Drew Carey poses for The Artists Project at Rock To Recovery 5th Anniversary Holiday Party
Credit: Michael Bezjian/WireImage
Not even a heart attack could stop Drew Carey from working on his eponymous ABC sitcom — until he had another heart attack, that is.
Appearing on Ted Danson‘s podcast, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, Carey opened the conversation by recounting a major health scare during his time as star and co-creator of The Drew Carey Show.
“I was really overweight, and we were supposed to come back to start taping, so I thought I was going to start jogging,” Carey recalled. “I had a little heart monitor, and I was jogging down my street, and my heart rate went up to something really crazy, and I was like, ‘Oh.’ And I felt numb in my shoulder [and] all the things that I read were heart attack symptoms. But I thought if you had a heart attack, you would go, ‘Ugh,’ and fall down like in a cartoon.”
Drew Carey on ‘The Drew Carey Show.’
Credit: ABC / Courtesy Everett
That didn’t happen to Carey, so he continued jogging, only for his heart rate to go back up.
Carey told Danson that he now realizes that seeing a deer on the run was “supposed to be an omen.” But, instead of going to the hospital, he went to dinner with his then-girlfriend and ordered a less than ideal post-heart attack meal: chili spaghetti. The following day, Carey returned for the beginning of production on the next season of the show, and after rehearsals, he once again felt a tightness in his chest— this time in the writer’s room — prompting him to excuse himself to head to his trailer and finally call the doctor.
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“I went to step up the stairs to my trailer, and I really went like, ‘Oh boy, that was rough,'” he recalled. “And I got on the phone to the producer, and I said, ‘Hey, you have to call the ambulance, I think I’m having a heart attack.’”
Fearing the worst, he also made sure to summon a close friend: the late Sam Simon, a director and producer on The Drew Carey Show who also worked with Danson on Cheers.
“I just wanted to make sure I touched him before I went off,” Carey said, “because I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Once at the hospital, Carey was treated for his heart attack, and a stent was put in to keep the artery open moving forward. “My joke used to be: [I had the] same thing Dick Cheney had, except they left my heart in,” Carey joked of the former vice president. “I told that to his face once… He was pounding the table he was laughing so hard — thank God!
Listen to Carey’s complete episode of Where Everybody Knows Your Name in the video above.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
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