Bob Odenkirk learned a lesson about his doctor the hard way.
During a Sept. 13 appearance on Tig Notaro’s “Don’t Ask Tig” podcast, Odenkirk, 60, opened up about the heart attack he suffered in 2021 and said it happened after he dismissed some sound medical advice from his doctor.
“My doctor was a conservative. He got crankier and crankier the older he got. When I was 50, I went in, he was a heart doctor, Cedar-Sinai, and he had signs up all around his office at this point [saying] ‘We do not accept Obamacare,’ and I f—ing hated this side of him that I only learned over time,” Odenkirk explained.
“So, I’d been with him for 20 years, and he said, ‘You need to start taking statins right now,’” Odenkirk continued, referring to the group of medicines that are known to lower the level of cholesterol in the blood. “And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I don’t have heart disease in my family.’ He goes, ‘Just take ’em.’ And I didn’t listen to him.”
The “Better Call Saul” actor said that he then went to another doctor to get a second opinion and to have “more thorough research done on my heart.”
“And the other doctor said, ‘You don’t need medicine yet.’ And I had a heart attack,” Odenkirk explained. “And I think the first doctor was right, the cranky conservative jack— was right, because he was a god damn good doctor.”
It was then that the actor realized that he shouldn’t have let the doctor’s political views cloud his opinion of him as a cardiologist.
“His political point of view doesn’t have anything to do with his ability to judge your health and your health choices and needs,” he added.
In July 2021, Odenkirk suffered a heart attack while filming the sixth season of “Better Call Saul.” After being rushed to the hospital, Odenkirk’s representative told TODAY that the actor was in “stable condition.”
While looking back on that day, Odenkirk told TODAY’s Willie Geist that his heart attack made him have a lot more appreciation for life.
“Just appreciation for the life I get to live and the people in my life,” he said in March 2022. “We’re all so driven these days, and pack our days full of work and activity and you gotta take a moment to just look people in the eye and appreciate that they’re with you. And to tell ‘em you love ‘em. And I’m going to try to do a better job of that moving forward.”
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