Today is my anniversary.
Exactly one year ago to the day (almost to the hour), I had my heart attack in front of UW Hospital while riding my bicycle to work. So much has changed, all for the the better. My heart attack has been perhaps one of the greatest blessings of my life, forcing me to refocus on things that are important and catalyzing changes that I needed to make but was having trouble getting motivated to make.
From a physical perspective, I've lost a little over 80 pounds. A year ago I weighed 305 lbs. This morning I weighed 224 lbs. My rate of weight loss has tapered significantly in 2010, down to perhaps a couple pounds per month. Ideally, I'd like to weigh in the 170's, but I'll be glad when I get below 200.
For the entire month of May I doubled my bicycle commuting mileage. Instead of going 1 direction per day--18.75 miles--I'm now commuting both directions, morning and evening, four days a week -- so 150 miles a week. I've had to adjust my sleep schedule so that I go to bed a little earlier to get more rest and also because I get up earlier so I can get into the office early. My appetite has increased but I've tried to keep it in check so I would lose weight, the results have been less than stellar. I've learned not to get too discouraged, just keep plugging away.
About 2 months ago I had a full work-up: Nuclear stress test, catheterization, ECG, and blood work. The nuclear stress test had some results that caused some concern, so they went in for a look-see just to make sure everything was ok. It was. In fact, my atherosclerosis has receded and everything looked wide-open. My heart function (ejection fraction) is now in the normal range. And even my HDL's were in the low 40's. They attributed the concerns on the stress test to be a false positive -- an expensive one, at that!
I've been commuting to work on the titanium bicycle I built up during the winter time. It's a very light weight Merlin mountain bike that I've equipped with Shimano XTR components, exotic alloys and carbon fiber, and with high-pressure road slicks to reduce rolling resistance and increase speed. Between the new bike and my improved fitness and strength, my one-way commute times is right around an hour and ten minutes, down from an hour twenty. And my average speed is up from around 14 mph to over 16 mph, and even higher when there's a tail wind. I can make it up Brickyard road now at the end of my commute without having to shift into my lowest gear. Over the winter I purchased a nice Polar heart rate monitor with GPS to combine everything that I was using a cheaper model heart rate monitor and Garmin GPS unit for. It's a simpler, lighter, and more accurate setup. If you want a good heart rate monitor, Polar is certainly the way to go. I tried three different Garmins; couldn't get a heart rate to register on any of them.
According to the cardiologist, my new maximum heart rate is 220 minus Age (43) times 80%, which puts me just over 140 bpm. Over time, it's gotten harder and harder for me to hit that max. I can still do it, but I'm exerting myself at a level that's too intense to maintain for very long. My lower heart rate is also due to some of the medications I'm on: Metoprolol and Lisinopril, which also lower blood pressure. I'm also still taking Plavix and a statin for cholesterol. (My total cholesterol was below 100 when it was checked during the last round of tests.)
I'm planning to participate in the Tour de Blast ride (www.tourdeblast.com) on June 19th with some friends. My wife keeps calling it a "race." But it's really just a "ride." It's just over 80 miles with over 6000 feet in elevation gain. Should be fun and scenic going up Mt. St. Helens.
Because I'm spending so much time on my bicycle now, I'm putting my beloved motorcycle up for sale. It's only been ridden once or twice since my trip last August. No reason to have it collect dust in the garage. So if you know anyone looking for a 2002 Honda VTX 1800R with only 28,000 miles on it, in very good condition with lots of "extras", send them my way.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Saturday, January 09, 2010
First update of 2010 - about 7 months later
It's the beginning of January 2010, a little over seven months since my heart attack. This week I was finally down a full 70 pounds. But my rate of weight loss has certainly tapered off, probably for a couple of reasons. It's Winter time, and I just seem to get a little bit hungrier in the Winter: Portion size can be difficult to manage. It was the holidays, and while I didn't have any major indulgence, I want to enjoy a few bites of the good stuff.
I have continued to commute on my bicycle faithfully, even during the cold and rain. That was a tough cold spell in early December. Morning commutes were in the low teens and evening commutes were in the twenties. When I arrived at work one morning, my water bottle was literally frozen solid -- it looked like a frozen fountain because the water had expanded as it froze and squirted out the top of the nozzle. I skirted the rain for the most part, but we had enough that I had to replace my chain because it started skipping due to some rusty links -- drives home the meaning of the phrase "a well-oiled chain." My wife Katie has been really helpful to pick me up at the bottom of our hill on most of my evening commutes. I can go up the hill, but about 30% of the time I hit my heartbeat red line, which the doctor has set at 140 beats per minute, and have to stop for a minute or two.
Speaking of my heart, I completed the stress test, which revealed only goodness. The electrocardio physiologist (sounds like a long time in med school!) doesn't need to see me again.
By the way, treadmill stress tests suck -- especially for bicyclists.
I feel like my heart could have gone a lot longer, but my legs just gave out. After putting a dozen electrodes all over my chest and abdomen, they start the treadmill at a reasonable pace and incline. But then every two minutes they increase the speed and incline. My short, little biking legs just weren't made to run up a 12% grade at 6 miles per hour. I'd much rather bike up a hill than run up a hill. Plus the pounding is tough on knees with reconstructed ACLs.
They had a technician, a nurse and a doctor in the room for the test "just in case..." But I got into the 150 beats per minute range, which was their objective -- not very high normally, but fine due to the fact that I'm on medication that lowers my heart rate. It's medicine that I take twice a day at morning and at night. Because I wear a cheapo heart rate monitor when I bicycle, I have noticed that my heart rate on morning commutes is lower (in the 110 range) in the morning than when I commute home in the evening (in the 120 to 130 range), likely because the medication taken in the morning has worn off to a certain extent by the evening commute.
My heart rate monitor is pretty cheap. Often when I pass other people on the Burke-Gilman trail it will give me false readings (either really low or really high) because it's picking up a signal from their heart rate monitor. So I've learned to be patient for a minute or two until their signals pass. One evening I was riding home and kept getting what I thought were false readings over 140 beats per minute. When I got home, I realized that I had forgotten to take my morning medication. Scared me a little, in particular because I hadn't taken the Plavix, which prevents the stents from clotting. That's the only time I've forgotten completely to take my medication.
Our family went skiing in Northern Idaho for Christmas vacation to Schweitzer. (Seemed like a good place to go considering where I went on my church mission over 20 years ago.) It was cold but sunny and beautiful. Had a lot more fun skiing at almost 70 pounds lighter. Since my eight year old son, Joshua, weighs just under 70 pounds, I joke now that I've "lost a Joshua". Skiing is a lot better when I'm not fighting gravity quite as much. But although my conditioning is good due to the bicycling, the muscles used for bicycling are quite different than the muscle used for skiing. I was pretty sore in my quads and calves after the first day. My oldest daughter is a good enough skiier now that following her can beat me up and humble me. We had a lot of fun.
My menu hasn't changed much. Portions continue to be smaller, although I have to admit that I do indulge in salads -- I can eat a LOT of lettuce and not add very many calories. Breakfast is usually Cheerios with a piece of fruit that's in season. I typically eat lunch out or walk over to a local PCC grocery store. They have hot deli selections that usually include roasted vegetables, and their pinto beans (in the hot soups) are also a favorite. Earlier this week I bought a container of fresh salsa, some hummus, and an Anaheim pepper instead of chips to dip. Mmmmm. I have learned what to order in the restaurants. It typically involves changing one of the menu items by asking them to leave something off or put something on the side. The local Greek restaurant is a frequent favorite: It's usually either a Greek salad, hummus sandwich, or hummus appetizer. The Thai restaurant has a good seafood noodle salad with a lime and garlic dressing that's pretty darn good, too. At Quiznos, when I'm in a hurry, I'll order a vegetarian sandwich on whole wheat bread, leave off the cheese and vinaigrette, and add mustard.
As I've watch my Specialized Stump Jumper Comp (early 1990's vintage mountain bike) start to take on rust and components start to wear out, I've wanted to replace it with something a little more "fun" and high-tech. In mid-December, I bought a used Merlin Titanium mountain bike frame off eBay for pennies on the dollar, and decided to make it my new winter project. Titanium doesn't rust. (I informed my wife that this would probably need to be the present she gave me for Christmas. She agreed, so I saved her a little shopping.) Although it's a mountain bike, I'm equipping it with very light-weight components and with road slicks. It will be my new commuting bicycle. So far I've gotten a Shimano XTR 9-speed rear derailleur, new bottom bracket bearings, Race Face carbon fiber cranks, SRAM Attack trigger shifters, Xero 26" paired spoke wheels, Avid titanium brake calipers, Giant Aero carbon fiber seat post, Vittoria Rubino Pro slick tires. Still working on getting carbon fiber forks, a stem, handle bar, seat, rear cassette, front derailleur, and V-brakes. It should be a fun build project, and for $700 to $800 I'll end up with a bicycle that would normally have cost several thousand. (The eBay application on my iPhone has gotten a workout.)
So I guess the question now is "what's next?"
As far as I can tell, I'm pretty much in maintenance mode on the medical front. The cardiologist doesn't need to see me again until late spring. Same with the sleep doctor. I plan to continue losing weight and exercising. Once I've lost about 30 more pounds, I'll conclude the major weight loss push, although I'd like to lose another 20 after that. That would put me at my engagement weight. But I'm not going to get to obsessive about it all. The key is maintaining the total lifestyle change, keeping my cholesterol in check, and keeping my heart and body active. After I put the new bicycle into service, I'm hoping to increase my commuting by doing more round trips. My wife, Katie, should certainly win the Oscar for her performance as best supporting actress.
As each day passes, I'm more in awe of the miracle that I'm alive. My friends all tell me, "You're such an inspiration" or "You're such a hero." Personally, I think the heroic thing to do would have been to make all the changes BEFORE suffering a heart attack. The details of the "coincidences" and "luck" in my miracle are so subtle yet profound. What others call "luck" I call "blessed."
I have continued to commute on my bicycle faithfully, even during the cold and rain. That was a tough cold spell in early December. Morning commutes were in the low teens and evening commutes were in the twenties. When I arrived at work one morning, my water bottle was literally frozen solid -- it looked like a frozen fountain because the water had expanded as it froze and squirted out the top of the nozzle. I skirted the rain for the most part, but we had enough that I had to replace my chain because it started skipping due to some rusty links -- drives home the meaning of the phrase "a well-oiled chain." My wife Katie has been really helpful to pick me up at the bottom of our hill on most of my evening commutes. I can go up the hill, but about 30% of the time I hit my heartbeat red line, which the doctor has set at 140 beats per minute, and have to stop for a minute or two.
Speaking of my heart, I completed the stress test, which revealed only goodness. The electrocardio physiologist (sounds like a long time in med school!) doesn't need to see me again.
By the way, treadmill stress tests suck -- especially for bicyclists.
I feel like my heart could have gone a lot longer, but my legs just gave out. After putting a dozen electrodes all over my chest and abdomen, they start the treadmill at a reasonable pace and incline. But then every two minutes they increase the speed and incline. My short, little biking legs just weren't made to run up a 12% grade at 6 miles per hour. I'd much rather bike up a hill than run up a hill. Plus the pounding is tough on knees with reconstructed ACLs.
They had a technician, a nurse and a doctor in the room for the test "just in case..." But I got into the 150 beats per minute range, which was their objective -- not very high normally, but fine due to the fact that I'm on medication that lowers my heart rate. It's medicine that I take twice a day at morning and at night. Because I wear a cheapo heart rate monitor when I bicycle, I have noticed that my heart rate on morning commutes is lower (in the 110 range) in the morning than when I commute home in the evening (in the 120 to 130 range), likely because the medication taken in the morning has worn off to a certain extent by the evening commute.
My heart rate monitor is pretty cheap. Often when I pass other people on the Burke-Gilman trail it will give me false readings (either really low or really high) because it's picking up a signal from their heart rate monitor. So I've learned to be patient for a minute or two until their signals pass. One evening I was riding home and kept getting what I thought were false readings over 140 beats per minute. When I got home, I realized that I had forgotten to take my morning medication. Scared me a little, in particular because I hadn't taken the Plavix, which prevents the stents from clotting. That's the only time I've forgotten completely to take my medication.
Our family went skiing in Northern Idaho for Christmas vacation to Schweitzer. (Seemed like a good place to go considering where I went on my church mission over 20 years ago.) It was cold but sunny and beautiful. Had a lot more fun skiing at almost 70 pounds lighter. Since my eight year old son, Joshua, weighs just under 70 pounds, I joke now that I've "lost a Joshua". Skiing is a lot better when I'm not fighting gravity quite as much. But although my conditioning is good due to the bicycling, the muscles used for bicycling are quite different than the muscle used for skiing. I was pretty sore in my quads and calves after the first day. My oldest daughter is a good enough skiier now that following her can beat me up and humble me. We had a lot of fun.
My menu hasn't changed much. Portions continue to be smaller, although I have to admit that I do indulge in salads -- I can eat a LOT of lettuce and not add very many calories. Breakfast is usually Cheerios with a piece of fruit that's in season. I typically eat lunch out or walk over to a local PCC grocery store. They have hot deli selections that usually include roasted vegetables, and their pinto beans (in the hot soups) are also a favorite. Earlier this week I bought a container of fresh salsa, some hummus, and an Anaheim pepper instead of chips to dip. Mmmmm. I have learned what to order in the restaurants. It typically involves changing one of the menu items by asking them to leave something off or put something on the side. The local Greek restaurant is a frequent favorite: It's usually either a Greek salad, hummus sandwich, or hummus appetizer. The Thai restaurant has a good seafood noodle salad with a lime and garlic dressing that's pretty darn good, too. At Quiznos, when I'm in a hurry, I'll order a vegetarian sandwich on whole wheat bread, leave off the cheese and vinaigrette, and add mustard.
As I've watch my Specialized Stump Jumper Comp (early 1990's vintage mountain bike) start to take on rust and components start to wear out, I've wanted to replace it with something a little more "fun" and high-tech. In mid-December, I bought a used Merlin Titanium mountain bike frame off eBay for pennies on the dollar, and decided to make it my new winter project. Titanium doesn't rust. (I informed my wife that this would probably need to be the present she gave me for Christmas. She agreed, so I saved her a little shopping.) Although it's a mountain bike, I'm equipping it with very light-weight components and with road slicks. It will be my new commuting bicycle. So far I've gotten a Shimano XTR 9-speed rear derailleur, new bottom bracket bearings, Race Face carbon fiber cranks, SRAM Attack trigger shifters, Xero 26" paired spoke wheels, Avid titanium brake calipers, Giant Aero carbon fiber seat post, Vittoria Rubino Pro slick tires. Still working on getting carbon fiber forks, a stem, handle bar, seat, rear cassette, front derailleur, and V-brakes. It should be a fun build project, and for $700 to $800 I'll end up with a bicycle that would normally have cost several thousand. (The eBay application on my iPhone has gotten a workout.)
So I guess the question now is "what's next?"
As far as I can tell, I'm pretty much in maintenance mode on the medical front. The cardiologist doesn't need to see me again until late spring. Same with the sleep doctor. I plan to continue losing weight and exercising. Once I've lost about 30 more pounds, I'll conclude the major weight loss push, although I'd like to lose another 20 after that. That would put me at my engagement weight. But I'm not going to get to obsessive about it all. The key is maintaining the total lifestyle change, keeping my cholesterol in check, and keeping my heart and body active. After I put the new bicycle into service, I'm hoping to increase my commuting by doing more round trips. My wife, Katie, should certainly win the Oscar for her performance as best supporting actress.
As each day passes, I'm more in awe of the miracle that I'm alive. My friends all tell me, "You're such an inspiration" or "You're such a hero." Personally, I think the heroic thing to do would have been to make all the changes BEFORE suffering a heart attack. The details of the "coincidences" and "luck" in my miracle are so subtle yet profound. What others call "luck" I call "blessed."
Monday, November 16, 2009
Almost 6 Months post-"Event"
It will be six months this coming Thanksgiving weekend since my little "event". I'm now 62 pounds down, and looking and feeling better than I have in years. A check-up with the Sleep Doctor at Harborview last week showed that as of about a month ago I have stopped snoring almost completely. I've also noticed that I'm dreaming much more vividly at night. He attributes the improvement to my weight loss. Even I can notice a difference in my face when I look in the mirror. The full-length mirror in the morning still isn't as kind as it should be...
I'm scheduled for a treadmill stress test at the hospital this week. It will be interesting to see what they find there, but I'm not really looking forward to it because I really hate running--on a treadmill or otherwise. Hurts my knees.
Had to go out over the weekend and buy some new pants, a shirt and a jacket. I'm down 4" on my waist and a full shirt-size. My clothing is really getting too baggy. But I hate to buy too much since I'm really just "passing through" my current weight. I anticipate losing at least another 50 pounds, and preferably closer to 75. I've learned that I can't get in a hurry. It has to be lost one pound a time.
I have continued bicycling to work four times a week. It's really not very fun in the rain and cold, but by commuting just one way, it's bearable. I plan to continue through at least until December, later provided it doesn't snow. My bicycle is showing some wear-and-tear. Had to replace the chain because it was starting to rust and links were getting stuck. The chain-ring shifter is broken, so I ordered a replacement on eBay that I just need to take the time to put on now.
I'll post again after getting the results from the stress test.
I'm scheduled for a treadmill stress test at the hospital this week. It will be interesting to see what they find there, but I'm not really looking forward to it because I really hate running--on a treadmill or otherwise. Hurts my knees.
Had to go out over the weekend and buy some new pants, a shirt and a jacket. I'm down 4" on my waist and a full shirt-size. My clothing is really getting too baggy. But I hate to buy too much since I'm really just "passing through" my current weight. I anticipate losing at least another 50 pounds, and preferably closer to 75. I've learned that I can't get in a hurry. It has to be lost one pound a time.
I have continued bicycling to work four times a week. It's really not very fun in the rain and cold, but by commuting just one way, it's bearable. I plan to continue through at least until December, later provided it doesn't snow. My bicycle is showing some wear-and-tear. Had to replace the chain because it was starting to rust and links were getting stuck. The chain-ring shifter is broken, so I ordered a replacement on eBay that I just need to take the time to put on now.
I'll post again after getting the results from the stress test.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Four months post-heart attack
I went to see the cardiologist last week to hear the results of my recent ECG. My ejection fraction (a measure of the amount of blood that leaves the heart each time it pumps) has improved from 51%, up from 43% in June -- that moves me from "moderate" to "mild" impairment. Above 55% is "normal". Good news that things have improved.
I also got the results yesterday of a blood workup, which yielded additional encouragement. My total cholesterol is down from 125 in June to 111 now -- certainly this is it at least partially attributable to the statin medication that I'm on, but also in part to my change in menu. My LDL (the bad) cholesterol is 58, and my HDL (the good) is up from 27 to 34. (They want HDL to be above 40.)
I've been bicycling to or from work (between 16 and 18 miles) at least four times a week. And as of this morning, I've lost a total of 48 pounds. That's about 2.5 pounds a week on average. The rate of loss has definitely increased as my activity level has increased. I use a program on my iPhone called "Lose It" to track what I eat, keeping my calories, fat, carb and protein intake under 2000 calories a day. (It's free and I definitely recommend it, even to those who may be trying to just maintain their weight.) It lets you also account for calories expended from exercise, but I don't enter that information, figuring that if I keep to a diet that will allow me to, at the worst, maintain my weight, then exercise will by my key to losing.
With my improved ejection fraction, the cardiologist cleared me to go from a maximum of 120 to 140 beats-a-minute. (I track where I'm at when I exercise with an inexpensive Polar heart rate monitor.) Last night bicycling home was my first time with relaxed limitation. It must be due to some of the medication I'm on, but I really had a hard time getting above 130 beats. I spent almost the entire commute home in the 120's, with an occassional bump into the low-130's. I finally hit the 140 limit bicycling up the Brickyard road hill near my home. (Unfortunately, my commuting bicycle's "granny gear" is inaccessible due to a failing chain ring shifter.) So I walked for about 50 yards until my heart rate slowed back into the 120's, then remounted and finished up the ride. I'm sure my wife, Katie, is grateful that she no longer has to pick me up at the bottom of the hill. I definitely got a better workout coming home -- my legs were tired that evening. Bicycling in this morning was VERY cold -- and with my lower blood pressure, my fingers and toes seem to always be cold. Plus I was tired from the previous evening's ride. I've ordered some neoprene over-boots for my cycling shoes. And I'm looking for some better gloves, heated if possible so I don't freeze coming in.
I also got the results yesterday of a blood workup, which yielded additional encouragement. My total cholesterol is down from 125 in June to 111 now -- certainly this is it at least partially attributable to the statin medication that I'm on, but also in part to my change in menu. My LDL (the bad) cholesterol is 58, and my HDL (the good) is up from 27 to 34. (They want HDL to be above 40.)
I've been bicycling to or from work (between 16 and 18 miles) at least four times a week. And as of this morning, I've lost a total of 48 pounds. That's about 2.5 pounds a week on average. The rate of loss has definitely increased as my activity level has increased. I use a program on my iPhone called "Lose It" to track what I eat, keeping my calories, fat, carb and protein intake under 2000 calories a day. (It's free and I definitely recommend it, even to those who may be trying to just maintain their weight.) It lets you also account for calories expended from exercise, but I don't enter that information, figuring that if I keep to a diet that will allow me to, at the worst, maintain my weight, then exercise will by my key to losing.
With my improved ejection fraction, the cardiologist cleared me to go from a maximum of 120 to 140 beats-a-minute. (I track where I'm at when I exercise with an inexpensive Polar heart rate monitor.) Last night bicycling home was my first time with relaxed limitation. It must be due to some of the medication I'm on, but I really had a hard time getting above 130 beats. I spent almost the entire commute home in the 120's, with an occassional bump into the low-130's. I finally hit the 140 limit bicycling up the Brickyard road hill near my home. (Unfortunately, my commuting bicycle's "granny gear" is inaccessible due to a failing chain ring shifter.) So I walked for about 50 yards until my heart rate slowed back into the 120's, then remounted and finished up the ride. I'm sure my wife, Katie, is grateful that she no longer has to pick me up at the bottom of the hill. I definitely got a better workout coming home -- my legs were tired that evening. Bicycling in this morning was VERY cold -- and with my lower blood pressure, my fingers and toes seem to always be cold. Plus I was tired from the previous evening's ride. I've ordered some neoprene over-boots for my cycling shoes. And I'm looking for some better gloves, heated if possible so I don't freeze coming in.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Two months and 1 day after "the event"
I weighed this morning before going to cardiology rehab: Down 31 pounds since "the event." Very gratifying, since I was on a plateau for a couple weeks, varying by a pound or two around 25 pounds lost.
In terms of my diet, I've been eating pretty much anything that grows out of the ground or swims in the sea (with an occasional nibble of something that walks on legs or that comes from a cow.) The first few weeks after I came home from the hospital were really difficult due to the massive change in my menu. Withdrawal from added salt was perhaps the most difficult. But after about three weeks, my taste buds seem to have been reset, and I'm quite satisfied with what I'm eating:
Breakfast is usually a small bowl of Cheerios with skim milk and a piece of fruit. Lunch and dinner generally include lots of fresh fruit (peaches, apricots, cherries, mangos, papaya, bananas, raspberries, oranges, and pineapple), fresh pico de gallo salsa with an avocado added, mixed nuts (pecans are my favorite, with almonds running a close second), salads with lots of vegetables and low-fat Italian dressing, and of course fish (mostly salmon).
Lunch today was a "vegetarian stifado sandwich with eggplant" at the Greek place across the street from work. The only questionable ingredient was the pita made with white flower - a minor indulgence.
In terms of my diet, I've been eating pretty much anything that grows out of the ground or swims in the sea (with an occasional nibble of something that walks on legs or that comes from a cow.) The first few weeks after I came home from the hospital were really difficult due to the massive change in my menu. Withdrawal from added salt was perhaps the most difficult. But after about three weeks, my taste buds seem to have been reset, and I'm quite satisfied with what I'm eating:
Breakfast is usually a small bowl of Cheerios with skim milk and a piece of fruit. Lunch and dinner generally include lots of fresh fruit (peaches, apricots, cherries, mangos, papaya, bananas, raspberries, oranges, and pineapple), fresh pico de gallo salsa with an avocado added, mixed nuts (pecans are my favorite, with almonds running a close second), salads with lots of vegetables and low-fat Italian dressing, and of course fish (mostly salmon).
Lunch today was a "vegetarian stifado sandwich with eggplant" at the Greek place across the street from work. The only questionable ingredient was the pita made with white flower - a minor indulgence.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Update on my recovery as of mid-July
I visited the cardiologist last week, and got some good news. The results of the ecco that I had were positive -- my heart's ejection fraction is a little low, but not significantly. There's clearly some damage to my heart, but it appears to be minor. She cleared me to raise my heart beat up to 120 beats per minute during exercise. That's very encouraging because keeping things under 100 bpm was discouraging from an exertion standpoint. I've been out on my bike a handful of times now. Mornings and evenings in the summer here in the Seattle area are wonderful times to be on a bike on the Burke-Gilman trail.
The orthopedic surgeon confirmed that the damage to my shoulder is minor and should heal with time, stretching and some strengthening.
I'm officially down 28 pounds since "the event". I was on a 25 pounds-down plateau for a few weeks, so it's nice to be moving in the right direction again.
The orthopedic surgeon confirmed that the damage to my shoulder is minor and should heal with time, stretching and some strengthening.
I'm officially down 28 pounds since "the event". I was on a 25 pounds-down plateau for a few weeks, so it's nice to be moving in the right direction again.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
The Lazarus of University of Washington Hospital
On May 28, 2009 at the tender age of 41 years old I suffered a life-ending heart attack while bicycling to work in Seattle. Thankfully, the story doesn’t end with the heart attack. I’m still alive. This is an attempt to begin telling my story.
I feel better than I have in years. I also have a lot of work to do to begin losing the excess weight I’ve been carrying and to return to my former levels of activity. But I am profoundly grateful for that opportunity. I would have left behind a beautiful, incredible wife and 5 children – four girls and a boy, ages 5 to 15.
First, a little bit about me and who I am. I am the second of four children to wonderful parents who raised me well, loved me a lot, and help to foster much of the foundation for the man I am today. I grew up in Newport Hills, South of Bellevue, Washington. I attended grade school at Newport Hills elementary, junior high school at Ringdall Junior High and high school at Newport High. In high school, I graduated fourth in my class with a 3.96 grade point average. My upbringing was in a run-of-the-mill, middle class community.
I was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a. “the Mormons”), which I mention because it forms a significant foundation for who I am. After a year of college, I served a two year mission for the Church in Switzerland. After returning home, I graduated from Brigham Young University in the top 10% of my class (Cum Laud) in 1990 after just under 4 years. The university required a minimum of 128 college credits to graduate; I had 128½. Several years later, I met Katie Arrowsmith, to whom I’ve been married for over 16 years.
(Note: I do not expect the readers here or those who so marvelously worked to save my life, to adopt or even agree with my beliefs. Just know that my religion is an inseparable component of the lens through which I view this and so many other events of my life. If you want to know my conclusion up front, the circumstances surrounding my heart attack and the people who just happened to be there treating me that day constitute a true miracle – I’m just not that lucky. However, every reader and participant is certainly entitled to their own opinion.)
At the time of my heart attack, I had been working at NetMotion Wireless for 8 years as Director of Product Management. The company is too old to be called a start-up and has managed to carve out a niche in the wireless security arena and become profitable recently, although it is still venture capitalist owned. This was not the first software start-up I have worked at. I started my software start-up career with my father during high school, and then resumed it after graduation from college. Since then I’ve worked at 5 software companies, all in various stages of “start-up.” Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to cash in one solitary option of stock at any of them. I spent my “dot-com” years at a dot-com that has since gone under. The stories one typically hears of Seattle software types making it big, don’t apply to me.
At the time of the heart attack, I had been serving for 2 years in an unpaid position as the bishop of my congregation (ward). This generally requires 15 to 20 hours each week, spent mostly on evenings and Sundays. Bishop is not the type of position one volunteers for. It’s a calling that, in the Church, one neither seeks nor declines. While there is no set duration of service, one usually serves for from five to eight years. After two years, I felt like I was just starting to hit my stride.
I love serving as bishop, and I understand that some of my earliest words after having the breathing tube removed while in intensive care were requesting that my secretary cancel my appointments for the week. Katie tells me she reassuringly told me not to worry. Some people have been surprised to learn that the heart attack has not necessitated a release from the calling. For that I am grateful. I believe one of the reasons my life was so miraculously preserved is because there was still work for me to do – in my family first, but also at church and in my profession. I am profoundly grateful that I’ve been given the gift to complete that work, for however many years the Lord decides I need to remain. I hope it will be many.
I suppose the story can’t be fully told without at least paying some homage to the years leading up to the heart attack. My nick name as a baby was “Buddha.” My mother could not breast feed, so I was a true-blue formula baby. Although a scant 6 lbs. 3 oz. at birth, I quickly ballooned into a very happy, albeit chubby baby. I spent most of my child hood on the chubby side – I wouldn’t say “fat,” but certainly chubby through my grade school years.
Things changed in junior high school where I became obsessed with football and weight lifting. The once chubby adolescent blossomed into a well-built, physically fit athlete. The plan at the time was that I would continue to grow and be tall like my father, who is six foot three. Unfortunately, I’ve grown only one inch since entering junior high school at five foot seven. In ninth grade, our junior high-school football team won the district championship. In high school, I made varsity football my sophomore year and was junior varsity team co-captain.
At the beginning of my junior year, I suffered two discouraging injuries at the beginning of the football season: First I sprained the S.I. joint in my back. After a few weeks off to recuperate, I returned and severely sprained my ankle during my first game back – my foot was black and blue from my pinky toe to my knee. The rest of the season was a wash. Later that winter, a kind girlfriend introduced me to snow skiing. I was immediately addicted, and it didn’t take long for me to decide it would be a lot more fun to pursue snow skiing than football. So I abdicated my pursuit of football entirely in favor of weight lifting, rehabbing my back and my ankle, and getting ready for the next ski season. I loved skiing and enjoyed not needing to carry around the extra weight that football usually required in order to excel.
After my first year at college, at 19 years old, I served a two-year mission for my church in German-speaking Switzerland. The opportunity to serve others for that time also afforded me the chance to completely convalesce from all my high-school injuries. Serving there changed my life, but that’s a story I have already documented in two large journals I kept. Although I began my mission at about 165 pounds, I ended it 20 pounds heavier – thanks in large part to the impeccable Swiss cheeses and chocolates and yogurts. For a brief period during my mission I was on a bicycle in the foothills of the alps, but for nearly the remainder of my time, I traveled by a car.
After I returned home, I went back to college and roomed with a former missionary friend who served with me in Switzerland. He introduced me to road biking. I bought a Cannondale road bike while home for the summer between semesters, and I began logging miles. A hundred miles a week at first. Then before long, I was averaging two hundred to three hundred. It was an excellent summertime counterpart to winter time snow skiing. And I loved doing both.
I graduated college in Spring of 1990, weighing in at 164 lbs., a pound lighter than I was in seventh grade. I also graduated with a torn left ACL – due to my supposed invincibility on the ski slopes. I had a mogul-skiing addiction: The more and the bigger and the faster, the happier I was. Before getting the ACL repaired the next Fall, I trained for and biked the Seattle-to-Portland (affectionately known in the Seattle area as the STP), a 200 mile, one-day event. During the work week I would usually bike 40 miles twice and 20 miles once. Then the weekend was reserved for something between 80 and 120 miles – a lot of time in the saddle! I completed the STP in very respectable 10 hours 8 minutes even though my second hundred miles was completely solo. I had graduated from my Cannondale to an Eddie Merckx grand prix sporting Dura-Ace components – a graduation gift from my parents. Finally, after suffering additional knee damage playing volleyball at a work picnic, I got the ACL repaired. The winter was dark and dreary, now out of the house and living alone in my own apartment in Redmond. I spent time rehabilitating my knee several days a week before work. On New Year’s Day, I took my new knee for a cold but dry spin on the Burke-Gilman trail.
I met my future wife, Katie the following summer, in 1992, and life (meaning biking and skiing) slowed down a little to enjoy time with my new companion to-be. My weight also never quite returned to the slim days of college. I seemed to be permanently at about 180 pounds, due to enjoying eating out with my fiancé and due to the effects of a “desk job” in the computer software industry.
I shouldn’t fail to mention at this point that during our engagement, my father suffered a heart attack at the tender age of 49. So there were clearly some genetics in play with my heart attack. But I never paid much attention to its warning to me personally. I may be his son, but I didn’t think I had inherited the same genetics. He’s 6 foot 3. I’m 5 foot 8. There was no other heart disease in the family that we knew of. And we all concluded his heart attack was “certainly stress related.” But this was a tough time for all of us kids. We love our father, and drew close together as a family during that time to support him and my mom through a seaming endless series of complications after his open heart surgery.
In December, 1992, only a week after returning home from Katie’s and my honeymoon to Hawaii, I went skiing with a friend to Stevens Pass, my first time skiing after the surgery. On the back side, I got going way too fast for early season, hit a bump that looked like a jump, and tore my other leg’s ACL. I also came away with a black eye. It seems both my knees’ structural tolerances were within a few bumps of each other. It was a tough blow physically and psychologically. And Katie’s initial exposure to her new husband was less than optimal. During the ensuing winter, I quickly put on weight, expanding from a 34 inch waist to a 38 in waist to a 42 in waist faster than I thought possible. The need to support a wife and growing family and develop a career also caused me to foolishly change my priorities, favoring working late at night and on weekends over staying physically active. The software industry’s (and my) love for pizza and soda pop did me no favors, either.
After a few years of marriage, I remember deciding I needed to start biking to and from work again from my office on Mercer Island to our first home in Kirkland. The scant 12 miles were utterly brutal on my poor, out-of-shape body. At the end of the first attempt at biking home, I was much too grateful to be home, nearly collapsing at the door step. My personality is such that I don’t enjoy doing anything I can’t do well, and I think the effort to “get back to my fighting weight” just seemed impossibility at the time, as our family grew and my career progressed. The bikes and skis sat in the garage collecting dust for over a decade. Stupid.
Fast forward 10 years: A few years ago after our fifth child came, my wife, Katie, felt the need to reclaim her body after finally finishing nursing. She began exercising and encouraging me to do so, too. My weight had ballooned even more, and despite some minor successes with the Adkins diet (a nice way, I thought, to lose weight without working at it) I was now 290 pounds. So far from the promised land—over 100 pounds--that it seemed an impossibility to ever get back down. Nonetheless, we refreshed some ski gear and went skiing for the first time since my second ACL replacement, over a decade earlier. We even took the kids. And the second year, we bought them gear and skied a few times as a family.
I remember the summer before my heart attack feeling some internal urgency around getting my weight back down to a more reasonable level. I wasn’t sleeping well, I was always a little tired, and I really wanted to have more fun skiing. Gravity is not friendly to a 290 pound snow skier. Carrying that much weight down the slopes and keeping it all under control is sometimes more work than fun. I was never “happy” being big, but I felt it was the required sacrifice to maintain all my other obligations at home, at work and at church. So I tuned up my 1990-vintage Specialized Stumpjumper Comp mountain bike and made it in to a commuting bike, with road slicks and fenders. (Don't forget, it definitely rains in Seattle.) The prized Eddie Merckx frame was certainly not made for a near-three hundred pound rider!
The first few times out riding were brutal, but I quickly developed some biking legs, got over the saddle soreness, and managed to commute one way on consecutive days in to work on the Burke-Gilman trail – a little over 18 miles from our home in Woodinville in to the office in Fremont on the shores of Lake Union. To encourage my good start, Katie bought me a waterproof biking coat and a nice bright bike light for our 16th anniversary. It allowed me to extend commuting until late November of 2008. Finally, the snows of Winter 2008 arrived and the bike stayed in the garage until April 2009. Riding in the rain sucks. Commuting in the rain really sucks, especially when it's dark. And it gets dark in Seattle at 4pm during the Winter.
The evening before my heart attack, I biked home from work as usual and Katie picked me up at the bottom of brickyard road – peddling 300 pounds up Brickyard Road just wasn’t a possibility without the use of my smallest chain ring, which was now inaccessible due to a failing shifter. I got up Thursday morning and was in a hurry to get out of the garage. I only remember saying goodbye to my 12 year old daughter, Abigail.
Up until the heart attack I had managed to commute about 6 times, 2 days a week, 16 to 18 miles each way, (depending on whether I got picked up at the Bothell landing park at the bottom of the hill.) I was signed up with a team at work for the commute-to-work challenge and was planning to do my first round-trip commute on the day of the heart attack.
As I approached the UW campus that morning, about 16 miles into the ride, I began to feel some tightness in my chest. Faint at first, but it quickly increased to the point that my chest was burning and I began weighing my options, realizing what was likely happening. Thankfully, I was approaching the pedestrian overpass from the trail to the UW hospital. I turned left onto the pedestrian overpass and coasted as much as possible turning into the main load/unload area of the hospital.
I yelled at the valet in the booth that I was having a heart attack, laid my bike down and, out of instinct and pain, lay down on the sidewalk outside the front doors after taking off my helmet. I faintly remember someone coming up and talking to me, but I have no memory of what was said or how I responded. I’ve been told the first person to talk with me was a nurse who was entering the building having just gotten off a bus. A stretcher was quickly rushed out and, I’m told, that as I attempted to climb on the stretcher, I passed out.
Before I go further, it’s worth knowing that the University of Washington Hospital doesn’t typically take heart-attack patients, that is, unless they are lying on their doorstep. Heart attack patients are typically routed to Harborview Hospital in downtown Seattle. At the hospital, I was blessed with a team of senior cardiologists, stat nurses, and others: My own personal “dream team” in one of the finest teaching hospitals in the country. I’ve been told that important people on the team would not normally have been there. "Coincidence" had them on-call.
Here’s where the details may or may not be entirely accurate, but I will put down what I’ve been told:
They tried for 45-minutes to revive me without success. I have heard that many of the physicians, nurses and staff in the hospital began referring to me as Lazarus due to the amount of time they spent trying to revive me. Days later when I moved out of the ICU, I became aware of a large scab on my sternum, which I believe is attributable to 45 minutes of CPR, causing bruising and abrasion to that area. God bless each person whose palms did that for that amount of time. Having been trained in CPR as a boy scout, I know that even 5 minutes of CPR is a serious work out on the person doing it. Several weeks later, where the scab was there’s now just a red discoloration on the skin, which will likely fade more with time. But perhaps it’s my own little reminder in the mirror each morning of these events. What a tragedy if I were to ever forget!
After 45 minutes, the team was out of ideas and considering “calling it,” having exhausted all their usual methods – CPR is usually only done for 20 to 25 minutes. But the stat nurse, Robin, implored the team, “Come on. He is only 42 years old. What haven’t we tried?” Someone suggested they could go old school and try epinephrine. The pharmacist immediately held up a vial and said, “I have it right here.” After two doses – I believe this is considered high – it dilated my circulatory system and my heart started pumping on its own. Before long I was in the catheter lab receiving two stents in two heart arteries, one (the “widow maker”) 100% clogged and the other about 90% clogged. A third artery wasn’t treated because it was only 50% occluded – better treated with drugs, diet, and exercise than with a stent, I’m told. (I am also told that for the period I was in the ER and stent lab, the UW pharmacists were so busy tending to my needs that the pharmacy wasn't able to service anyone else in the hospital needing medications to get them--for almost two hours.)
The stents now placed, I was still in critical condition and remained so for several more days. It was unclear how much brain damage, heart damaged, kidney damaged and liver damaged had been done during the time I was out. They kept me in a medically-induced coma to allow me and my heart to rest. Slowly, one small step at a time over the next few days, one system after another began to function as it should.
My first full day out of the ICU, the Cardiologist who placed my stents, Dr. Stewart—a senior teaching physician, still not retired at the age of 70—questioned me and concluded that my memory (or the fact that my memory was preserved as vividly as it was, so closely to the event as it was) had been well preserved and that they had done an excellent job of preserving brain function in those initial, critical minutes and hours. The things I shouldn’t remember I don’t (due to medication), but I can also remember everything I should. After his heart attack, my dad always said he “felt two steps dumber.” I have had no such feeling, and have successfully remembered all my 20-odd passwords to email, financial, and other online accounts. The only thing I can’t seem to remember is my ATM PIN code – but this isn’t the first time I’ve forgotten that. I actually feel clearer and more lucid than prior to the attack. Although I must confess that remembering some things has felt a bit like spooling them off a hard drive. I joke now that I went through the equivalent of a reboot.
My memory after lying down on the sidewalk outside of the hospital doesn’t seriously kick-in until Monday afternoon, a few hours before I came out of the ICU into my regular recovery room. Of Monday, I remember only that certain people visited me. From Tuesday forward, I can remember what we talked about.
I am told I was attended to by a wonderful, kind ICU nurse with whom a friend, who spent a lot of time at the hospital those first few days, was so impressed that the same nurse is now scheduled to work my friend’s daughter’s surgery at Childrens Hospital. On Tuesday, many of the people who worked to save me during those first few hours and days came to visit my room. I wish I had written all their names down.
What do you say to someone who literally saves your life?
“Thank you”…?
The English language overloads the words like Thank you. Don’t the Eskimos have a bunch of different words for snow? In Seattle, the weather forecasters have a bunch of different words for rain: Showers, Drizzle, Rain, Down, etc. There should be different words for different kinds of Thank You: One for when someone passes the pepper; another for when you are invited to dinner; another for when you’re surprised by a thoughtful gift. There ought to be a special Thank You for when someone saves your life. It should only be used for those rare but special situations.
During the time that I was in the hospital, I received a constant stream of visitors--family of course, but also close friends and many members of my LDS ward and stake. This, I know, was a difficult event for my direct family, especially for my wife and children, parents, and siblings. So many memories of my father’s heart attack came streaming back for them. From the Thursday of the heart attack, word spread quickly throughout the family, church, friends and work colleagues. I estimate there were perhaps over a thousand people praying for my preservation and recovery. I’m so pleased their prayers were answered affirmatively. While I’m peaceful about the prospects of dying, I really had so much that I still wanted to do that I would have felt disappointment not being able to continue on this earth for a while longer.
I have gone over everything many times in my head and discussed it all with my wife: There is no other place or time that the heart attack could have occurred and my life still have been preserved (without something even more miraculous occurring). I had been hiking in the mountains the weekend before. There were hundreds of places on the bike trail where a downed biker would have been little noticed and a 911 call would have taken many minutes to respond to somewhere on the trail. I could have been driving a car or my motorcycle on the freeway, etc., etc. My heart attack occurred right outside U.W. hospital – the perfect place and the perfect time.
I don’t believe it detracts from the women and men who attended to me in the hospital in the slightest when I acknowledge God’s hand in preserving my life. The team of physicians, nurses and pharmacists was a “dream-team” – my own personal dream-team. Each had been trained over many years, each was prepared, and each acted heroically to save my life. Why didn’t they stop after 25 minutes, at a point in time when they’d certainly gone beyond the call in the attempt to save me? I believe they were brought together that morning by a kind and loving God, who wove a tapestry of skill and interaction to save and preserve my life. I honor and acknowledge the years of dedication required of each of these people to learn to do what they did for me that Thursday morning and in the following days. I love each of them, and I honor their sacrifice and their efforts on my part. Without them involved, the results would have been very different, indeed. I doubt this story would be getting told – at least not by me.
After four nights in the ICU, I was moved into a regular cardiac recovery room. Anyone who’s spent the night in a hospital knows that it’s no place to sleep restfully. With my mental faculties in tact, I was very motivated to leave the hospital as soon as possible. As I started to take stock of my condition and learn the details of what had happened, it became very clear that mine was a miraculous case, not only in terms of what had been done to save my life, but also the speed of my recovery. I had numerous bruises caused by various IV’s on my arms and legs. The largest was on my left groin, caused by placing the stents through the leg artery. Almost six weeks after leaving the hospital some faint remnants of the bruise still remained.
I was VERY uncomfortable in the hospital with a sore right shoulder – a casualty of something that had happened during those initial hours or days: It could have occurred when I collapsed getting on the gurney, when they lifted me on to the gurney, during the 45 minutes of CPR – it’s unclear and it doesn’t really matter. X-rays taken of it at the hospital didn’t reveal anything but some minor arthritis. With metal stents freshly placed in my heart veins, I can’t have a an MRI for six months, so I had it scanned using ultrasound 2 weeks after returning home. My orthopedic surgeon said I had just a partial tear that should heal on it's own with a little therapy and exercise. Thankfully, the immediate soreness has slowly subsided and I’m able to sleep on my side and function normally in everyday tasks – a small price to pay for being alive.
I also became aware, after returning home, that my left leg is numb to the touch on the inside of the knee a few inches above and extending for about twelve inches down – likely caused by the stents being placed through that leg's artery and the associated bruising. I’m hopeful the nerves will regenerate, but it doesn’t really cause much of a problem. The final blemish of note was a scab that had replaced the deep bruise on my sternum, obviously caused by the extended CPR.
I was discharged from the hospital on the evening of June 3rd, six days after the heart attack. I returned to a house with the lawn mowed and flowers planted. The inside of the house had been cleaned, a kitchen cabinet door had been fixed, a hole in our stairwell wall (caused by an upset teenager several months earlier) had been repaired and the stairwell painted, and there was an air conditioner installed in the master bedroom to keep me comfortable in the hot weather of early June. All these and flowers and nearly a hundred cards and letters are a testament to the kindness and compassion of members of my congregation (ward), neighbors, friends, and of course family. My sister-in-law, Amy, had flown in from Oklahoma, and was keeping the household running with our kids, who were still in school, to allow Katie time to focus on me and being at the hospital.
I have to admit that returning home was a little nerve-racking. I was hyper-aware of my chest and heart. Any slight pain caused me to pause and take stock of whether I was having another heart attack. Thankfully, the early pains were all brief false alarms.
Although I had snored in the hospital and wore a mask hooked up to a CPAP machine to keep me sleeping without undue stress on my heart, my wife and I were surprised that my snoring was reduced from a space shuttle engine prior to my heart attack to a purring kitten afterward. Sleeping was difficult those first few nights, but soon I found that I was sleeping better than I had in years and that I was much more rested during the day.
One of the requirements my wife had for the doctors who discharged me from the hospital was that I have a sleep study scheduled. I went to the first sleep study at Harbor View Hospital in Seattle the Monday evening following my discharge from UW Hospital. (Incidentally, much of the substance of this story was drafted that first evening while I was waiting to go to sleep.) The results from the sleep study came back, revealing that I had severe sleep apnea causing my blood oxygen saturation levels to plummet dangerously low during the night. I’m now sleeping with a C-PAP machine at home to correct that problem and give my heart a needed rest. Whereas before I was never able to get enough sleep, I know wake up without an alarm at 6 am, and I usually force myself to lay in bed until 7 am.
Since I was technically dead for 45 minutes when I was in cardiac arrest, many have asked what I saw on the other side. Unfortunately, if I did see or experience anything, I don’t remember it due to the medication that kept me in a medically-induced coma for several days and that thankfully erased my memory of those traumatic first hours and days. Perhaps the only thing I can relate is that I remember distinctly feeling that I would have been very disappointed if this was it.
Perhaps the biggest adjustment after returning home was the change in diet. I love a good, rare rib-eye steak with lots of salt and fresh, cracked pepper. I always liked to eat until I felt full, too. Now I am eating fruits, vegetables, nuts, and occasional fish. My overwhelming craving was for something salty. After a month, the intense cravings went away and I’ve adjusted for the most part. (There are few things as motivating as a heart attack to get one to make significant changes in diet.) I had lost about 15 pounds during the week in the hospital, and another 10 pounds came off pretty quickly. Blood work done a month after the heart attack showed that my total cholesterol had gone down to 125, from 265 at a physical in January. My blood pressure is now 100 over 60, and my resting heart rate is under 60 beats per minute. Clearly a good chunk of these results can be attributed to medication, but it was very gratifying to see such dramatic results based on my efforts to eat better.
At the beginning of July, I started a cardiac recovery program at Evergreen Hospital. Light walking initially, but enough to begin to build my confidence in resuming exercise. I went for my first bicycle ride on July 11th, albeit with much less intensity than my ride the morning of the heart attack. It felt really good to get out on the trail on a summer evening for an hour, even if I didn’t go that far or that fast. I’m looking forward to scheduling the first post-heart attack stress-test. I’m hopeful that will clear the path to more rigorous exercise, which is definitely the key to my longer term weight loss (and survival). The bicycle will be my main activity, and I’m looking forward to getting back on the Eddy Merckx after a losing a few more pounds using the commuter bicycle.
At the time of this writing—almost seven weeks after “the event”—life is starting to return to a relatively normal routine. The initial fears that I would have a recurrence have subsided for the most part. I’m back full-time to work and serving as a bishop. I have a lot more energy. It's challenging to have so much energy and yet to exercise only lightly--the doctors don’t want me to exercise more than 30 beats above my resting heart rate—basically keep my heart rate under 100. That means I can go for walks or a gentle bike-ride. I’m hopeful the cardiologist will schedule a stress test soon, which could provide the clearance to exercise more vigorously. I’ve adjusted my eating habits significantly: Mostly fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and nuts. Fish several times a week, and lean chicken a couple times a month. I’ll allow myself one or two bites of beef or pork on occasion, but not in any significant volume. I’ve lost about 25 pounds and plan to lose at least 100 more. That seems like a lot, but I’m not on a diet any more: This is how I live—literally and figuratively.
I feel so blessed. As I reflect on the myriad of events and interactions of people that combined to have me in the right place at the right time with the right people, I feel that I’ve witnessed a powerful, personal miracle.
I had been hiking with my family in the mountains the weekend prior to the heart attack. If it had happened up there, I’d surely be dead. I could have been in a car or on my motorcycle. It could have happened the night before on my way home from work or at any point along the 16 miles I’d biked that morning along the trail to work--it happened literally right in front of the hospital, and I was on their doorstep when my heart failed.
Professionals with the perfect skills and the abilities required were there for me that morning. And they didn’t give up, even after 45 minutes of CPR. (Why not?!) My brain and other vital functions are totally normal. My heart is recovering well, and my prospects for future activity and health are very good. I didn’t have to have open heart surgery, and I was out of the hospital in a week. I feel better than I have in years. I’m not tired during the day. I’m losing weight. My wife has her husband. My children have their father. And I’ve got a second chance to fix things in my life that needed fixing anyways.
The intricate tapestry of my miracle is beautiful and somewhat overwhelming to me. I’m so grateful for everyone that has attended to me, prayed for me, and supported me. All this fills me with gratitude for and confidence in the personal involvement of kind, compassionate and loving Father in Heaven, who clearly needs me to do more than I have done during my first 42 years. I give Him all the credit and am resolved to strengthen my own personal efforts to show my gratitude by serving His other sons and daughters, my brothers and sisters, here on the earth for whatever time remains.
It’s a humbling thing to be a walking miracle. I think I understand, perhaps a little bit better, how Lazarus must have felt.
I feel better than I have in years. I also have a lot of work to do to begin losing the excess weight I’ve been carrying and to return to my former levels of activity. But I am profoundly grateful for that opportunity. I would have left behind a beautiful, incredible wife and 5 children – four girls and a boy, ages 5 to 15.
First, a little bit about me and who I am. I am the second of four children to wonderful parents who raised me well, loved me a lot, and help to foster much of the foundation for the man I am today. I grew up in Newport Hills, South of Bellevue, Washington. I attended grade school at Newport Hills elementary, junior high school at Ringdall Junior High and high school at Newport High. In high school, I graduated fourth in my class with a 3.96 grade point average. My upbringing was in a run-of-the-mill, middle class community.
I was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a. “the Mormons”), which I mention because it forms a significant foundation for who I am. After a year of college, I served a two year mission for the Church in Switzerland. After returning home, I graduated from Brigham Young University in the top 10% of my class (Cum Laud) in 1990 after just under 4 years. The university required a minimum of 128 college credits to graduate; I had 128½. Several years later, I met Katie Arrowsmith, to whom I’ve been married for over 16 years.
(Note: I do not expect the readers here or those who so marvelously worked to save my life, to adopt or even agree with my beliefs. Just know that my religion is an inseparable component of the lens through which I view this and so many other events of my life. If you want to know my conclusion up front, the circumstances surrounding my heart attack and the people who just happened to be there treating me that day constitute a true miracle – I’m just not that lucky. However, every reader and participant is certainly entitled to their own opinion.)
At the time of my heart attack, I had been working at NetMotion Wireless for 8 years as Director of Product Management. The company is too old to be called a start-up and has managed to carve out a niche in the wireless security arena and become profitable recently, although it is still venture capitalist owned. This was not the first software start-up I have worked at. I started my software start-up career with my father during high school, and then resumed it after graduation from college. Since then I’ve worked at 5 software companies, all in various stages of “start-up.” Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to cash in one solitary option of stock at any of them. I spent my “dot-com” years at a dot-com that has since gone under. The stories one typically hears of Seattle software types making it big, don’t apply to me.
At the time of the heart attack, I had been serving for 2 years in an unpaid position as the bishop of my congregation (ward). This generally requires 15 to 20 hours each week, spent mostly on evenings and Sundays. Bishop is not the type of position one volunteers for. It’s a calling that, in the Church, one neither seeks nor declines. While there is no set duration of service, one usually serves for from five to eight years. After two years, I felt like I was just starting to hit my stride.
I love serving as bishop, and I understand that some of my earliest words after having the breathing tube removed while in intensive care were requesting that my secretary cancel my appointments for the week. Katie tells me she reassuringly told me not to worry. Some people have been surprised to learn that the heart attack has not necessitated a release from the calling. For that I am grateful. I believe one of the reasons my life was so miraculously preserved is because there was still work for me to do – in my family first, but also at church and in my profession. I am profoundly grateful that I’ve been given the gift to complete that work, for however many years the Lord decides I need to remain. I hope it will be many.
I suppose the story can’t be fully told without at least paying some homage to the years leading up to the heart attack. My nick name as a baby was “Buddha.” My mother could not breast feed, so I was a true-blue formula baby. Although a scant 6 lbs. 3 oz. at birth, I quickly ballooned into a very happy, albeit chubby baby. I spent most of my child hood on the chubby side – I wouldn’t say “fat,” but certainly chubby through my grade school years.
Things changed in junior high school where I became obsessed with football and weight lifting. The once chubby adolescent blossomed into a well-built, physically fit athlete. The plan at the time was that I would continue to grow and be tall like my father, who is six foot three. Unfortunately, I’ve grown only one inch since entering junior high school at five foot seven. In ninth grade, our junior high-school football team won the district championship. In high school, I made varsity football my sophomore year and was junior varsity team co-captain.
At the beginning of my junior year, I suffered two discouraging injuries at the beginning of the football season: First I sprained the S.I. joint in my back. After a few weeks off to recuperate, I returned and severely sprained my ankle during my first game back – my foot was black and blue from my pinky toe to my knee. The rest of the season was a wash. Later that winter, a kind girlfriend introduced me to snow skiing. I was immediately addicted, and it didn’t take long for me to decide it would be a lot more fun to pursue snow skiing than football. So I abdicated my pursuit of football entirely in favor of weight lifting, rehabbing my back and my ankle, and getting ready for the next ski season. I loved skiing and enjoyed not needing to carry around the extra weight that football usually required in order to excel.
After my first year at college, at 19 years old, I served a two-year mission for my church in German-speaking Switzerland. The opportunity to serve others for that time also afforded me the chance to completely convalesce from all my high-school injuries. Serving there changed my life, but that’s a story I have already documented in two large journals I kept. Although I began my mission at about 165 pounds, I ended it 20 pounds heavier – thanks in large part to the impeccable Swiss cheeses and chocolates and yogurts. For a brief period during my mission I was on a bicycle in the foothills of the alps, but for nearly the remainder of my time, I traveled by a car.
After I returned home, I went back to college and roomed with a former missionary friend who served with me in Switzerland. He introduced me to road biking. I bought a Cannondale road bike while home for the summer between semesters, and I began logging miles. A hundred miles a week at first. Then before long, I was averaging two hundred to three hundred. It was an excellent summertime counterpart to winter time snow skiing. And I loved doing both.
I graduated college in Spring of 1990, weighing in at 164 lbs., a pound lighter than I was in seventh grade. I also graduated with a torn left ACL – due to my supposed invincibility on the ski slopes. I had a mogul-skiing addiction: The more and the bigger and the faster, the happier I was. Before getting the ACL repaired the next Fall, I trained for and biked the Seattle-to-Portland (affectionately known in the Seattle area as the STP), a 200 mile, one-day event. During the work week I would usually bike 40 miles twice and 20 miles once. Then the weekend was reserved for something between 80 and 120 miles – a lot of time in the saddle! I completed the STP in very respectable 10 hours 8 minutes even though my second hundred miles was completely solo. I had graduated from my Cannondale to an Eddie Merckx grand prix sporting Dura-Ace components – a graduation gift from my parents. Finally, after suffering additional knee damage playing volleyball at a work picnic, I got the ACL repaired. The winter was dark and dreary, now out of the house and living alone in my own apartment in Redmond. I spent time rehabilitating my knee several days a week before work. On New Year’s Day, I took my new knee for a cold but dry spin on the Burke-Gilman trail.
I met my future wife, Katie the following summer, in 1992, and life (meaning biking and skiing) slowed down a little to enjoy time with my new companion to-be. My weight also never quite returned to the slim days of college. I seemed to be permanently at about 180 pounds, due to enjoying eating out with my fiancé and due to the effects of a “desk job” in the computer software industry.
I shouldn’t fail to mention at this point that during our engagement, my father suffered a heart attack at the tender age of 49. So there were clearly some genetics in play with my heart attack. But I never paid much attention to its warning to me personally. I may be his son, but I didn’t think I had inherited the same genetics. He’s 6 foot 3. I’m 5 foot 8. There was no other heart disease in the family that we knew of. And we all concluded his heart attack was “certainly stress related.” But this was a tough time for all of us kids. We love our father, and drew close together as a family during that time to support him and my mom through a seaming endless series of complications after his open heart surgery.
In December, 1992, only a week after returning home from Katie’s and my honeymoon to Hawaii, I went skiing with a friend to Stevens Pass, my first time skiing after the surgery. On the back side, I got going way too fast for early season, hit a bump that looked like a jump, and tore my other leg’s ACL. I also came away with a black eye. It seems both my knees’ structural tolerances were within a few bumps of each other. It was a tough blow physically and psychologically. And Katie’s initial exposure to her new husband was less than optimal. During the ensuing winter, I quickly put on weight, expanding from a 34 inch waist to a 38 in waist to a 42 in waist faster than I thought possible. The need to support a wife and growing family and develop a career also caused me to foolishly change my priorities, favoring working late at night and on weekends over staying physically active. The software industry’s (and my) love for pizza and soda pop did me no favors, either.
After a few years of marriage, I remember deciding I needed to start biking to and from work again from my office on Mercer Island to our first home in Kirkland. The scant 12 miles were utterly brutal on my poor, out-of-shape body. At the end of the first attempt at biking home, I was much too grateful to be home, nearly collapsing at the door step. My personality is such that I don’t enjoy doing anything I can’t do well, and I think the effort to “get back to my fighting weight” just seemed impossibility at the time, as our family grew and my career progressed. The bikes and skis sat in the garage collecting dust for over a decade. Stupid.
Fast forward 10 years: A few years ago after our fifth child came, my wife, Katie, felt the need to reclaim her body after finally finishing nursing. She began exercising and encouraging me to do so, too. My weight had ballooned even more, and despite some minor successes with the Adkins diet (a nice way, I thought, to lose weight without working at it) I was now 290 pounds. So far from the promised land—over 100 pounds--that it seemed an impossibility to ever get back down. Nonetheless, we refreshed some ski gear and went skiing for the first time since my second ACL replacement, over a decade earlier. We even took the kids. And the second year, we bought them gear and skied a few times as a family.
I remember the summer before my heart attack feeling some internal urgency around getting my weight back down to a more reasonable level. I wasn’t sleeping well, I was always a little tired, and I really wanted to have more fun skiing. Gravity is not friendly to a 290 pound snow skier. Carrying that much weight down the slopes and keeping it all under control is sometimes more work than fun. I was never “happy” being big, but I felt it was the required sacrifice to maintain all my other obligations at home, at work and at church. So I tuned up my 1990-vintage Specialized Stumpjumper Comp mountain bike and made it in to a commuting bike, with road slicks and fenders. (Don't forget, it definitely rains in Seattle.) The prized Eddie Merckx frame was certainly not made for a near-three hundred pound rider!
The first few times out riding were brutal, but I quickly developed some biking legs, got over the saddle soreness, and managed to commute one way on consecutive days in to work on the Burke-Gilman trail – a little over 18 miles from our home in Woodinville in to the office in Fremont on the shores of Lake Union. To encourage my good start, Katie bought me a waterproof biking coat and a nice bright bike light for our 16th anniversary. It allowed me to extend commuting until late November of 2008. Finally, the snows of Winter 2008 arrived and the bike stayed in the garage until April 2009. Riding in the rain sucks. Commuting in the rain really sucks, especially when it's dark. And it gets dark in Seattle at 4pm during the Winter.
The evening before my heart attack, I biked home from work as usual and Katie picked me up at the bottom of brickyard road – peddling 300 pounds up Brickyard Road just wasn’t a possibility without the use of my smallest chain ring, which was now inaccessible due to a failing shifter. I got up Thursday morning and was in a hurry to get out of the garage. I only remember saying goodbye to my 12 year old daughter, Abigail.
Up until the heart attack I had managed to commute about 6 times, 2 days a week, 16 to 18 miles each way, (depending on whether I got picked up at the Bothell landing park at the bottom of the hill.) I was signed up with a team at work for the commute-to-work challenge and was planning to do my first round-trip commute on the day of the heart attack.
As I approached the UW campus that morning, about 16 miles into the ride, I began to feel some tightness in my chest. Faint at first, but it quickly increased to the point that my chest was burning and I began weighing my options, realizing what was likely happening. Thankfully, I was approaching the pedestrian overpass from the trail to the UW hospital. I turned left onto the pedestrian overpass and coasted as much as possible turning into the main load/unload area of the hospital.
I yelled at the valet in the booth that I was having a heart attack, laid my bike down and, out of instinct and pain, lay down on the sidewalk outside the front doors after taking off my helmet. I faintly remember someone coming up and talking to me, but I have no memory of what was said or how I responded. I’ve been told the first person to talk with me was a nurse who was entering the building having just gotten off a bus. A stretcher was quickly rushed out and, I’m told, that as I attempted to climb on the stretcher, I passed out.
Before I go further, it’s worth knowing that the University of Washington Hospital doesn’t typically take heart-attack patients, that is, unless they are lying on their doorstep. Heart attack patients are typically routed to Harborview Hospital in downtown Seattle. At the hospital, I was blessed with a team of senior cardiologists, stat nurses, and others: My own personal “dream team” in one of the finest teaching hospitals in the country. I’ve been told that important people on the team would not normally have been there. "Coincidence" had them on-call.
Here’s where the details may or may not be entirely accurate, but I will put down what I’ve been told:
They tried for 45-minutes to revive me without success. I have heard that many of the physicians, nurses and staff in the hospital began referring to me as Lazarus due to the amount of time they spent trying to revive me. Days later when I moved out of the ICU, I became aware of a large scab on my sternum, which I believe is attributable to 45 minutes of CPR, causing bruising and abrasion to that area. God bless each person whose palms did that for that amount of time. Having been trained in CPR as a boy scout, I know that even 5 minutes of CPR is a serious work out on the person doing it. Several weeks later, where the scab was there’s now just a red discoloration on the skin, which will likely fade more with time. But perhaps it’s my own little reminder in the mirror each morning of these events. What a tragedy if I were to ever forget!
After 45 minutes, the team was out of ideas and considering “calling it,” having exhausted all their usual methods – CPR is usually only done for 20 to 25 minutes. But the stat nurse, Robin, implored the team, “Come on. He is only 42 years old. What haven’t we tried?” Someone suggested they could go old school and try epinephrine. The pharmacist immediately held up a vial and said, “I have it right here.” After two doses – I believe this is considered high – it dilated my circulatory system and my heart started pumping on its own. Before long I was in the catheter lab receiving two stents in two heart arteries, one (the “widow maker”) 100% clogged and the other about 90% clogged. A third artery wasn’t treated because it was only 50% occluded – better treated with drugs, diet, and exercise than with a stent, I’m told. (I am also told that for the period I was in the ER and stent lab, the UW pharmacists were so busy tending to my needs that the pharmacy wasn't able to service anyone else in the hospital needing medications to get them--for almost two hours.)
The stents now placed, I was still in critical condition and remained so for several more days. It was unclear how much brain damage, heart damaged, kidney damaged and liver damaged had been done during the time I was out. They kept me in a medically-induced coma to allow me and my heart to rest. Slowly, one small step at a time over the next few days, one system after another began to function as it should.
My first full day out of the ICU, the Cardiologist who placed my stents, Dr. Stewart—a senior teaching physician, still not retired at the age of 70—questioned me and concluded that my memory (or the fact that my memory was preserved as vividly as it was, so closely to the event as it was) had been well preserved and that they had done an excellent job of preserving brain function in those initial, critical minutes and hours. The things I shouldn’t remember I don’t (due to medication), but I can also remember everything I should. After his heart attack, my dad always said he “felt two steps dumber.” I have had no such feeling, and have successfully remembered all my 20-odd passwords to email, financial, and other online accounts. The only thing I can’t seem to remember is my ATM PIN code – but this isn’t the first time I’ve forgotten that. I actually feel clearer and more lucid than prior to the attack. Although I must confess that remembering some things has felt a bit like spooling them off a hard drive. I joke now that I went through the equivalent of a reboot.
My memory after lying down on the sidewalk outside of the hospital doesn’t seriously kick-in until Monday afternoon, a few hours before I came out of the ICU into my regular recovery room. Of Monday, I remember only that certain people visited me. From Tuesday forward, I can remember what we talked about.
I am told I was attended to by a wonderful, kind ICU nurse with whom a friend, who spent a lot of time at the hospital those first few days, was so impressed that the same nurse is now scheduled to work my friend’s daughter’s surgery at Childrens Hospital. On Tuesday, many of the people who worked to save me during those first few hours and days came to visit my room. I wish I had written all their names down.
What do you say to someone who literally saves your life?
“Thank you”…?
The English language overloads the words like Thank you. Don’t the Eskimos have a bunch of different words for snow? In Seattle, the weather forecasters have a bunch of different words for rain: Showers, Drizzle, Rain, Down, etc. There should be different words for different kinds of Thank You: One for when someone passes the pepper; another for when you are invited to dinner; another for when you’re surprised by a thoughtful gift. There ought to be a special Thank You for when someone saves your life. It should only be used for those rare but special situations.
During the time that I was in the hospital, I received a constant stream of visitors--family of course, but also close friends and many members of my LDS ward and stake. This, I know, was a difficult event for my direct family, especially for my wife and children, parents, and siblings. So many memories of my father’s heart attack came streaming back for them. From the Thursday of the heart attack, word spread quickly throughout the family, church, friends and work colleagues. I estimate there were perhaps over a thousand people praying for my preservation and recovery. I’m so pleased their prayers were answered affirmatively. While I’m peaceful about the prospects of dying, I really had so much that I still wanted to do that I would have felt disappointment not being able to continue on this earth for a while longer.
I have gone over everything many times in my head and discussed it all with my wife: There is no other place or time that the heart attack could have occurred and my life still have been preserved (without something even more miraculous occurring). I had been hiking in the mountains the weekend before. There were hundreds of places on the bike trail where a downed biker would have been little noticed and a 911 call would have taken many minutes to respond to somewhere on the trail. I could have been driving a car or my motorcycle on the freeway, etc., etc. My heart attack occurred right outside U.W. hospital – the perfect place and the perfect time.
I don’t believe it detracts from the women and men who attended to me in the hospital in the slightest when I acknowledge God’s hand in preserving my life. The team of physicians, nurses and pharmacists was a “dream-team” – my own personal dream-team. Each had been trained over many years, each was prepared, and each acted heroically to save my life. Why didn’t they stop after 25 minutes, at a point in time when they’d certainly gone beyond the call in the attempt to save me? I believe they were brought together that morning by a kind and loving God, who wove a tapestry of skill and interaction to save and preserve my life. I honor and acknowledge the years of dedication required of each of these people to learn to do what they did for me that Thursday morning and in the following days. I love each of them, and I honor their sacrifice and their efforts on my part. Without them involved, the results would have been very different, indeed. I doubt this story would be getting told – at least not by me.
After four nights in the ICU, I was moved into a regular cardiac recovery room. Anyone who’s spent the night in a hospital knows that it’s no place to sleep restfully. With my mental faculties in tact, I was very motivated to leave the hospital as soon as possible. As I started to take stock of my condition and learn the details of what had happened, it became very clear that mine was a miraculous case, not only in terms of what had been done to save my life, but also the speed of my recovery. I had numerous bruises caused by various IV’s on my arms and legs. The largest was on my left groin, caused by placing the stents through the leg artery. Almost six weeks after leaving the hospital some faint remnants of the bruise still remained.
I was VERY uncomfortable in the hospital with a sore right shoulder – a casualty of something that had happened during those initial hours or days: It could have occurred when I collapsed getting on the gurney, when they lifted me on to the gurney, during the 45 minutes of CPR – it’s unclear and it doesn’t really matter. X-rays taken of it at the hospital didn’t reveal anything but some minor arthritis. With metal stents freshly placed in my heart veins, I can’t have a an MRI for six months, so I had it scanned using ultrasound 2 weeks after returning home. My orthopedic surgeon said I had just a partial tear that should heal on it's own with a little therapy and exercise. Thankfully, the immediate soreness has slowly subsided and I’m able to sleep on my side and function normally in everyday tasks – a small price to pay for being alive.
I also became aware, after returning home, that my left leg is numb to the touch on the inside of the knee a few inches above and extending for about twelve inches down – likely caused by the stents being placed through that leg's artery and the associated bruising. I’m hopeful the nerves will regenerate, but it doesn’t really cause much of a problem. The final blemish of note was a scab that had replaced the deep bruise on my sternum, obviously caused by the extended CPR.
I was discharged from the hospital on the evening of June 3rd, six days after the heart attack. I returned to a house with the lawn mowed and flowers planted. The inside of the house had been cleaned, a kitchen cabinet door had been fixed, a hole in our stairwell wall (caused by an upset teenager several months earlier) had been repaired and the stairwell painted, and there was an air conditioner installed in the master bedroom to keep me comfortable in the hot weather of early June. All these and flowers and nearly a hundred cards and letters are a testament to the kindness and compassion of members of my congregation (ward), neighbors, friends, and of course family. My sister-in-law, Amy, had flown in from Oklahoma, and was keeping the household running with our kids, who were still in school, to allow Katie time to focus on me and being at the hospital.
I have to admit that returning home was a little nerve-racking. I was hyper-aware of my chest and heart. Any slight pain caused me to pause and take stock of whether I was having another heart attack. Thankfully, the early pains were all brief false alarms.
Although I had snored in the hospital and wore a mask hooked up to a CPAP machine to keep me sleeping without undue stress on my heart, my wife and I were surprised that my snoring was reduced from a space shuttle engine prior to my heart attack to a purring kitten afterward. Sleeping was difficult those first few nights, but soon I found that I was sleeping better than I had in years and that I was much more rested during the day.
One of the requirements my wife had for the doctors who discharged me from the hospital was that I have a sleep study scheduled. I went to the first sleep study at Harbor View Hospital in Seattle the Monday evening following my discharge from UW Hospital. (Incidentally, much of the substance of this story was drafted that first evening while I was waiting to go to sleep.) The results from the sleep study came back, revealing that I had severe sleep apnea causing my blood oxygen saturation levels to plummet dangerously low during the night. I’m now sleeping with a C-PAP machine at home to correct that problem and give my heart a needed rest. Whereas before I was never able to get enough sleep, I know wake up without an alarm at 6 am, and I usually force myself to lay in bed until 7 am.
Since I was technically dead for 45 minutes when I was in cardiac arrest, many have asked what I saw on the other side. Unfortunately, if I did see or experience anything, I don’t remember it due to the medication that kept me in a medically-induced coma for several days and that thankfully erased my memory of those traumatic first hours and days. Perhaps the only thing I can relate is that I remember distinctly feeling that I would have been very disappointed if this was it.
Perhaps the biggest adjustment after returning home was the change in diet. I love a good, rare rib-eye steak with lots of salt and fresh, cracked pepper. I always liked to eat until I felt full, too. Now I am eating fruits, vegetables, nuts, and occasional fish. My overwhelming craving was for something salty. After a month, the intense cravings went away and I’ve adjusted for the most part. (There are few things as motivating as a heart attack to get one to make significant changes in diet.) I had lost about 15 pounds during the week in the hospital, and another 10 pounds came off pretty quickly. Blood work done a month after the heart attack showed that my total cholesterol had gone down to 125, from 265 at a physical in January. My blood pressure is now 100 over 60, and my resting heart rate is under 60 beats per minute. Clearly a good chunk of these results can be attributed to medication, but it was very gratifying to see such dramatic results based on my efforts to eat better.
At the beginning of July, I started a cardiac recovery program at Evergreen Hospital. Light walking initially, but enough to begin to build my confidence in resuming exercise. I went for my first bicycle ride on July 11th, albeit with much less intensity than my ride the morning of the heart attack. It felt really good to get out on the trail on a summer evening for an hour, even if I didn’t go that far or that fast. I’m looking forward to scheduling the first post-heart attack stress-test. I’m hopeful that will clear the path to more rigorous exercise, which is definitely the key to my longer term weight loss (and survival). The bicycle will be my main activity, and I’m looking forward to getting back on the Eddy Merckx after a losing a few more pounds using the commuter bicycle.
At the time of this writing—almost seven weeks after “the event”—life is starting to return to a relatively normal routine. The initial fears that I would have a recurrence have subsided for the most part. I’m back full-time to work and serving as a bishop. I have a lot more energy. It's challenging to have so much energy and yet to exercise only lightly--the doctors don’t want me to exercise more than 30 beats above my resting heart rate—basically keep my heart rate under 100. That means I can go for walks or a gentle bike-ride. I’m hopeful the cardiologist will schedule a stress test soon, which could provide the clearance to exercise more vigorously. I’ve adjusted my eating habits significantly: Mostly fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and nuts. Fish several times a week, and lean chicken a couple times a month. I’ll allow myself one or two bites of beef or pork on occasion, but not in any significant volume. I’ve lost about 25 pounds and plan to lose at least 100 more. That seems like a lot, but I’m not on a diet any more: This is how I live—literally and figuratively.
I feel so blessed. As I reflect on the myriad of events and interactions of people that combined to have me in the right place at the right time with the right people, I feel that I’ve witnessed a powerful, personal miracle.
I had been hiking with my family in the mountains the weekend prior to the heart attack. If it had happened up there, I’d surely be dead. I could have been in a car or on my motorcycle. It could have happened the night before on my way home from work or at any point along the 16 miles I’d biked that morning along the trail to work--it happened literally right in front of the hospital, and I was on their doorstep when my heart failed.
Professionals with the perfect skills and the abilities required were there for me that morning. And they didn’t give up, even after 45 minutes of CPR. (Why not?!) My brain and other vital functions are totally normal. My heart is recovering well, and my prospects for future activity and health are very good. I didn’t have to have open heart surgery, and I was out of the hospital in a week. I feel better than I have in years. I’m not tired during the day. I’m losing weight. My wife has her husband. My children have their father. And I’ve got a second chance to fix things in my life that needed fixing anyways.
The intricate tapestry of my miracle is beautiful and somewhat overwhelming to me. I’m so grateful for everyone that has attended to me, prayed for me, and supported me. All this fills me with gratitude for and confidence in the personal involvement of kind, compassionate and loving Father in Heaven, who clearly needs me to do more than I have done during my first 42 years. I give Him all the credit and am resolved to strengthen my own personal efforts to show my gratitude by serving His other sons and daughters, my brothers and sisters, here on the earth for whatever time remains.
It’s a humbling thing to be a walking miracle. I think I understand, perhaps a little bit better, how Lazarus must have felt.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Vanilla Diesel
I went for a day-long (400 mi) motorcycle ride on July 3rd, 2004 - a birthday present to myself.
My riding partner, Rob Dorman, with the same model bike, a VTX 1800 R, had forgotten to tell me that he'd ridden about 40 miles on his tank of gas the day before. So, of course, he ran out of gas going over the North Cascades highway, about 7 miles short the next gas station. I went on ahead, strapped a gas tank over my should with a belt and brought it back to get him going. Shaking that incident off, we went on into the city of Chelan and had a nice outdoor lunch at a restaurant on the lake. Then on to Leavenworth.
Thinking it wise to learn from our fuel travails earlier that day, we pulled into a station to fuel-up before heading over the pass. After gassing up, I started my bike up and pulled around away from the pumps to park it and go inside for treats. The bike died before I could get to a parking spot.... After a few minutes of puzzling I realized that I had accidentally filled it up with almost 4 gallons of diesel. Ouch!
After coaxing the gas station attendants into loaning us a container and hose, I managed to syphon about 3 gallons out of it (getting about 4 mouthfuls of diesel in the process -- no syphoning skills), then filled it up with regular gas.
Wouldn't start.
Ran the battery all the way down trying start it. Turned the key off. Started going through my options:
Ride home double on the back of Rob's bike? Call AAA? Call Katie and have her come pick me up? All too humiliating.
After a few minutes, Rob prodded me to try starting it one last time. I turned the key and pushed the starter button with my thumb. The bike briefly sputtered to life. I grabbed the throttle and rev'd it up to fight its will to die.
Amidst of the backfiring, popping, and general noising-making (my 1800cc engine coughing up diesel outdid the noise of almost all the fireworks. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small child holding his ears and crying as his mother scowled at me) I kept it running for about 5 minutes. Looking at Rob, he bellowed over the noise that we should probably try and get closer to home. So we pulled out and off I went. After about 2 miles the engine smoothed out.
The problem now was that I was burping up diesel - YUCK. (Regular unleaded tastes so much better.) We stopped at a diner about 20 miles up the pass and got a big milkshake thinking that would help calm my stomache. The rest of the way home I was burping VANILLA diesel.
When I got home that evening, I filled up the bike again--regular unleaded this time--then washed off the bugs and diesel. (Still burping vanilla diesel.) At 10:30 at night with no relief in sight, I finally ate loaf of garlic bread thinking that might sop up the residue.
Woke up at 3:00AM with bad heartburn -- popped a handful of Tums. Went back to sleep and woke up in the morning "cured".
Pulled the spark plugs the next day. The bikes running fine. So am I.
My riding partner, Rob Dorman, with the same model bike, a VTX 1800 R, had forgotten to tell me that he'd ridden about 40 miles on his tank of gas the day before. So, of course, he ran out of gas going over the North Cascades highway, about 7 miles short the next gas station. I went on ahead, strapped a gas tank over my should with a belt and brought it back to get him going. Shaking that incident off, we went on into the city of Chelan and had a nice outdoor lunch at a restaurant on the lake. Then on to Leavenworth.
Thinking it wise to learn from our fuel travails earlier that day, we pulled into a station to fuel-up before heading over the pass. After gassing up, I started my bike up and pulled around away from the pumps to park it and go inside for treats. The bike died before I could get to a parking spot.... After a few minutes of puzzling I realized that I had accidentally filled it up with almost 4 gallons of diesel. Ouch!
After coaxing the gas station attendants into loaning us a container and hose, I managed to syphon about 3 gallons out of it (getting about 4 mouthfuls of diesel in the process -- no syphoning skills), then filled it up with regular gas.
Wouldn't start.
Ran the battery all the way down trying start it. Turned the key off. Started going through my options:
Ride home double on the back of Rob's bike? Call AAA? Call Katie and have her come pick me up? All too humiliating.
After a few minutes, Rob prodded me to try starting it one last time. I turned the key and pushed the starter button with my thumb. The bike briefly sputtered to life. I grabbed the throttle and rev'd it up to fight its will to die.
Amidst of the backfiring, popping, and general noising-making (my 1800cc engine coughing up diesel outdid the noise of almost all the fireworks. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small child holding his ears and crying as his mother scowled at me) I kept it running for about 5 minutes. Looking at Rob, he bellowed over the noise that we should probably try and get closer to home. So we pulled out and off I went. After about 2 miles the engine smoothed out.
The problem now was that I was burping up diesel - YUCK. (Regular unleaded tastes so much better.) We stopped at a diner about 20 miles up the pass and got a big milkshake thinking that would help calm my stomache. The rest of the way home I was burping VANILLA diesel.
When I got home that evening, I filled up the bike again--regular unleaded this time--then washed off the bugs and diesel. (Still burping vanilla diesel.) At 10:30 at night with no relief in sight, I finally ate loaf of garlic bread thinking that might sop up the residue.
Woke up at 3:00AM with bad heartburn -- popped a handful of Tums. Went back to sleep and woke up in the morning "cured".
Pulled the spark plugs the next day. The bikes running fine. So am I.
Monday, May 23, 2005
"One is not a pattern. Two is not a trend."
This is a handy little phrase I came up with a about a decade ago when I was working at ELF Technologies. (So, by mentioning it here, I'm officially asserting my copyright.) I've found it applicable in a myriad of situations and contexts.
Feel free to use as you see fit, just remember where it came from.
(c) 2005 John C. Knopf, All rights reserved.
Feel free to use as you see fit, just remember where it came from.
(c) 2005 John C. Knopf, All rights reserved.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Strength through diversity...?
I've been thinking about an email thread that went through my company recently. Here are the pertinent snippets:
Now, I'm definitely not going to argue about the virtues of ethnic diversity or the merits of biological diversity. Both were created and part of the plan of God. But I fear we as a society are sliding towards actually believing that in order to be strong and overcome the ills of this world we must actually embrace social policies fundamentally destructive to families and that run counter to the order established by our Creator.
In the end, what makes us resistant to epidemics--biological, social, software, or otherwise--will not be our diversity, it will be our obedience to the commandments of God, our willingness to follow His counsel and become one with Him as we have been invited to do. Strength and resistance to epidemics of any kind comes through embracing truth. And that course, alone, is the path to remedying the ills of our world.
Diversity within the context of righteous living will do more to strengthen us and help us to resist the ills of our day than any other course. So I'm not arguing with the diversity created by our Creator--the wonderful plurality of personality created by Him--but I fear our society has some how misinterpreted "agency" with diversity. Those who find themselves in His kingdom are certainly free to choose, and yet the inhabitants of that relm choose but one way of life and living. Through this and this alone, through belief on Him who overcame all, they are clothed with immortality and eternal lives. They are not clones--they all have personalities. But all have recognized and obeyed the way, the truth, and the life.
More on this another time.
"Bio-diversity, software diversity, ethnic diversity, intellectual diversity ==> All serve to resist epidemics of various forms. The principals of biology, software security, and social policy are very similar in this respect."
Now, I'm definitely not going to argue about the virtues of ethnic diversity or the merits of biological diversity. Both were created and part of the plan of God. But I fear we as a society are sliding towards actually believing that in order to be strong and overcome the ills of this world we must actually embrace social policies fundamentally destructive to families and that run counter to the order established by our Creator.
In the end, what makes us resistant to epidemics--biological, social, software, or otherwise--will not be our diversity, it will be our obedience to the commandments of God, our willingness to follow His counsel and become one with Him as we have been invited to do. Strength and resistance to epidemics of any kind comes through embracing truth. And that course, alone, is the path to remedying the ills of our world.
Diversity within the context of righteous living will do more to strengthen us and help us to resist the ills of our day than any other course. So I'm not arguing with the diversity created by our Creator--the wonderful plurality of personality created by Him--but I fear our society has some how misinterpreted "agency" with diversity. Those who find themselves in His kingdom are certainly free to choose, and yet the inhabitants of that relm choose but one way of life and living. Through this and this alone, through belief on Him who overcame all, they are clothed with immortality and eternal lives. They are not clones--they all have personalities. But all have recognized and obeyed the way, the truth, and the life.
More on this another time.
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