My First Indication

“How do you know if you are having a cardiac event?”

We were standing in the kitchen. It was around 6:15 on a Wednesday morning. Denise was getting ready for work and I had just come in from a run. My chest felt tight.

“What are the symptoms,” she asked. In the interest of full disclosure here I should note that Denise is a registered nurse. It’s nice to have a RN in the house.

“My chest feels tight.” I am a 52 year old male. After fifty a feeling of tightness in various body parts is not that unusual. Combined with the fact that I had been on a “get in shape, lose twenty pounds” kick since March. This all started out when a bunch of my John Carroll buddies and I were in Naples for our own unique version of Spring Training. While sitting around the pool with our shirts off and beers in our hands, Stan made a comment that perhaps some us should try to take off a few pounds before our 30th college reunion coming up that June. I was one of the guys he was referring to.

So I took the challenge. By June I had dropped twenty pounds. I accomplished this goal the old fashioned way of diet and exercise. For the diet part I cut out the things I love like cookies and ice cream. I gave up French fries. Denise was a big help in this regard. She cooks pretty healthy and nourishing meals for our little household so eating at home helped. When I went to lunch at work with the guys at the office I would eat salads…like a girl. I also gave up alcohol on week days, sort of. I mean by Thursday, I was ready for a drink.

For exercise I started running. For years I have had this on and off thing with running. The bottom line is that I hate running. The only thing I like about running is being finished. It is akin to banging your head against the wall; it feels good when you stop. That said, I have a grudging respect for the effectiveness of running in weight loss and overall conditioning. So I bit my lip and started running. I ran an average of four days a week both inside on a treadmill at the gym and outside in my very hilly community in Ellicott City. Before this particular morning I was averaging 20 miles a week.

This morning it was an outside run day. As I stated, the only thing I like about running is finishing. Today the last mile and half were a little more difficult than usual. At the end of the run I didn’t feel great. My chest felt “tight.”

“Is it a chest pain?”

“No it’s just tightness. Not painful, just a little tight.”

“Any other symptoms?”

“No, other than that I feel fine.” I sub consciously forgot to tell her about how I felt on that last mile and half. I didn't think that was significant. As with any regular exercise regime you have your good days and your bad days. This was just a bad day. At least that’s how I rationalized it.

“Maybe you should take a day off running.”

I was actually thinking the same thing. Over the previous two weeks I had increased my running days from four days to five days. I figured that maybe I was overdoing it a little bit. I just needed a recovery day “Okay. No running tomorrow.” That would turn out to be my last run for quite awhile.

This was Wednesday, September 19th. It was eleven days before my heart attack.