7305 Days

It's April 7th, 2020--the twentieth anniversary of the night that I died. I still remember every detail so vividly that it's hard for me to believe that it's been twenty years now. 11:35 PM--I was about to go to bed when I had an intense pain that began in my neck and jaw and rapidly expanded to encompass my chest and shoulder as well. I knew that whatever this was, it was more intense than anything I had ever felt before. On a hunch, I checked my blood pressure and discovered that it was extremely high at 170/110 (and I normally have low blood pressure), and my heart rate had skyrocketed to 150 bpm. I walked down the hall to the upstairs library, where Susan was watching television. "I think I'm having a heart attack." For a second, she thought I was joking--then she looked at my face and knew I wasn't. She told me later that she had never seen me more ashen than I was right then, and she was certain I was correct. I went downstairs to the kitchen, carrying the blood pressure cuff with me to see if things might improve. Susan called 911. We live less than a mile from a fire station, so EMTs responded in a matter of minutes. Their tests showed absolutely nothing wrong. "We think it's just bad indigestion," they said to me. I told them I was positive that it was not. They checked again. Still nothing wrong. Then, to make my point for me, my heart decided to quit beating. Susan told me later that the EMTs looked at me in surprise, then began to get the defibrillators. As they did, one of them looked at Susan and said, "He'll do anything to prove he's right, won't he?" She said in spite of the absolute terror she was feeling right then, she couldn't help but laugh. They were unable to start my heart after two tries in the house. They rolled me out to the ambulance and continued to work on me. Accoding to the paramedic, after six minutes had passed, he wasn't sure how many more times he should try, fearing brain damage from lack of oxygen. He tried once more. Nothing. Then, unwilling to give up, he tried yet again 6 minutes and 40 seconds after my heart had stopped. My heart started to beat. I remember waking up feeling relieved that the pain wasn't as severe, but I wasn't sure where I was. The EMT told me what had happened. He told me not to be afraid because we were almost at the hospital. I wasn't afraid. I was actually very calm. I had no vivid memories of bright lights or tunnels or anything like that, but from that point on I have never feared death--whatever happened that night left me certain that death wasn't the end of everything. When they got me to the cardiac intensive care unit, they did various things to stabilize me. Susan got there just a moment or two later, having followed the ambulance. She was overwhelmed with fear and anguish, not even sure if she would ever see me alive again. I smiled when she came in and held out my hand. She took it and wouldn't let go until they told her they had to take me away for a little while. I asked if there was a phone I could use before they did. I guess they thought I was going to call a family member and let them know what happened, so they got a phone for me. I called Brett. "Pick up quarters tomorrow morning for the store," I told him. "I had a heart attack and they won't let me do it." The days after that brought a series of tests, followed by the news that I had suffered a major heart attack with significant damage and major surgery was necessary. They told us that I had a 30% chance of survival until surgery, and they warned Susan that there was a significant chance I would not recover from the surgery. I was determined to prove them wrong. And when I did survive the surgery and they told me what I would need to do to get better, I promised Dr. Mike, my cardiologist, that I would be the most perfect cardiac patient he had ever treated if he would just keep me alive. (I also reminded him that I had never written down his comic book pull list at my store, where Dr. Mike had shopped every week for 18 years, and that if I died, no one would ever pull all the right books for him.) Dr. Mike did his part, and I did mine. Twenty years later, I'm not only alive, but he tells me that I am the only patient he has ever had who has exercised every day for twenty years; who lost 70 pounds in the eight months after the heart attack and kept it off; who did all the stress tests without ever complaining, even when the computer glitched one time and I had to repeat the whole test; and of course, who has kept his promise to pull all the right books for him every week. I keep a count of how many days I've been alive in what I call "my second life." 7305 days, and every one is a gift. I have tried to remember the koan of the strawberries and the tiger and have strived to find a good moment in every one of those days, even the ones that were overwhelmingly painful (my mother's death in 2002... my father's death in 2007... Susan's death last summer...).So many times, I have questioned if I am worthy of so precious a gift. 7305 days. And I am thankful for every one of them. Because without that gift, I couldn't have held mother's hand as she died. I wouldn't have gripped Dad's hand and wiped his brow as he slipped away. And I wouldn't have been there to whisper words of love and gratitude to Susan as I kissed her farewell when she left this world ahead of me on July 22nd. How can I not appreciate a gift so precious?