Bad Blood — Working, Stressing, Eating, and Running Myself to Death
Introduction
“Bad Blood — Working, Stressing, Eating, and Running Myself to Death”, is a biographical account of my near death experiences in my early sixties. As a man who has always thought of himself as the epitome of fitness with no past of serious health issues, starting at the age of 62, I had a pulmonary embolism (PE) followed by 4 cardiac arrests the next year (2020). I’ve been diagnosed with coronary artery disease and have a stent in my left anterior descending artery which was 95% blocked. In addition, I have Bradycardia which is a low heart rate and I have a pacemaker to ensure my heart does not go into cardiac arrest again.
Not many people survive a PE or a cardiac arrest. Statistics show that the survival rate from cardiac arrest is around 10%. Many times the cause of death is a mystery to the victims loved ones and friends. The victim can’t tell you what they experienced. I want to tell of my experience with the PE and cardiac arrest so that others may learn from my experience.
I think my experience is somewhat unique and different from the average person who suffers a cardiac arrest. I don’t meet the typical characteristics. I’m not obese. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t abuse drugs or drink excessively. I exercised regularly. I didn’t have diabetes or any other disease. I had no obvious symptoms that led me to believe that I might have coronary artery disease. On the contrary, I had the misguided belief that I would live well into my nineties enjoying a good quality of life.
In the article I examine the excesses in my life that I believe contributed to the bad blood, not just in my veins, but figuratively between my body and me. These excesses included: too much work and stress; poor diet with too much sugar, salt, and saturated fats; and running too much. Furthermore, pushing too hard with few breaks and rest contributed to my body breaking down. Literally I hit the wall.
I’ve run over 100,000 miles in my life. I’ve completed 25 marathons with good and competitive times. I’ve been athletic all my life and have rarely gone a day without some physical exercise or activity. In the article I detail my running passion and the running history I participated in over the past 50 years. I believed that daily exercise would negate the adverse effects on the heart from stress and a poor diet.
We need to balance our work, physical activities, diet, and stress with breaks and rest to have a long and good quality of life. Most people don’t know what is lurking inside of them until it is too late.
I recommend others get screened for coronary artery disease and other potential health problems on a regular basis after the age of 40. Runners and active people are not immune from coronary artery disease. Many of us don’t fully realize how fragile our health is and take it for granted. I did.
Bad Blood
Shortly after midnight on June 4, 2020, I was roused from a deep sleep with a foreboding, when suddenly it felt like a switch was turned off. My mind yelled, “Oh Noooo”! Then everything went dark. There was nothing just a void. No consciousness-no pulse.
I was in cardiac arrest, although I wouldn’t know it until nearly a month later.
Suddenly, I came too, fully aware of myself and surroundings. I was drenched in sweat. I rose up quickly to a sitting position. I didn’t feel bad other than being drenched in sweat. I had no pain whatsoever throughout the ordeal. The awful thought of the switch being turned off and the nothingness that followed weighed heavily on me. It was a most peculiar feeling. There was no light in the tunnel or deceased loved ones waving me home to glory.
My wife, Diane, was sleeping peacefully beside me. I went downstairs. I was so wet. I had never sweated like that even in the hottest marathons that I ran in. My underwear was drenched. I dried myself off and put on a new pair of underwear and went back to bed. My side of the bed was wet and cold. My wife was up and I told her what happened. She offered to take me to the hospital. I assured her I felt okay and it wasn’t necessary to go to the hospital. I did feel good.
Not much longer after that I fell asleep. About 3 hours later I again lost consciousness. My wife said she heard loud snoring coming from me. She mistook my gasping for air after my second cardiac arrest for snoring. She said she had never heard such a sound coming from me. She was alarmed and woke me up. I was a little more disoriented than the first time, but I was not in pain and didn’t feel all that bad. However, I knew something was wrong.
After having a pulmonary embolism nearly a year and half ago on New Year’s Eve (December 31, 2018) I learned to trust my instincts and not take my health for granted. My wife and I went to the emergency room (ER) at Chelsea hospital.
This was the age of COVID and the ER was spooky. Everyone, including me was wearing a mask. Staff also had other protective gear on, which looked like bubble suits. I had to take a COVID test to ensure I didn’t have that. I passed the initial COVID screening.
Dr. Kaisler was there as usual. I had seen him for my Pulmonary Embolism (PE) that he and the other ER doctors successfully treated. Dr. Maldini was also there and he actually treated me.
On New Year’s Eve of 2018, I woke up early in the morning from a flutter in my heart and a load of blood in my nose which was the darkest purple I had ever seen. This alarmed me and I went to see my Doctor. The Doctor’s offices closed at noon for the New Year Holiday and I was lucky to get an appointment right before they closed. I waited a long time before seeing the Doctor and it was getting near closing time. I thought they would blow me off so they could get home for the holidays. Dr. Kirst was a world-class professional and even though it was past closing time she took the time to listen to me and she had me take a D-Dimer blood test which was a test to see if I had a pulmonary embolism. I went home and the Doctor called me around 4:30 PM. She said the test results indicated I had a pulmonary embolism. She said I needed to go to the emergency room. I asked her if I could wait until the morning. She said no and that I should probably go now. I went to the hospital and they did a contrasted CT scan which found that I indeed did have a pulmonary embolism and a small part of my lung was damaged. Actually it was destroyed-dead.
They took good care of me at the hospital. They gave me heparin, a blood thinner, to reduce and eliminate the blood clots (emboli) in my lungs. The treatment worked and I was able to leave the hospital the next day. I was put on a twice daily medication regimen of Eliquis, a blood thinner, for the rest of my life.
I recovered and was able to go back to my daily 6 mile runs and I didn’t feel any worse for the ordeal I had been through. Still I had anxiety and was unable to sleep well for a while after the PE.
Dr. Kaisler was an avid bicyclist and would ride after his night shift was over. As a runner I thought it was good to have a doctor who was an athlete hoping they would understand my health better.
Many Doctors and their staff would make a big deal about my low heart rate until I explained I was a runner and that I was in such great shape my heart didn’t have to work as hard as the average person my age. Boy was I wrong.
Dr. Maldini gave me the standard round of blood tests, EKG, X-rays and other tests in an attempt to find out what was wrong. Nothing in particular stood out. It wasn’t another PE which I suspected it could be. Nothing indicated a heart attack, except my Troponin levels were slightly elevated but they sure weren’t in the range to indicate a heart attack. I also had mild anemia which didn’t even register with me at that time.
Dr. Maldini told me he thought I had Bradycardia. It was the first time I heard, or became aware, of the term Bradycardia. Bradycardia means a slower than normal heart rate. They checked me for heart blocks in my overnight stay at the hospital but found no blocks. A heart block is when the electrical signal that controls your heart rate is blocked from the atrium to the ventricle. It could lead to cardiac arrest and death. They recommended I wear a heart (event) monitor for 30 days to determine any abnormalities with my heart such as a heart block.
I was still convinced my low heart rate was due to my superior physical condition due to running most of my life. I was 63 years old and still thinking I had a great heart.
Reality started to sink in. The echocardiogram test I took showed that rather than having an enlarged heart as I thought I had my heart was normal or average in size. In addition, to my distress my ejection fraction which measures the rate your heart pumps out blood was a measly 43%. Normal ejection fractions are between 50% and 75%. I certainly lacked a world class heart, especially for the runner I thought I was.
I was very active and played baseball, football and basketball as a kid. When I was 14 years old I was diagnosed with Osgood Schlatter disease which caused a painful lump on the knee. They treated it by making me wear a cast on the afflicted leg for 6 weeks. After they took the cast off my leg was very stiff. I started running to get my leg back in shape. Running became a life-long passion for me.
I always had a love of running ever since I watched the Wide World of Sports and saw Abebe Bikila running the marathon barefoot in the 1960 Rome Olympics. He ran with an ease and grace and was also very far ahead of his competitors which inspired me to be a runner. As a boy growing up in the 1960s, television seemed to show much more track and field than they show now. I loved to watch the competition.
I was never the fastest runner among my friends, but I was probably the most competitive. I wanted to be good in sports and I practiced and played sports often. I became a fairly good baseball and football player. I ran long distances to keep in shape for my high school baseball and football team.
In the 1972 Munich Olympics which I faithfully watched, track and field was extensively covered by the TV networks. The Munich Olympics were a great event in history but were marred by the killing of the Israeli athletes by the terrorist group “Black September”. The Americans did very well in the track and field events. I will always remember Dave Wottle, the goofy looking guy with the baseball cap, running last at the start of each 800 meter race and being last after the first 400 meters and then passing everyone in the field to eventually win the gold medal. He was fun to watch and for me he was the underdog that triumphed every time.
Frank Shorter won the gold medal in the marathon. The success the Americans had in track and field in the Munich Olympics led to the running and marathon boom of the 1970s and 1980s. It also created a love for distance running for me at the age of 15. Some friends of mine and I would run inside for an hour around the basketball courts at school in our converse basketball shoes. Nike running shoes were in their infancy and no one at the time knew much about them. I was a fairly good runner.
We had an excellent cross country team at Sterling Heights high school. They were coached by Harold Arft. I never ran track or cross country in high school because I played football and baseball. Still I was always inspired by the little skinny guys who ran cross country. At the time, in Michigan, girls were not allowed to run cross country.
I always thought I would play baseball or football in college. I received some offers for baseball but I had enlisted in the Army in February 1974 before those offers came in. I remember in basic training running a two mile on a sandy track in combat boots in under 12 minutes. That was quite an accomplishment. I also ran another time with a big guy on my back for a quarter mile on the track. Youth is wasted on the young.
I was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division in 1974 right after we left Vietnam. In the Army I ran a lot to keep in shape. In North Carolina we had the airborne mile which was a rugged, hilly two and a half mile course. I did that daily around lunch hour.
Running became a daily regimen for me. When I left the Army I met up with Pat Coughlin and Keith Thomas who I knew from high school and we ran together. They introduced me to long runs and marathons. In 1978 we trained together for the first official Detroit Free Press Marathon. Keith and Pat ran track and cross country in college and were excellent runners. Still I wasn’t too far behind them when we trained. In the 1978 Detroit marathon they broke three hours and I wasn’t far behind in three hours and 24 seconds. Missing the magical three hour mark by 24 seconds was heart breaking. Still I realized I was a pretty good runner. Being able to run with Keith and Pat really helped me become better. I had to work to keep up with them.
Sterling Heights had an active running community in the 1970s and 1980s. The Hanson brothers who are famous coaches in America and own the Hanson running stores ran for Sterling Heights Stevenson high school a rival of our high school. They were excellent runners and among the best in the state. I had heard that Kevin had once run until he passed out from the effort. The early running days people trained by running over 100 miles a week and they ran hard. Running 150 miles a week was not unheard of at that time. Some people ran nearly 200 miles a week. This was the age of Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, and Alberto Salazar who dominated long distance running before the East Africans took over. In Michigan we had Doug Kurtis who ran over 70 marathons under two hours and twenty minutes, many of them when he was over 40 years of age. I got to know Doug Kurtis through the Detroit Downtown Runners and Walkers (Downtown Runners) when we were both members. Doug was in another league as a runner and was one of the best in the world and probably one of the most consistent.
Running was a big part of my life. I worked for the Army in Germany for three years (1983–1985) and had my breakthrough in the marathon. I broke three hours in the Kaiserslautern marathon in 1984. In the 1985 Paris marathon I ran my personal record of 2 hours 42 minutes and 13 seconds to finish 67th overall out of 8,000 runners. In the 1984 Berlin Marathon I ran a 2 hour and 49 minute marathon within the constraints of the Berlin Wall.
When I returned to the USA in 1986 I moved to Alexandria Virginia and ran many miles from Mount Vernon to the Iwo Jima Memorial to the White House and back home. Sometimes I ran 20 miles in that hot and humid summer weather. They had great trails to run on and I enjoyed running there.
I moved back to Michigan in 1987. In 1990 I ran the Detroit Free Press Marathon for the third time and finally broke three hours on that course running a 2 hour and 50 minute marathon. I ran the Detroit Free Press Marathon from 1990–1994 with nearly the identical same time except for a 2 hour and 47 minute time in 1994.
I worked for the City of Detroit from 1989 to 2020 as an accountant. The Detroit City Council in the 1990s honored the first City employee to finish the marathon with their name on the City’s Jack Kelley Trophy. My name was on the trophy three times before it disappeared after it was in the custody of a councilmember who was indicted for bribery including receiving sausage and later died before the trial. The trophy and annual award ended with her.
I was introduced to the Detroit Downtown Runners and Walkers in 1991. They were known as the drinkers with a running problem. They met every Tuesday night at a different bar in Detroit. Our favorite bar was Honest Johns across from Belle Isle which was a running paradise situated on the Detroit River. Honest John Thompson was a character out of Dickens. He was like a pirate with a heart of gold. His mug shot hung at the back of the bar for all to see. Also, the bar was adorned with many novelty signs. He treated the runners well and bought pizza for us. He did a lot of charity work such as the Polar Bear plunge in January to raise money for toys for kids.
I met a lot of good people in the Downtown Runners like John Scott, Richard Shackleford, John Froman and Kenny Davenport. The group’s members all had different skill levels as runners — some fast and some not so fast. I met my wife, Diane through the Downtown Runners annual Christmas Party in 1995. There were many marriages from the relationships that were started at the various runner events we had and the founder of the group, Ralph Judd, was very proud of that.
The Downtown Runners also entered running teams for the Great Lakes Relay that Bob Baril and Nick Pappas put on each year. The first Great Lakes Relay race I ran in 1991 started in Port Huron and finished 330 miles later in Mission Point near the Mackinac Bridge and Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was great fun and I enjoyed the camaraderie with my teammates and fellow runners. We did that almost every year for years.
I think I have run over 100,000 miles in my life. I’ve been running for 50 years. I have completed 25 marathons with a best time of 2 hours and 42 minutes and a worst time of 3 hours and 22 minutes. I ran 9 marathons under 2 hours and fifty minutes and 17 under the magical three hour mark. I’ve run the Boston and New York Marathons. Boston was not my favorite course and in fact two of my slowest times were recorded there. I was even booed by the Boston Crowd on Boylston Street when I stopped to walk because I was hurting so bad. Up until my 40s I thought I could easily run at a pace of six miles a minute which is pretty good. My best half-marathon times were under a pace of six minutes a mile.
All the running gave me a false sense of security that my health was great. As I got older my work became more stressful. In 2008 I went to work for the City of Detroit Finance Department. Due to layoffs and the financial challenges of the City, the Finance Department was overwhelmed. The financial statements were delayed and the City struggled with annual losses and cash shortages. I became the General Manager in Finance in 2008 and was responsible for the cash management and producing the financial statements. The big four auditors we had were tough on us because of the poor financial controls and their risk in auditing us. It was very stressful. Also, we were robbing Peter to pay Paul to make the cash last. The City borrowed to fund operations and the pension funds, which was wrong and just delayed the inevitable financial collapse of the City. We deferred payments to the pension funds and also for maintenance and other essential needs. Detroit policeman and City workers were generally the lowest paid in the State and probably in the country. The City’s sewer system backed up into our and others houses during heavy rains because of the deferred maintenance. The City was a mess at that time with high crime and a low quality of life for its citizens.
There was a lot of stress on me. I was sedentary most of the time working at a desk trying to keep up with finding cash to fund the City’s operations and getting the financial statements produced. I was my own worst enemy and drove myself as if I was running a never-ending marathon. My body has a fight response to most stress. It tightens up and I get angry and drive myself harder. My blood pressure rises significantly with the resulting negative consequences to my blood and heart.
I noticed my running times becoming slower and slower. I felt run-down when I ran. I ran 7 days a week with few days off. In my 30s I usually had 6 of 7 days where I felt great running. In my 50s it was like I might have one good day of running out of the 7.
In 2013 the City was put in bankruptcy. I did work with the Emergency Manager consultants prior to the bankruptcy declaration. However, I quit after the City went into bankruptcy. I thought I could salvage my pension and annuity. However, we did lose a substantial part of our annuity and pension and all of our retiree health care in the bankruptcy. This added to my stress as I had planned to retire at the age of 60 with a good pension and health care for the rest of my life. That financial lifeline and security I lost in the bankruptcy.
I returned to work for the City three months later as a contract employee. I worked with the Finance Department through the bankruptcy and exit from bankruptcy. I went to work for the Detroit City Council in July 2015. My mother and father both died in 2015. Their health had been deteriorating since the early 2000s. Worrying and trying to help care for my parents added to the stress in my life. Their health issues were another never-ending marathon. It was amazing what they went through and how long they lived with such severe health problems. As far as genetics was concerned, I thought that if my parents lived into their 80s with such a poor diet, smoking, lack of exercise, obesity, and other bad habits, I had good genes and was a cinch to live into my 90s.
My running was the only stress relief I had during this time or so I thought. I did enjoy getting out to run but I wasn’t setting any records. I had stopped racing and going to the Downtown Runner events in the mid-2000s because I didn’t have the time for it. I was run down and didn’t have much energy for anything other than my job, seeing my parents and getting through to my retirement.
My diet throughout my life was awful. I was all-in for anything with sugar, salt, cholesterol, saturated fats and preservatives. I loved pizza, hamburgers, chocolate, cheese, ice cream, cakes, and Coca-Cola. My sugar intake rivaled my running mileage. Charles Allen and Nur Barre, my coworkers and daily lunch mates, said I should buy stock in Burger King since I ate there all the time for lunch. My average lunch was a double cheese burger, fries and coke. I loved the bakery, especially brownies, donuts and cookies which I ate without limit.
I lived under the old adage that I could eat anything because I ran off the calories. Nothing was going to block my arteries because I burned it up with the running. I really believed it.
My wife is a vegetarian. She was always after me to change my diet, but I didn’t ever think I would be able to do that. I didn’t know how I could live without the chocolate, sugar, hamburger, pizza, cheese, cookies, cakes, and cokes.
I thought that once all the stress of caring for my parents and retiring from the job that a big load would be lifted from me and I would become a puddle of jelly. However, the stress never left. I always felt anxious and run down. I felt like I had to run and that it would alleviate the stress and keep me healthy. The running in reality was adding to my stress but I didn’t realize it at the time.
I started noticing my 6 mile runs that used to take 40 minutes to run were now taking nearly an hour. I couldn’t believe I was so slow. I was in my 60s but I didn’t think I had slowed up that much. The effort to run a 10 minute mile felt the same as the effort I made in my 30s to run a 6 minute mile. The Chelsea High School cross country team would run on the track or out on my running trails and I couldn’t keep up with the slowest runners. I knew age would slow me up but not that much.
In Michigan we had Doug Goodhue who is an ageless wonder. He has many age records for running. I used to run faster than him in the 1990s but he was nearly 20 years older than me and I was in my prime. Now he is so much faster still running races in under 7 minutes a mile pace in his seventies. I thought I would age gracefully and be able to be a good runner in my old age like Doug.
Reality first struck with my Pulmonary Embolism in December 2018. The first sign was a pain in my back which started after a stressful drive to my sister’s house. I’ve always been a “type A” individual. I’m very uptight and competitive. Driving really stresses me out especially in stop and go traffic. It was a bad drive and the pain in my back felt awful. I thought it was a muscle knot. I saw a Doctor several days later and he told me to take Ibuprofen. I took it and the pain went away. I still felt under the weather. I took it easy with my running. However, about two days after the back pain I noticed that after running 100 meters I had trouble breathing I had to slow way down. I still managed to run around 4 miles but something unusual was happening. I went back to the Doctor and told them about the difficulty in breathing while I ran. They did lung tests which I passed and they gave me an inhaler, but my running continued to decline. I couldn’t run more than 100 meters without having to stop because I was out of breath. I started walking several miles instead of running. The walking didn’t bother my breathing and I felt good walking. This was a real mystery to me and I think the doctors.
As described earlier, finally on New Year’s Eve in 2018, while sleeping I had the heart flutter and nose full of blood which I saved on a Kleenex to give to the Doctor that day. I was also sweaty and felt flushed that day. Doctor Kirst helped save my life by taking the time to find out what might be wrong with me and ordering the D-Dimer blood test that revealed the Pulmonary Embolism. I’m not sure if I had the Pulmonary Embolism on November 30, 2018 when the back pain started or on New Year’s Eve. I believe it had to be the earlier date because I had trouble breathing when I ran which was a sign of the emboli in my lungs blocking my oxygen uptake. I was lucky to have survived let alone to going back to my regular activities including running.
Working with City Council and for a good boss, Irv Corley really helped take my stress level down. Still I was anxious and any little thing could set me off. I was looking forward to retirement and I thought that would cure me of the stress.
I planned to retire in the summer of 2019, but after the PE I decided I better work another year and Irv wanted me to stay on. I needed the City health insurance and I was making a good salary that added to my savings.
Also, as I neared retirement, I moved in August 2017 from Detroit to my mother-in-law’s house in Chelsea, Michigan that had 20 acres of undeveloped land. In my free time I set about manually clearing some of the standing trees, fallen trees, brush, and digging up the tree stumps, moving huge rocks, clearing weeds and poison ivy, cutting branches, and doing other hard physical work. I had to wear long sleeve shirts and overalls and boots even in the heat to ward off the mosquitoes, dear flies, poison ivy, and ticks. I mainly used a mattock, cutters, chainsaws, rake, shovel, and lawn tractor. I had no big tractor that could have made clearing brush and stumps a lot easier. It was hard work but the work added to my confidence that I was in fairly good shape. In addition to this work, I was still running six miles a day with a few days off, which were usually spent doing the clearing. Furthermore, adding to my stress was the 120 mile daily roundtrip I made to work from Chelsea to Detroit and back. I did this drive from August 2017 until March 2020 when the COVID pandemic forced us to work from home.
In June 2020 I took vacation to use it up before I retired at the end of the month. I was working almost daily in June 2020 clearing the property even while wearing my new heart monitor which I had to wear each day for a month until July 10, 2020.
I went to the office in Detroit in mid-June 2020 to return my laptop prior to my retirement. I noticed when I walked up the stairs that I was more breathless than usual. I thought it was just due to the mask I wore in accordance with the COVID protocols. Still I thought the effort to go up the stairs was unusual. I didn’t notice any unusual problems with my health while working to clear the property.
On June 28, 2020 I worked around 8 hours clearing trees, vines and rocks from the hill top on the property and worked very hard on a warm day. I was tired. I was so sweaty that the monitor, which was taped to my chest, was barely clinging to my chest. It was so lose that day I wasn’t even sure if it was working. I thought about taking it off. My primary care physician said it would be okay to stop using it as the monitoring hadn’t shown any heart block or other serious symptoms. I decided to leave the monitor on me just in case something bad happened.
On June 29, 2020, shortly after midnight, I went into cardiac arrest. This time I didn’t wake up all that quickly. My dear wife noticed I was having a problem and she was able to resuscitate me. I was confused and really in trouble. Diane took my blood pressure but the machine didn’t register it. She said you’re going to the hospital. I didn’t disagree. Once again I was sweaty. I got dressed and walked to the car. Diane drove to the hospital. I was really confused. I wasn’t sure what day or month it was or where I worked. The blood to my brain must have been cut off for a longer period this time.
When we arrived to the Chelsea hospital emergency room, Dr. Kaisler was there once again to greet us. This time we didn’t need to find out what happened. The event monitor captured what happened. I had a complete heart block. I had “Torsade’s de Pointes”, which developed into ventricular fibrillation and caused my heart to stop. Dr. Skiba assisted Kaisler. Skiba told me what happened to me was very unique. They put a defibrillator on me and started shocking me to get my heart under control. I was conscious and felt pretty good considering what happened. The shocks from the defibrillator were like being kicked hard in the chest. They jostled me and were painful and unsettling. The doctors decided to transfer me to the cardiac intensive care unit at St. Joseph Mercy hospital in Ann Arbor. They called an ambulance to transfer me there. I was feeling better and thought I would be all right.
The ambulance staff brought in a stretcher and I told them I was okay to get on it. As I moved myself from the bed to the stretcher I passed out. This was my second cardiac arrest that day. They resuscitated me with a defibrillator and they saw what happened on the EKG that I was hooked up to. It further evidenced the Torsade’s. They realized I was in serious jeopardy and rushed me to St. Josephs. Dr. Skiba was so concerned that he jumped into the ambulance with me. I really appreciated what he did for me. That was above and beyond the call of duty and eased my worry.
At St. Joseph’s hospital, I was immediately wheeled into the cardiac unit and Dr. Steele and his team did a coronary angiography scan of my heart and vessels. They found that my left anterior descending artery was 95% blocked. Dr. Steele inserted a stent to open the artery. I was conscious while they did this procedure but I was unaware at the time my artery was blocked. This was shocking to find out later that I nearly had a “widow-maker” heart attack because of that blockage. I never thought it was possible that I had blocked arteries (coronary artery disease) until they found that blockage. I guess the back pain and difficulty breathing at times was telling me about the blockage but I attributed the signs to something less lethal.
Dr. Steele also gave me a temporary pacemaker which was an ugly and uncomfortable device. The room I was put in had no mirrors and it was a good thing because I would have freaked out if I saw it. My wife took pictures of it and it was as awful to look at as it was to wear it. But it kept me alive.
I had two days until retirement. A person I counted on in the City’s health benefits section told me that I was not eligible for COBRA health insurance. I thought he was wrong but he did work there and should know what the eligibility requirements were. I was stressed at this time over the possibility that my health insurance would run out on June 30, 2020 and I would be stuck with the hospital and health care bill from July 1, 2020 onward.
I was told I would need a dual chamber pacemaker to regulate my heart and keep it from falling under 55 beats per minute and stopping. They weren’t sure when they could implant it. I begged them to do it the next day June 30, 2020 because after that I thought I might not have insurance. Somehow they were able to schedule me for the pacemaker on June 30. That gave me some relief. It was a difficult night trying to sleep with the temporary pacemaker. June 30, 2020 was a long day. My pacemaker implantation was scheduled for around 2:00 PM that day. However, it was postponed and I wasn’t called in until around 6:00 PM. I was afraid it wouldn’t be done that day.
Dr. Greenstein implanted the pacemaker. Her team was a jovial group and I found them very funny. They had me in stitches figuratively and literally. I didn’t feel stressed and was conscious throughout the procedure. There was a lot of tugging and pulling and my chest was sore and later black and blue from the procedure. It hurt but it was worth it.
I stayed in the hospital that night and was released the next day. I felt good except for the area the pacemaker was implanted in. I was prescribed the standard medications for someone with a stent and pacemaker which included a Statin to lower Cholesterol, blood thinner, and blood pressure medications. I was told not to lift my left arm or do anything strenuous for 6 weeks.
I felt pretty good and lucky when I left the hospital. The City provided me with the COBRA health insurance which relieved me of the insurance stress. I wasn’t down long. In place of running I went for long walks with my wife. After two weeks from the implantation and frustrated by not finding anyone to mow the lawn I resumed with the mowing. The lawn tractor got stuck on the hill behind the home and I had to lift it up and push it out. I’m glad I didn’t hurt myself or the pacemaker. Also, I’m glad nobody found out about this until now. After the 6 weeks I resumed my running starting slowly and working back to my daily grind of 6 miles per day. After not running for 6 weeks I felt pretty energetic and good. I didn’t feel run down like I used to. I should have learned something from this.
I started to change my diet to cut out excessive sugar like soft drinks and reduce my intake of red meat. Still I wasn’t watching my cholesterol and other harmful foods. I took a cholesterol test around February 2021 and found that the cholesterol level was higher than the Doctor wanted. She prescribed another cholesterol drug. I told her I didn’t want to take that drug and asked if I could work on lowering my cholesterol through changing my diet. I found the almost daily pumpkin pie, the bakery goods, the yogurt, noodles, butter and other foods I enjoyed were loaded with cholesterol and sugar. I eliminated these from my diet and started a more plant based diet. Within a month my cholesterol was significantly lowered to a level that I didn’t need any additional statins.
My wife is a wizard with black beans and her meatloaf, hamburgers, and chili made with it are better than anything I had eaten made with beef. Also, the beyond beef was good in her Shepherd’s pie. I found transitioning to a plant based diet was not as unpleasant as I thought it would be.
I took an echocardiogram in early 2021 and found my ejection fraction had improved to 55%. Not optimal but in the normal range and a sign of improvement.
Still after running for over a year after the cardiac arrest, I feel I’m back to feeling stale and run down. My weight was down to the mid-140s, which is 20 pounds under my normal weight. In August 2021 I took a series of blood tests that confirmed my suspicions.
My blood tests, especially the complete blood count test showed that I had mild anemia. My red blood cell count was low and my red blood cells were enlarged. Athletes that cheat to win competitions resort to “blood-doping” to increase the amount of red blood cells in their system. This increases the delivery of oxygen to muscles and improves athletic performance. I was an anti-blood-doper. I was engaging in an activity that was decreasing my red blood count and my athletic performance. In addition, and more importantly, it was contributing to a higher level of homocysteine in my blood which had the potential to add to the blockage in my arteries and to also increase the potential for blood clots.
My diet change may have lowered the amount of B12 in my blood contributing to the anemia and higher homocysteine levels. However, I was mildly anemic before all the heart problems arose and the change in diet.
There was only one thing I knew of that could be contributing to my anemia. It was overdoing the physical activities in my life such as the running 6 miles every day, the clearing work on the property and the long bike rides. I needed to cut back on the running and other activities and give my body a chance to rest and recover. I needed more days off and breaks from the strenuous activity. I owed it to myself, the doctors and health professionals who saved me, and my family to take better care of myself
I think my experience is somewhat unique and different from the average person who suffers a cardiac arrest. I don’t meet the typical characteristics. I’m not obese. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t abuse drugs or drink excessively. I exercised regularly. I didn’t have diabetes or any other disease. I had no obvious symptoms that led me to believe that I might have coronary artery disease. On the contrary, I had the misguided belief that I would live well into my nineties enjoying a good quality of life.
I really want to know why I had Bradycardia, heart block, a blocked artery, cardiac arrest, and the pulmonary embolism. No one knows the cause(s) for sure. It could be genetics, poor diet, stress, and excessive running and work. It is likely a combination of all these, as my story shows this.
A lot of people confuse a heart attack with cardiac arrest. These terms are used interchangeably, but they are not synonymous. A heart attack is when blood flow to the heart is blocked, and sudden cardiac arrest is when the heart malfunctions and suddenly stops beating unexpectedly.
Statistics show only 10% of the people that have cardiac arrest outside of the hospital survive. People that suffer heart attacks have a much better survival rate. Also, the prognosis for surviving a Pulmonary Embolism is also rare. I’ve had 4 cardiac arrests and 1 Pulmonary Embolism that I know of.
I have also been recently diagnosed with an incidental aneurysm because my dilated ascending aorta measured 4.6 cm, based on my latest CT scan, which is much greater than average. If this enlargement continues to grow and reaches a critical size, there is a risk of it rupturing or tearing, which could kill me.
I don’t know why I have survived. In addition, I still have a pretty good quality of life. I don’t know why I didn’t suffer more adverse effects. I am religious and believe I was spared by the grace of God. The emptiness and void I felt during the first cardiac arrest told me I need to better myself as a human being.
The irony of my cardiac arrest and survival is that my father worked in the late 1950s to install the x-ray equipment in the Cardiac Catheterization lab at the Cleveland Clinic for Dr. Mason Sones who used it in the discovery of coronary angiography. Dr. Steele used coronary angiography to discover the blockage in my artery and place the stent that opened the artery that saved my life. Whenever he was in the hospital my dad would tell the doctors about working with Mason Sones and they were impressed. Thanks dad!
I want people to know, especially those over 40 years old that we are not invincible. We need to balance our work, physical activities, diet, and stress with breaks and rest to have a long and good quality of life. Most people don’t know what is lurking inside of them until it is too late.
I recommend others to get screened for coronary artery disease and other potential health problems on a regular basis after the age of 40. Runners and active people are not immune from coronary artery disease.
