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Diciembre 10, 2007

Memoir of a Heart Attack

This is a memoir of a heart attack, or better said, an extended episode of Ventricular Tachycardia. This is the memoir of near death and of ongoing life. There are huge emotional ramifications to this event that I am still uncovering in my life. But I before reflecting on them, I need to get the basic details out first.

On October 6, 2007 I rode 100 miles in the Sequatchie Valley. An organized ride, well attended, well supported. I rode the last 40 or 50 miles by myself because most riders only rode a metric century and because there were no groups I was able to join and stay with. It was also 92 degrees and I had a hard time drinking enough. My stomach just didn’t react well to fluids and I wasn’t very forceful about pushing them down. At the church in Kimball I knew I was cooking hot and still had 30 miles to go. I finished going down through the towns of Whitwell and Sequatchie fearing every hill that rose up in front of me. Hoping I’d find friends but not finding any. Not drinking like I should.

I finished with a time of 6:45. With gratitude I got back to my truck. Laid out in the grass, limped off to the shower and rested in its coolness. I went back to my truck to put my stuff away, before going to eat and drink inside the Marion county high school. An unexpected gust of wind took a sock out of my grasp and push it away from the open door and under my truck so that I had to lean over and see it (where it was under the back wheel).

Standing up from finding the sock – I felt the rush, the spin, the darkness and the next thing I knew I was on the floor and several were attending to me. They shaded me and got me some water and helped me. At that point, and maybe sooner my heart went into an arrhythmia. It started short circuiting so that only the lower ventricles were pumping, and pumping very fast. No one took my pulse, no one really pushed at my condition at the high school, and I really didn't want anyone to. I kept saying I was fine. So after something to eat and more to drink I limped back to the truck and drove home, about 40 minutes away.

I knew I wasn’t 100 percent. I knew that I was tired and very dazed, but I made it home. Traffic jammed up at the usual spot on the bridge over the Tennessee river, but I just followed a truck calmly all the way home. I remember the relief of turning off the interstate on Germantown road. I was not really all there, but I was making it and would be fine when I got home.

Well I wasn’t.

I went to lay down upstairs and sleep off the effort while Marialice moved the kids out the door. She was off to friends for dinner with the kids. Keeping engagements previously planned. I was suffering, but she’s seen me suffer and be tired and want just to sleep. I didn’t really want to ask for her help, but I did. I called out, "Marialice, I'm not doing well" Why did I ask for help? I don’t know – but it saved my life.

What was happening? It was déjà vu for me of what had happened in Colorado when I had an episode of altitude sickness. The discomfort and heavy heartbeat. I knew the feeling – dizzy, sweaty, hot, uncomfortable, absent. It wasn’t till I lay down that I felt my heart thumping hard. I’m not sure I had identified any other particular symptom before that. There had been no single sensation other than the tiredness and dehydrated exhaustion. But now it felt familiar.

But those symptoms could not explained by altitude sickness. This was not that. I couldn’t figure out what they were. So I called Marialice. She came right up and said, “lets call Kathy Tun” who is our neighborhood friend / pediatrician.

Kathy came over right away and displayed the most straightforward professional calmness. She took my pulse in two places, tried twice to get my blood pressure right. Then she told me in steely determination that she was going to call the ambulance. "Why, I can get to the hospital by myself…"
"No! we’re calling the ambulance."

Then they left to get things arranged and I walked over to get the computer. I was sitting up reading soccer scores when Kathy came back up and read me the riot act. "You have to lay down." She never explained why, she just told me what to do. A minute later I threw up.

The EMT’s came and we walked down the stairs… I was ok, conscious and willing, able to do all they asked. They got me on a gurney to roll down the sidewalk from the front door to the ambulance. Once inside they hooked up the EKG and told Marialice that we were going to run hot to the hospital and that she couldn’t follow. They told me that they were just worried about some irregularities, but I didn't really understood what was happening. No one told me that my heart was running at 220 bpm. I was cold from the AC they were running hard in the ambulance, and I couldn’t stand the diesel fumes as we idled in the driveway. They started a IV line.

When we got to the ER I threw up again. They hooked me back up again and we started waiting. The ER staff told me they were going to try to convert my heart rate with drugs. My heart rate was setting off all the alarms on the monitors. I was joking with the nurses and the technicians about the Tennessee game. I felt the same dis-ease, but was not really hurting. I was uncomfortable but was not feeling critical. I really didn’t know what was happening. The drugs didn’t work.

Marialice got there and met Linda Jones coming off her shift in the lobby. Linda turned right around and stood with her through the whole affair. She called her husband and in less than an hour Brad Jones and Alvin Huffine were with us in the ER. They called other elders in the church. I appreciated their company. They kept turning off the heart rate alarm.

There started to grow a pressure in my chest. It felt like someone was standing on my chest. I threw up one more time, and it felt good when I sat up, it relieved the pressure. But the ER staff wanted me to laying back down, actually with my head lower than my body. So back into the pressure I went. It started feeling like I had a ton of weight on my chest.

Eventually the on-call cardiologist got there. I think he was at Erlanger watching something else and he had to come across town. Once he got there he took over. “We’re going to take care of this.” The visitors left. They gave me a sedative in my IV. I didn’t really feel any different but very quickly the team asked “Are you ready?” Well go ahead… BAM! I didn’t realize that they had already hooked up the pads to my chest. I was expecting some sort of paddles, but they just pushed a button, and shocked me off the table. Shocked all the air out of my lungs in one big groan.

Immediately I felt better. When Marialice came back into the room, I said “That felt good, I could do it again.” She told me that she wanted to hit me in the head with a 2x4. Things turned around pretty good and quick. I wanted to go home, but the cardiologist told me that I’d stay until they figured out what was going on. Before too long they wheeled me off to CCU.

As we settled in the CCU, Marialice told me that the ER doctor stated that I was very close to death. A typically conditioned heart would not have survived a VTach like that for several hours. My heart really almost stopped, but it didn’t, because I had done so much endurance athletics. I was safe.

Over the next week we uncovered the physical ramifications and causes of that VTach. Over the next few months we have been uncovering the emotional and spiritual ramifications of that day. This is a journey I am walking through that I want to write about and think about.

Maybe you want to walk through it with me.

| By rob | 10:40 PM

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Comments

Posted by: Marialice at Enero 24, 2008 05:48 PM

Posted by: hsoj at Enero 24, 2008 08:01 PM

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