The ICU

“We are going to take you upstairs to the ICU now.”

It was about 6:00 am on Sunday morning. I had been in stall numero uno in the emergency room for about six hours.

I’m thinking “ICU! That’s where really sick people go!”

At this point I’m still thinking that I’m not really that sick. Yeah, I now knew I had a heart attack but hey, I’m still joking around. I mean I didn’t expect that they were going to pat me on the head and send me home but I didn’t think I was a candidate for the Intensive Care Unit.

On the other hand, the ICU is the place to be if you are sick, sort of. The best part is that if you want anything outside of a cheeseburger and fries, you get it. Got a headache? They won’t just offer you an aspirin, they’ll offer you morphine. You need a nurse, push a button and they arrive in a flash.

Then again it isn’t the most comfortable place to be either. I mean just how comfortable can you get with an automatic blood pressure machine on one arm which squeezes your arm every fifteen minutes, three IV lines in your arms and an oxygen tube stuck in your nostrils. Surprisingly, I was able to sleep with all this going on though I imagine the morphine probably helped that somewhat.

The biggest impediment to sound sleep was the wave machine, at least that’s what I called it. The ICU bed had this anti bed sore mechanism that called to mind a waterbed with a built in wave machine.

“Can you turn off the wave machine?”

I seemed to be able to come to terms with all the other stuff that was going on but that was just too much.

One of the ICU angels kindly granted this request.

I spent most of the day Sunday watching football and dozing in and out of sleep. My team, the Baltimore Ravens got creamed by the Cleveland Browns. That coupled with the constant mild headache I was getting from the nitro drip didn’t exactly help my mood. Still, at least there was football to watch. I counted myself fortunate that this didn’t happen on weekday when my viewing choices would be more limited. Though I consider myself to be a reader I didn’t feel much like reading.

I didn’t know it at the time but in less than two days I’d be patched up and back home. Amazing.

Hall of Fame

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I got out for the first round of golf since my heart attack. We have a Thanksgiving holiday ritual where, along with my brother-in-law and two nephews we play a round of golf in Birmingham the day after the big feast. I can happily report that my heart attack did not affect my game at all, I still stink. I refer to my game as golful.

Eric Compton is a professional golfer who has had more than his share of heart issues and he is only 27 years old. He had a heart transplant at age 12. His most recent incident occurred while he was filling out insurance forms in the emergency room at Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital. After reading Eric’s story by Randall Mell in the Sun-Sentinel.com website I decided he should become the second honoree in the heart attack guy Hall of Fame.

Hang in there Eric!

Joe From Jacksonville

What gave me a chuckle about Joe Dougherty’s heart attack story was his lament over not getting the helicopter ride to the hospital for his cardiac catheterization procedure. Apparently the weather was bad so they had to cart him in the ambulance. I mean if you are going to have a life threatening event at least you sometimes get a helicopter ride.

A whirlybird ride wasn’t even offered in my case. I relate to my hospital transfer as a ride in the back of the truck.

Also, like a true football fan, Joe recalled getting into the ICU in time to catch the fourth quarter of the Steelers/Jets game.

“The Steelers beat the Jets, 20 -17, in overtime. IIRC, the Jets' kicker missed a potential game-winning FG late in the 4th, then another one in the overtime. I remember arriving in the ICU and the nurses getting me settled in the bed. I turned on the TV and saw the game was just going into the 4th quarter, so I got to see the best part of the game.

I also recall getting a little excited as I watched it (along with the arrival of my wife, daughter and other family), and apparently the monitor at the nurses station was indicating that my respiration was up (I was getting oxygen through a nasal fitting), so the nurse had to come in and tell me to relax a little.”

Anyway, he tells a great tale of his cardiac episode here and with a follow up about his ICU roommate here.

When I found his story I dropped him a note to find out how he is doing. It has been about two years since his heart attack and in his words “Things are going well with the old ticker. That was a scary day!”

Amen to that brother.

Heart Attack Video

Okay, this is admittedly sophomoric but it still gave me a good laugh. It qualifies for posting here because it is entitled “Heart Attack.”

Check out the woman at the end. She can toss a mean purse!

Absence Explained...Sort Of.

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted anything here since last Wednesday. Then again maybe you haven’t. According to Google Analytics, only about 18 people have dropped by here since then. So, if you happen to be one of those eighteen who did stop by and wondered “What’s up with the heart attack guy?” please accept my apologies. I was out of town visiting with family for Thanksgiving

Well, I was out of town until Saturday anyway. It just takes a little while to get back in the groove of things once I get home.

My original plan had been to post a fun little video I found on You Tube on Thanksgiving Day. It was a video of a bluesy group called Jack Mack and the Heart Attack performing in Santa Monica. Somehow I muffed up the upload and now I can’t get it back at all. I readily admit to not being the most technologically adept guy out there so the error is probably mine. Let me know if the link works for you.

But now, I’m back and I have a bunch stuff I plan to post in the coming days. Among them is story about my buddy Wayne Ivester. He and I used to do quite a bit cycling together and, as fate would have it, I was part of his heart attack story. I also have a story from a guy named Joe Dougherty down in Florida to share. I like Joe’s heart attack story and it gave me a chuckle. So stay tuned.

And speaking of music groups with heart attack themes, it just so happens that my very own cardiologist, David Jackson, also knows how to rock the house. He and some other heart docs periodically perform as Stevie V and the Heart Attackers. I’ll try to get him to give me a sample of their music to share here. It’s the least he could after all; he got blood from me today!

Some Choice

“We are going to move you to either Adventist Hospital or Johns Hopkins to have a cardiac catheterization procedure.”

David Jackson, my cardiologist, had stopped by the ICU on Sunday to check up on me. I told him I was impressed that he showed up on a Sunday. He was even wearing a tie.

“It’s up to you as to where you’d prefer to go.”

I chose Hopkins. The only reason I chose Hopkins was that, having grown up in Baltimore, I always been told that Johns Hopkins was one of the best hospitals in the world. I also believed that they were particularly renowned for their work with heart patients.

I really didn’t know anything about Adventist Hospital.

Some choice, eh?

I mean, here I am, lying in a bed in the ICU unit and being asked to pick a place to have a pretty serious medical procedure performed and I don’t have so much as a brochure to look at. For all I know Adventist Hospital may actually kick Hopkins ass when it comes to this procedure. How about a sales pitch somebody?

Think about it, this procedure probably costs somewhere around 10 grand (I say somewhere because I have had a difficult time getting a handle on the exact costs…more about that in later post) and no one is pitching me on features and benefits. Maybe it is just my background in sales but I’m thinking that this is a big purchase and all I have to go on is what my cardiologist recommends.

Not that this recommendation doesn’t mean anything I just think there should be more. I think that for the money, there should be more of a sales job. Something like “Adventist Hospital has not lost a patient in a cardiac catheterization procedure for the last six months.”

Or, “This week Johns Hopkins is offering an upgraded hospital room for every cardiac catheterization plus a visit by a Ravens cheerleader.”

The heart attack guy could really help these guys with their marketing.

Do It Yourself Open Heart Surgery

My friend Jessie Newburn found this on the web and forwarded the link to me on to. It is a simulation of open heart surgery and this time you are the surgeon! Sound like fun?

It didn’t to me either but I still gave it a shot. I didn’t get very far before the message “ALERT, surgery was unsuccessful better call your lawyer…Your ineptitude has ended the patient's life…”

This nifty little simulation was found on A Hearty Life.

Sleepless

“I can’t sleep.”

“Whah?”

I had nudged Denise awake. It was around midnight. She had been sleeping. I had been tossing and turning in bed since 6 pm.

I should note here that under normal circumstances I can fall asleep fairly easily. I lay my head on a pillow, I go to sleep. These were not normal circumstances. I had reached the conclusion that something was very wrong me. I uttered the words I thought I’d never hear myself say.

“I think I should go to hospital.”

Every thing you read about a heart attack tells you that the very next thing you should do after coming to a realization such as this is to dial 911. That’s not what I did. No, I came up with a brilliant idea. “I’ll drive over and you stay here with Morgan until her mother gets here.”

I have no doubt that in some heart disease pamphlet or brochure or poster there is an example of somebody taking this very same course of action. It will always be found under a heading like “Bad Example” or “What Not To Do.”

It’s kind of like the drunk who insists he can drive home. Fortunately for me Denise wasn’t having any of that. The end result was a compromise between me not wanting to make a big deal in the middle of the night in the neighborhood and me not driving.

Morgan’s mom showed up shortly and Denise drove me to the hospital. Once I was in the car the wisdom of this course of action became very apparent. I didn’t feel real good.

As we pulled up to the emergency room doors, Denise leans over and looks at me, “It’ll be a lot easier if we tell them we’re married.”

“Works for me.”

I now consider September 30th as our wedding day. We honeymooned in the ICU.

Hall of Fame

For me, Sundays in the fall are football days. So I thought a post about football and heart attacks would be appropriate today. In more than a few of the heart attack stories involving guys that I've found, the guys did not let a little thing like a heart attack keep them from their passion for the game. Even when faced with a life threatening event, these guys still wanted to know how their team was doing.

Take Terry O’Neill for example. His heart attack occurred while he was watching the Steelers Colts playoff game in January 2006 at his local pub. When Jerome Bettis fumbled on the two yard line, Terry went into cardiac arrest. After being released from the hospital he seemed unfazed by his heart attack but he lamented the fact that he’d have to watch the AFC Championship game from home instead of being with his buddies at his favorite watering hole. This was of course the year that the Steelers went on to win the Super Bowl.

For that exanple of a true guy spirit, Terry becomes the first honoree in the heart attack guy Hall of Fame.

Red Wine

“I probably didn’t need that last glass of wine last night.”

“You probably didn’t need that last bottle!”

Denise and I were lying in bed. It was Saturday morning and I felt like crap. The previous evening our friends Alan and Patty had dropped by. We drank a few bottles of wine. At least Patty and I did. Alan later reported that Patty wasn’t feeling that great either.

I had to recover. That evening we had plans to go to a party thrown by our friends Paul and Cindy Skalny. We had been looking forward to it.

“Maybe you should stay in bed for awhile.” That sounded like a good idea to me. Denise was giving me a free pass on our regular Saturday routine. She said she would also keep my daughter occupied. Morgan is nine years old. She spends every Saturday with her dad. I had promised to take her to Clark’s Elioak Farm later that afternoon. Denise didn’t think that was such a great idea.

“When are we going to the petting zoo?” Morgan had come up to our bedroom. It was then about three o’clock in the afternoon. Typical of a dad, I am somewhat of a pushover for my daughter.

“I’ll get up now and we can go.” I still wasn’t feeling that great but I convinced myself I felt a little better. I was beginning to suspect that perhaps this was more than a red wine hangover I was dealing with. We went to the petting zoo and she had a great time. I felt tired but otherwise okay. Still, I took it slow and avoided any running around. Before long we were back home and it was time to shower up and get ready to go to the party.

Around six o’clock I was all dressed and ready to go. The babysitter was at the house and Denise had put together a little dinner for Morgan. I went back upstairs to get a sports coat. No sooner than I walked into our bedroom I started feeling a little nauseous. I sat down on the sofa in our bedroom. I felt real clammy. This was certainly no red wine hangover like I had ever experienced. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I had just had my heart attack.

“I don’t think I should go to the party tonight.” Even though she was dressed and ready to go, Denise immediately agreed with that plan.

“You should climb back in bed.”

She got no argument from me. I was now beginning to think that a trip to the hospital was not outside the realm of possibilities. Still, I wasn’t ready to admit that I was THAT sick. I took off my clothes and climbed back into bed.

It would be another six hours before I finally decided that it was in fact time to go to the hospital.

Longevity Game

I got this from a link I found on ScienceRoll. It is called the Longevity Game and it aims to predict how long you are likely to live.

The test covers all those things we intrinsically know have an adverse effect on our health like weight and drinking yet some of us still occasionally overdo anyway.

I do have a problem with the drinking question. I don’t feel I was offered an option that reflects my drinking profile.

Northwestern Mutual Financial Network created the game because they “…know a thing or two about longevity because we’ve been tracking statistics that impact life since 1857. And that wealth of knowledge helped us shape the Longevity Game.”

Well put.

According to the game I’ll live until I’m 78. How much time is left in your game?

The Doctor's Visit

“150 over 90”

She said that without any emotion. Just as someone might read the ingredients off a cereal box. I have noticed this on previous visits as well. It doesn’t matter what the blood pressure reading is, the nurse just recites it in matter of fact manner. She leaves the editorializing to Dr. Diener.

Steve Diener is my primary care doc. I like him personally but his office sucks. A typical appointment will involve at least a twenty minute wait in the waiting room (it’s called that for a reason) and then at least a fifteen minute wait in the exam room. The exam room waits are the worst. At least in the waiting room there are magazines to read. In the exam there is nothing but some model of a backbone. I’ve taken that thing apart and put it back together more times than I can count.

“You say you are having some chest pains?”

“No. It is more of a nagging tightness.”

“We going to do an EKG, take off your shirt and I’ll be right back.”

I am getting good at EKG’s. Since we began trying to get my blood pressure under control two years ago, I have had four or five of them. I’ve also had two stress tests which all means that I’ve had a fair number of chest hairs ripped out as a result.

She administers the EKG, rips the leads and more hairs off my chest and informs me that Dr. Diener will get with me as soon as he finishes up with another patient. This is what they always say.

After taking apart and reassembling the back bone model several more times, Dr. Diener appears. He is not pleased.

“Your blood pressure is still too high. We need to get this under control.”

Okay. When we first started working on my high blood pressure problem over two years ago he put me on a mild regime of Linisporil (5mg twice daily). That didn’t do much. After my second stress test, my cardiologist, David Jackson, upped that to 20 mgs once daily. On my last visit to Dr. Diener, three months before this particular visit, he added 40 mgs of Benicar daily to the mix.

“I’m going to start you on Coreg instead of the Linisporil and add a diuretic called HCTZ. Your EKG looks fine but if that tightness gets any worse I want you to go to the emergency room. I also want to see you again in a week in the meantime, no exercise.”

The EKG didn’t mean shit and I would not see him next week either. It was three days before my heart attack.

The Heart Attack Grill

Ya gotta love this place for its brutal honesty. They sell a Double Bypass Burger®, a Triple Bypass Burger® and a Quadruple Bypass Burger®. They proudly serve French fries that are deep fried in lard and the waitresses are called nurses. Upon request they will even wheel you out to your car in wheelchair after your meal.

They even sell cigarettes.

Of course you can get this kind of artery clogging food anywhere but I know of no other place that comes right out and calls it what it is. It seems to be good for business too. Go figure.

The Treadmill Incident

“You don’t look too good.”

I’ve noticed that guys never hesitate to say that to each other, especially a buddy. Richard is my buddy. He and I ran together on the treadmills at the Coliseum Gym every Monday and Friday morning. I would get to gym first and spend a half hour with Tim, my personal trainer, before joining up with Richard on the treadmills.

We had been doing this on and off for a few years. For the past year we were frequently joined by Fred and Phil. I mention this because the four of us represented four different decades. Fred is in his seventies, Richard is in his sixties, I am in my fifties and Phil is in his forties. I swear to god that we didn’t consciously set it up this way but we were usually aligned in that exact chronological order. Fred was in the best shape of all of us. I was the only one who had a heart attack.

It had been two days since I first noticed “tightness” in my chest. That morning I went through my normal half hour weight training with Tim. Surprisingly, I made it through the weight lifting regime as I normally would. It would not be accurate to say that it was without difficulty because at 5:30 on a Friday morning everything is difficult. This particular day did not seem that exceptional, except of course for that nagging little tightness in my chest. At this point I am beginning to add the word “nagging” to tightness.

After Tim and I finished I headed on over to the treadmills. Fred and Richard were already going at it. Typically Richard will go for an hour while I usually settle for fifty minutes. God only knows how long Fred goes. He starts first, followed by Richard, followed by me, and followed by Phil, again, in that strangely coincidental chronological order.

I started up at a pace of 6.2 miles per hour. After about five minutes I was completely gassed. I look over to Richard on my right. “I don’t feel too good this morning.” Apparently I didn’t look so hot either.

“You don’t look so good.”

“I think I’ll call it quits.”

Richard quickly endorses this decision. “You should go home and lie down.”

I’m all over that. I headed on home and went back to bed. Denise tells me to make an appointment with Steve Diener, my primary care doc. Another good idea.

It was nine days before my heart attack.

Speed Bump

click to enlarge

I am a big fan of Dave Coverly and his Speed Bump cartoon. This particular one really nailed how I often feel in the presence of my doctor.

I tore this panel from The Washington Post and asked Dave if I could post it here. He graciously consented.

Thanks Dave!

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.

How This Got Started

“Your EKG is fine.”

Somehow that is not very comforting when you are lying on a bed in the Emergency Room recovering from your second nitro tablet of the night. The first one wasn’t bad; the second one packed a punch.

This bit of medical news was soon trumped by the results of the blood test they had seemingly just taken. Time tends to get a bit distorted for me in situations like this, not that I’d ever been in a situation like this. “Well Mr. Lane, you’ve had a heart attack.”

Okay, so far I’ve learned that the EKG didn’t mean shit.

To tell you the truth being told that I had a heart attack was a little anti climatic. I mean I knew something major had occurred after all I was laying on a table in an emergency room with oxygen in my nostrils and three IV drips in my arm. Since my blood pressure had already been running high, a heart attack was high up on the list of probabilities. Still this was big news. I had a heart attack. People die from heart attacks.

The thing was, it really didn’t feel like a heart attack. At least it didn’t feel like I always thought a heart attack would. A heart attack sounds like something that should knock you to your knees. Mine didn’t. It also didn’t kill me which has allowed me to start this blog.

This is a place to share the everyday experiences of regular folks who through the luck of the draw live with heart disease. This is the non clinical view from the pointy end of the needle. This is a place for folks who have had a heart attack and those who think that having one in their life is a distinct probability. This is a place for humor, real stories, and perhaps some useful advice. I am your host, the heart attack guy.