Kevin Smith is home from the hospital.
The "Clerks" director left Glendale Adventist Hospital in California on Wednesday, three days after suffering a massive heart attack in between stand-up comedy shows.
"Home again, home again, jiggety-jig! Home is where the heart is and the heart is feeling good! It’s actually getting more blood flow and oxygen than it has in a long time. So I am ALERT, to say the least! Thank you for all the kind words, folks — from Vegetarian Kev, Day 2!" the star, who appears to have switched to a vegetarian diet, tweeted to fans.
Smith, 47, had been scheduled to perform a pair of stand-up shows in Glendale on Sunday, but canceled the second show when he began feeling ill. After being taken by ambulance to the hospital, Smith was shocked to learn he'd suffered a "widowmaker" heart attack.
"If I hadn’t canceled show 2 to go to the hospital, I would’ve died tonight,'' he revealed to fans on social media Monday. "But for now, I’m still above ground!"
On Tuesday, Smith, whose father died from a massive heart attack at 67, shared a Facebook video of himself in his hospital room. In the 19-minute clip, the actor and director recounted the events leading up to his heart attack, including feeling nauseated.
"I was honestly under the impression that I had gotten some bad milk," said the star, who revealed in 2015 he'd dropped 85 pounds. It wasn’t until he experienced shortness of breath that he asked for medical assistance.
In the emergency room, Smith learned how severe his case was. Doctors found 100-percent blockage in his left anterior descending artery (LAD), one of three arteries that supply blood flow to the heart. They immediately rushed to put in a stent in his heart.
Near the video's end, an emotional Smith revealed, "There was this moment where I was like, 'I might die.'"
Fighting back tears, he added, "So, I thought about everything, about my parents and how they raised me, and my brother and my sister and my friends and my wife and my kid and this weird, wonderful career that I've had so long, and I was, like, content. ... What a ride it's been."
Though he was grateful for that sense of "calm" on Sunday, Smith said he was overjoyed to have been given more time.
"I like life. Life worked out for me. I don't ever want to let it go," he said.