My day of reckoning!
So close to qualifying for the 2020 Paralympic swim team in Tokyo when this happened. Oh well, it is now 2024 in Paris where I have my sights set. Nothing will stop me from achieving this goal! Cats have nothing on me with their nine lives. I am currently working on my sixth!
CHAPTER IN MY SECOND BOOK FORTHCOMING: MY DAY OF RECKONING.
Life presents many obstacles through our sojourn and travels on this earth. We can consider this a sojourn because many believe that it is temporary, and we lived in the presence of God before we came here and believe we will live in His presence for Eternity after this existence on earth. I am in 100% agreement with these beliefs and am in awe with some of the manifestations that have materialized in my life. As of my three year “Ampuversary”, multiple obstacles have presented as preparations were in progress to compete in Triathlons with swimming, cycling, and running.
After my amputation, I read a most alarming statistic that shows 70% of transfemoral amputees with vascular problems will die within two to five years. This is much higher than the five-year mortality rates for breast, colon, and prostate cancer. When I read this statistic, it blew me away! The alarms went off and my thoughts became focused on what I could do to improve my chances of surviving, but most important, enjoy an abundant and adventurous life. As you read on, you will see how I nearly became one of those statistics.
On June 19th, 2019, the day began as usual, waking at 5:00 am to go to work. However, something felt different today. This eerie and uncanny premonition kept coming to mind that indicated this could be my last day on earth! There were no feelings of sickness or warning signals of any kind. It was slightly intimidating and even haunting. The day proceeded without any hitches and after work, I set my course for the South Davis Recreation Center in Bountiful to swim a mile in the competition pool, as was typical. Upon arrival, the competition pool was closed because an accident had occurred, and the first responders had just arrived. Around thirty minutes later, we were permitted to enter the competition pool and proceed with activity.
After my swim, I returned to the locker room and dressed to return home. When swimming, I leave the prosthesis in the car and use crutches to navigate. After drying the swimsuit in the machine that hangs on the wall in the locker room, I began navigating out to my car. The last thing I remember was turning the corner to access a hallway that was about twenty-five feet long to exit into a common hallway used by all patrons of the three swimming pools available at the Recreation Center. There was no warning! No tingling or numbness, ringing of the ears, pain in the chest or dizziness. Rather, the sensation came without notification and was crushing and abrupt. There was immediate loss of conscientiousness and I was on crutches with no other person present in the hallway to prevent my collapse to the floor. There are a few residual impressions on my face, hand, right knee and foot of the encounter with the floor. One of the crutches is also bent just above the hand grip with torque applied. No idea how that occurred!
As an accounting of all the various details unfold, you will be amazed and possibly won’t believe my story. I don’t blame you because the doctors were even speechless in explaining what transpired, having never seen such things. Fortunately, all these details are the words and efforts of others who miraculously and divinely intervened to prevent a fatal and cataclysmic result, all on my behalf. Remember, I am unconscious, in fact dead, and will awaken from this experience again indebted to others who selflessly, perfectly, efficiently, and quickly came to my aid.
My next recollection was somebody telling me to breath. That was easier said than done. I had this profound and deep pain emanating from my chest. As though somebody had been dancing on me. So pronounced was the pain that I could not breath and was surrounded and engulfed with discomfort. I remember them explaining that they were transporting me to the hospital and then came instructions to chew on the aspirin they had just inserted in my mouth.
Now present in the hospital emergency room, a physician came forward indicating to rush me to the Cath lab, as a stent needed to be placed immediately. It was all a significant blur as multiple people were working on me. I remember the stroll down the hallway and arriving at the Cath lab. Various poking events in the arms were recognized with someone busy shaving my scrotum as an optional location to insert the stent. There was high praise of my veins in my arms resulting in the decision to perform the angioplasty and stent placement via the right arm. They must have put me out for the process that ensued, because the next thing I remember was Dr Roja Mulamallah, showing me on the monitor what she found.
I was observing the historical process she had pursued based on her findings. What she referred to as the Widow Maker or LAD (Lateral Anterior Descending Artery), that provides blood to the entire front portion of the heart was 100% occluded (blocked) at the proximal location or entry of the LAD directly off the Left Coronary artery as it branches off the Ascending Aorta. She described the ballooning and then placement of the largest stent this hospital had ever placed in the heart (5mm by 15 mm proximal stent). Once completed, the entire LAD lit-up and manifested blood flow to my heart. She was aghast at the catastrophic condition and was complimentary of the first responders and especially the lifeguards at the Recreation Center. She told me that people do not survive the Widow Maker unless this occurs at a hospital or the first responders are extremely responsive and perfect in their efforts to revive.
I was ostensibly in the most opportune place to have this heart attack and survive. Had this occurred two minutes later, I would have been in my car and not survived and possibly injuring others in the process. The doctor expressed concern regarding damage to the heart muscle because of the extensive amount of time without adequate blood flow in and around the LAD region. They will conduct various tests over the next twelve hours. Most critical, they will be looking for enzymes in the blood that translate into muscle damage and especially heart damage. She is expecting a number around 60 nanograms per milliliter with Troponin levels, indicating significant heart damage. Anything above 10 can be very bad. Troponin is difficult to detect in the bloodstream and generally resides in the .01 range.
Definition of Widow maker:
“Widow maker is an alternate name for the proximal left anterior descending coronary artery of the heart. This term is used because if the artery gets abruptly and completely occluded it will cause a massive heart attack that will likely lead to a sudden death. The blockage that kills is made up of platelets streaming to the site of a ruptured cholesterol plaque. Even a small amount of plaque in this area can rupture and cause death; bypassing chronic blockages or trying to open them up with angioplasty does not prevent heart attack but it can restore blood flow in case of a sudden blockage or heart attack. An example of the devastating results of a complete occlusion of the LAD artery was the sudden death of former NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert. From the minute a widow maker hits, survival time ranges from minutes to several hours. Rapidly progressing symptoms should signal the need for immediate attention. Symptoms of initial onset may include nausea, shortness of breath, pain in the head, jaw, arms or chest, numbness in fingers, often of a novel but imprecise sensation which builds with irregular heart contraction.”
It appears my next few days will be residing in ICU at the hospital. Staff members begin cleaning me up from the incident. My next question was why they were so preoccupied with washing my buttocks and there about. The response was, “dude, you were dead and when that happens the bowels relax, and all manner of things break lose”. Okay, just one more confirmation of the extreme nature of my experience.
Brace yourself because this next piece of information is very interesting. It has been twelve hours and the last lab checking for heart damage has come back. The Cardiologist has entered my room and has this look on her face of incredulity. She sat down and said, there are two things to report that she had never seen before and had no way to explain them. First, the Troponin level that she was expecting to come back with a dangerous level has returned with a level of .02. No heart damage whatsoever! Nobody was expecting this. How can this be? She reiterated the incredible work of the lifeguards and first responders at the South Davis Recreation Center and had no words for the findings. Second, to explain these results, she reviewed the process of placing the stent and observed that there were numerous, highly functional collateral arteries in this area of the heart. Apparently, the heart had brought to life these collateral arteries in this critical area where the LAD was functioning, over the past number of years. These arteries were not just present in the area of the occlusion at the proximal portion of the LAD to serve as a bypass. Rather, they were all over the anterior portion of the heart and were highly functional with connectivity to the other large and primary coronary arteries.
When the 100% occlusion event occurred and dropped me like a rock, the quick actions of lifeguards and first responders in combination with these collateral arteries, must have provided ample blood flow to this area of the heart which possibly explains why there was negligible damage and subsequent Troponin levels at such a low rate. Again, the Cardiologist was astounded at the complete picture and resulting paradigm!
This all occurred beginning at 4:00 pm on Wednesday, June 19, 2019. Because of the unprecedented findings, I am released from the hospital less than 48 hours later to go home. The other little marvelous tidbit was the fact that I had no broken ribs from the massive compression that was performed on me. Whoever did this work on me at the Recreation Center must have been highly skilled and professional. Medical staff informed me that if they ever perform compression in the hospital, invariably, a couple of ribs are broken. In my case, X-rays reveal no ribs broken. Are you sure? They feel broken! Upon being released, instructions were given that I have a follow-up visit next Tuesday with the Cardiologist and that I cannot drive and should not lift anything more than a gallon of milk. Okay, I will comply.
My Tuesday visit produces the directive that I can drive, return to work, lift more than a gallon of milk, and begin exercising again as my sore chest will allow. Guess what my first impulse was after this visit? Correct, Lori drove me to the South Davis Recreation Center, and I met with Tif Miller, the Executive Director and asked if I could meet whomever it was that saved my life. He responded with a resounding yes and set the meeting for next Monday, July 1, 2019 at 12:30 pm.
I was just the beneficiary of the most serene meeting in my life! There were five Managers in attendance and three of the four lifeguards involved in my case. The one not in attendance was a young lady who had just left on vacation with her family. The three young men were all in their late teens. I could not have been more moved and impressed with these pillars of strength and maturity. What humility to behold in their countenances and purity in their eyes. I could hardly believe what I was hearing and was so touched and weepy with gratitude toward these young people. It was compelling and revealing to me as they filled in the gaps with all their selfless acts on my behalf.
As I discussed this later with my son Michael, he drew a parallel to how we all may feel when we meet our Savior and discover the ways in which he fills in the gaps with our lives and He reveals the many acts of intervention on our behalf, in addition to the atoning principles applied because of His ultimate sacrifice for all of us. He is the ultimate Advocate for us all and knows us so well!
The first two lifeguards on the scene had arrived an hour early on June 19th for their shifts and they both indicated how unique that was for them. As I had collapsed in the hallway just exiting the men’s locker room, a woman passing by in the main hallway noticed me face down and immediately contacted the lifeguards. It is not known how long I was prostrate on the floor. The first lifeguard arrived and checked for a pulse. His response was that it was too late, he is dead. The second lifeguard arrived and confirmed the previously mentioned condition. However, this did not convince them to not do everything they could to revive me. Their training kicked in and they got to work with one doing CPR and the other doing compression. They informed me that they performed six cycles of compression before the heart restarted. During that process, another lifeguard arrived with the AED or defibrillator. These are smart devices and instruct the responder as to whether a shock is required. If the patient is in V-Fib or no pulse detected, then it will instruct the responder to shock. Otherwise, if a shock is delivered and the patient has a pulse, the opposite result can occur, killing the patient. In my case, the instruction was to invoke a shock, because I had no pulse. They performed these services for five minutes until I began to communicate that I was having a hard time breathing which coincides with my first recollection of them coaching and encouraging me to breath. It also coincides with the arrival of the first responders.
These four teenagers had single handedly worked together synchronously and perfectly to save my life. Neither one had ever had a live experience to utilize their training in this manner. They had trained for years, over and over, redundantly and diligently practicing what may be needed in the future to save a life. It reminds me of the things we do over and over in our own lives such as praying, reading the same scriptures, going to church, exercising and wondering if it is really doing any good and will have a form of efficacy or a place in changing the course of our own lives or the life of another. I have come to realize now that these repetitious activities do make a difference. I asked what it is like to perform compression on a live person as opposed to a dummy, even though I am a dummy myself in many ways and things. One of the lifeguards responded with an emphatic, whoa, very different! He recalled that with the dummy, the pressure applied on the sternum is a feeling of non-reality and soft with not as much resistance. However, working on my chest delivered a fear and sound of cracking and crushing that delivered the sensation that this was real, and he could be fracturing ribs, still confident that he was doing what was necessary and required. It was a conscious sensation of reality and urgency with the imperativeness to proceed with all haste.
I emphasized my concern that this experience may have engendered PTSD and impacted their psyches and apologized for bringing this trauma in their lives. They all responded that their concerns were for me and worried that I would not come back to exercise for fear this would occur again and that I would be engulfed with anxiety. Once again impressed with their selfless senses of concern for others. What God like attributes these young people possess? I returned to the Recreation Center two days later and have been exercising ever since. What a thorough joy it is to every day see those whom saved my life. How many people have that opportunity? I believe this is extremely rare and I will cherish it!
Having had this transpire has given me an all new perspective on life and how indebted I am to my Savior and those who have prayed for me and assisted in various ways either directly or indirectly. I am having extreme mortality issues and often find myself weeping with gratitude. Most important, I wanted to thank you all for your kind words, interest, prayers, authentic solace, and sincerity after my latest near fatal cataclysm. I have much to be grateful for and will not take it for granted. God bless and thank you again. I am indebted to so many.
Every night, I lay down to sleep and my thoughts focus on the premise that I may not wake in this life and every morning my thoughts divert to the notion that this may be my last day on earth. Therefore, every day I sing the song by Rare Earth from the seventies, “I Just Want to Celebrate”, another day of living! Thank you all for your kindnesses and I pray for the opportunity for reciprocity toward you all!
