Julio 2008 Archives

Note: This is part of a larger series. Start here to read the whole thing.

Writing about these incidents now I find myself reflecting on what it means to tell a story like this. It certainly is full of drama, full of excitement. It's got lots of elements of a great story. But I think I miss the point. When I get wrapped up in the storytelling, I'm not sure I deal honestly with the truth behind the story. I'm not sure I deal well with the impact of what happened to me. Talking up the story as a big adventure minimizes what happened. Its a form of pretending that it really was not a big deal.

But honestly, I'm not sure what the appropriate response really is... The reactions I get to all these stories are usually slack jawed amazement, or horror. Neither of which I really want. On Sunday at church I spoke for 2 minutes to Greg Bagby and he ran away. I was not impacted or particularly dismayed at his reaction, but he was shaken. Shaken enough that he could not continue to talk to me. He returned later that afternoon (making a special trip on his bike no less) to ask an apology. He told me that he really felt sorry for me and for what had happened and wanted to give the event the gravitas it deserved. He felt really bad that he wasn't able to stand and comfort me in church during the moment when I had been telling him what was happening. But he simply could not and he was sorry.

I just don't get it. I'm ok. I'm here. I'm fine. It's a good story. There is no real reason to be overwhelmed.... Or is there.

Cheating death is not a good story. The adventure may be amazing, but the reality is much more sober. I think my own default mode is one of ignoring the defeat. Silence has been the valued partner over these months... and that is the only response I can get that makes sense. Not very satisfying, but its what I can do.

Note: This is part of a larger series. Start here to read the whole thing.

On July 16th I had ridden my bike to work and was planning to ride home as well. There were two things I hadn't planned. First - I had forgotten that Wednesday is the day we picked up our CSA vegetable bag - a big sack full of organic veggies from the good folks at Crabtree farms. Second - I had forgotten my exercise medicine at home. I'd taken it in the morning, but hadn't put it in the bags for the bike.

No big deal I thought. I'll just extend the ride and get the veggies, and be careful for the first 10 minutes. All should be good. So at 5:00 I headed off to get the veggies.

This ride extended my normal home commute by about 8 miles and went over one big hill that I'd have to climb both going and coming (Stringer's Ridge by the Chattanooga High School for the performing arts). Its not as bad as Missionary Ridge, but it's a climb. It happened about 13 minutes into my ride. The climb goes in three stages with some flat between each one. I was watching the heart rate through each stage and it kept climbing, while holding steady in the flats. In the second flat it was steady at 120. I hoped it would come down but it didn't. No big deal, I thought. .

So I turned off Mississippi, onto North Market street to ease up over the final hump by the high school and I got 3 cranks turned when the buzz started.

The next thing I felt was a hard crack on my helmet, my peaceful tranquility of cool Caribbean beach-side paradise was invaded by the hot smell of pavement. What!! Where am I?? What just happened???

Reality started flooding back. I groggily sat up, and then stumbled to grab my bike and get out of the road. A motorcycle rider coming the other way yelled at me... "Are you all right?? I saw you stop on the hill. I thought you'd put your foot down, but you just fell over. You laid there for like 10 seconds..." He turned around to come see. I sat down on the sidewalk, pulled off my helmet and watched my heart-rate. It was at 150 or 160.

A cop drove up; "Do you want to call an ambulance?" At first I said no, but then my heart rate jumped back up above 190, the buzzing came back and I tensed for a shock. None came, but I recanted. "You better call...."

It started to get crowded. Someone else came up and tapped me on the shoulder. It was Greg Wilhelm, a friend from church who is a police officer and patrols that North Chattanooga neighborhood. Soon the sirens sounded, and the fire truck roared up. They really didn't know what to do with me and were glad with the real pros came in the ambulance.

By the time the took me to the back of their van, my heart rate was back in the 50's slow, steady and uncompromising. I refused a ride to the hospital and signed a bunch of waivers. I called Marialice, who was on the other side of town at the swimming pool. She said to sit and wait - she would come.

So everyone left, I rode down to a shady spot with some steps by the middle school and waited. Again, I was filled with the wonder. What was happening? Why had I been so foolish to forget my exercise medicine? Why did I not stop and wait it out when the heart rate didn't drop in that last flat? I had passed out this time. Not gotten shocked... but passed out in the road.... What did that mean. What should I have done? Was it worse? I don't know. I still don't know.

So Josh sent out the note - offering a early morning ride on the fourth of July. He challenged

We are changing things up this week and doing an all-American ride on
Friday morning (instead of a non-American ride on Saturday morning). So,
I submit to you a contest: Come up with the most American route for a
new ride. The winner will lead us on it.

I responded:

To be All American I think the route needs to take in cannons and biscuits - violence and overconsumption, victory and bounty, the agony of defeat and the thrill of a grits and gravy, the haunting memory of gunshot and the prospect of heavenly praising.

In other words - lets do the battlefield loop and finish by praising the lord.

We started before the sun. Five of us off shortly after 6.

Rode through the country - this land that we love to explore and expose...
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Then to the Park. The battlefield where so many lost their lives defending different ways of understanding what this country means. Where it is hard to imagine the grit of war when the pastoral is so lush and the riding so cool and refreshing..

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Then on into the city. A different sort of riding.

Our anticipated southern overconsumption was dashed by someone else's concept of a holiday. What? How can freedom mean that? Its just not American... We couldn't praise the lord and thank him for this country. Oh well.

We felt we could park next door despite the sign.
Jeff had us covered with the super hair.
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So that was it. 45 miles of American glory. Happy fourth of July. Thanks for the riding.

On a personal note, this weekend represents a different form of celebration for me. After the first four months of the year each having some heart episode. Today I celebrated 3 months with no heart episodes. I haven't gone to the emergency room, I haven't had to struggle with the anxiety of wondering every day. The reality of my heart condition is still very present, but today is a wonderful milestone of freedom. And I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I can hug my kids, climb my stairs, kiss my wife, pray to my God and ride my bike. Life is rich. Life is good. Free.

Note: This is part of a larger series. Start here to read the whole thing.

The comfort of time, the easing of anxiety, the confidence in knowledge and consistent practice.

After the drama of the first weekend of April, the Doctor tweaked some things, he asked me to take another dose of medication at night. And I tweaked some things. I stopped thinking much at all about exercise. And when I did, I took an additional medication before working and then started off with a long slow warm up - maybe 10 or 15 minutes ensuring that I was not rising above 100 beats per minute. I don't know if it was those things, or a more supernatural intervention, but I haven't gotten shocked again. I started counting weeks, then months. Things calmed down.

In February and March I had become captive to a significant anxiety that struck almost every day when I would be walking. My chest would tighten and I would feel some shortness of breath. Worrying that something might be happening made things feel worse. There were days when all I wanted to do was sit at my desk in silence.

But as weeks passed in April and May, I became more comfortable with what was happening. One day as I walked down the hall and felt bad, I reminded myself - "You've felt this way before and nothing happened." That truth seemed to stop the cycle, seemed to take the spin down. I started resting in the memory of the past - "I felt this way before and it went away rather than getting worse."

Then there were days when I didn't think about it at all. There came a day when I got all the way through my normal pattern of work without ever feeling the worrying constriction and the anxiety it flashed. I started being able to live again.