Wayne’s Story in Three Parts (1)

Wayne Ivester is a buddy of mine. For a period of time around five years ago, he and I got together for an early Sunday morning bike ride on our road bikes. We lived close to each other so I’d simply peddle over to his place and then we’d ride off together.

It was during one of these rides that Wayne’s cardiac event occurred.

Wayne has written his story. This is fortunate because five years ago I told him I’d write it. The plan was to write something we could submit to Men’s Health or Outside magazine. I never did it.

But Wayne did and now I can share it here with my own commentary thrown in. Like I said, I was there. It is a bit long so I’ve broken it up into three parts. This is the first. I’ll let Wayne speak first.

“Ann and I were looking forward to a vigorous hiking trip with Elderhostel in New York. A couple we had become friends with were going to be on the same hike. The setting sounded great, a remote section of the Catskill Mountains about 2 hours southwest of Albany. The session was scheduled to begin at 5:00pm on Sunday September 22nd. We decided we could leave home about 11:00am and make it to the Inn we would be staying at by 5:00pm. Since we would not be leaving early I decided I had time to get in my usual Sunday morning bike ride with my friend Dennis. We ride 8 miles out to a bagel shop for a bagel and then back home.”

Wayne is in pretty good shape. He regularly rode his bike and he and Ann also are into horseback riding. Wayne is an engineer by training who took early retirement from a sales career with IBM before I ever met him.

“Dennis and I left my house about 7:00am expecting our normal ride. It turned out to be anything but normal. I got on my bike and started to shove off when I realized I had forgotten my cell phone. I went back in the house and grabbed it. The ride went along uneventfully for the first half hour.”

Okay, maybe it was uneventful for Wayne but as for me I was nursing a mild hangover. I had been out partying the evening before. When Wayne mentioned that he forgot his phone I almost suggested that we just call it quits and go back home. But I didn’t.

“At that point we came to a long steep hill we had been jokingly calling “killer hill”. For some reason I decided to attack the climb more aggressively than usual and was leading Dennis until just before the top. He usually is ahead of me all the way. As he passed he said he was going to stop at the top to make an adjustment to his equipment.”

By this time I’m starting to feel better. Wayne on the other hand was complaining of having a little indigestion. He mentioned something about rich Italian food the night before. When he started shooting up that ridiculously steep hill I thought, “What’s got into him today?”

Did I mention that he laid out this route?

Anyway, I took the challenge and shot after him, finally passing him just before the crest. I can’t recall if I really had an equipment problem or not but I was glad to take a break. When I looked back behind at Wayne he had slowed considerably. He didn’t look so hot either.

“I was breathing hard but felt fine. As I pulled to the curb and stopped my chest started hurting a little. It didn’t surprise me as I had eaten a lot of rich food the day before at an afternoon party/horse show. I told Dennis I was having an acid reflux attack and wanted to sit a minute before going on.”

He may have felt good but he didn’t look good. His face was flushed. He sat for a minute and then said he had to answer natures call. He left that part out his story but I recall it clearly. He was in the woods a long time.

“The minutes started adding up and I wasn’t getting any better. We discussed riding on, turning back, etc. Dennis suggested I call Ann and have her come pick me up. I objected because I said I could never explain over the phone how to put the bike rack on my car. Dennis persisted and I remembered I had given a bicyclist a ride one time by putting the top down on my car and putting the bike in the back seat.”

When he finally came back out of the woods he looked even worse. We both kind of understood that his ride was over at this point. The question became what to do next. Wayne actually suggested that I ride back and get my car with the bike rack and then come back to get him. Given the way he looked I didn’t think that was such a great idea. He really agonized about how his bike was going to get home. For good reason too, it is a nice bike.

“About 7:50am I called Ann and she left immediately, arriving in 8 minutes after we hung up. At this point I was starting to feel a little better. I had passed through a stage of cold sweats and dizziness.”

To say that Ann got there fast would be understatement. Before I knew we had loaded his bike into the convertible and off they went leaving me atop killer hill.

I decided to turn around and head home. It would a couple of days before I saw Wayne again. He was lying in a bed at Johns Hopkins Hospital.