the doctor, they get bad news or they don't want to know what's going on. The fact that you don't want to know about it is not gonna change it.

Anthony Christie: 32:44

Yeah.

Grantley Martelly: 32:45

Change your mind to consider knowledge, right? You're talking about wisdom, understanding the knowledge. But if it hurt you to have the knowledge about what's going on in you, then you can take control of your health and decide what's the best solution to do.

Anthony Christie: 32:59

Right.

Grantley Martelly: 33:00

And I think that's one of the things that keeps coming up is men afraid of going to the doctor because hearing something that they may not want to hear.

Anthony Christie: 33:08

But that's part of the process of us adjusting. So denial is good initially because you don't want to believe it. But the mere fact that you are aware that there is a pin in your foot doesn't mean that you ignore it and keep walking on it because it will it could get worse. And your del your ignorance and your delay is not helping the situation. So very often, in order for us to apply knowledge and understanding, we have to do the scans to get all the information and then make an informed decision, including have the emotional toughness and courage to sift and filter out what is necessary and appropriate for uh an appropriate correct corrective measure. So the the the the the the whole process requires maturity and courage and toughness in order to make an informed decision.

Grantley Martelly: 34:14

You can't make an informed decision about without information. That is enough information to make an informed decision. So what are three things that you would want the audience to take away at this discussion? Or what what or what other things do you think you could offer to help people who may be struggling to take control of their health?

Anthony Christie: 34:34

Fear is a big thing. Let's not call it fear, let's call it intimidation. So we get intimidated when there is the risk of death, risk of injury, and all the other things. And as men, we are problem solvers. In order to solve medical problems, get information. Um, there are lots of wise people that go to university and study, and scientists that go into the labs and get information. They synthesize it, they tell us the little bits and pieces. Get the knowledge and the information that's necessary to make a decision. Then, can I say grow some balls? Yeah, you because you have to get the courage not to be intimidated by this specific in situation to work through it in order to um get to a comfort level where you can make a decision. You evaluate all the alternatives and go from there. And then the third one would be control what you can control. You you you if you don't know, you technically you've lost control. So you control what you can control. You have to have the courage to go through some difficult things. So grow up here.

Grantley Martelly: 36:00

Thank you. Thank you for that. So I want to really thank you for being on our podcast today and sharing your story and encouraging men to take control of their health and to get wisdom and understanding and knowledge. If you as a listener wants to get in touch with Anthony, his name of his company is Azusa Management Services in Barbados. Or you can write this podcast, uh, RealHealthBlackmen@gmail.com or you can check my new informative website that we just released a month ago at Grantleymartelly.com, where you can find all the information about me and the two podcasts and links to all the podcasts and how to get in touch with our speakers there as well.

Anthony Christie: 36:46

I appreciate you. I love you, and I love what you're doing. Keep up the good work.

Grantley Martelly: 36:51

Thank you very much. Appreciate your time.