Wow, where do I begin. I just reviewed my last post about Life is Fragile. Everyone needs to reread it. I now have the answer to "Do you know when you are going to die?". It was just another day, June 11th, and I died. My day was just like all the rest (rut) with all the normal things. I had dinner with Lauren and went to the Y to workout. I basically woke up six or seven days later in the intensive care unit and was being called "the miracle man". I was confused because of my memory lapse. Through numerous conversations I was able to piece together a time line of what happened.
I went to the Y and at some point in my workout suffered a sudden cardiac arrest (sca). Miracle number 1, I was at the Y and not at home or by myself. The survival rate of sca is 5% and it is reduced by 10% for every minute the emt's do not get there. Larry Shields (angel) who happens to live one block over from me, performed CPR on me and when he tired out instructed another gentleman to do it. The EMT's showed up shortly, started an IV and shocked me four or five times until they got a heartbeat. I was loaded up and went to the ER of Piedmont Medical Center.
As family and friends arrived at the ER I was worked on by a host of nurses and Dr. Ramos for several more hours. Pastor Larry Soles of The Shield of Faith Church (you have to have a "Larry Team") showed up and immediately began speaking life into me, the medical staff and all of those around us. I believe this to be miracle 2. He returned to the ER numerous times to check on me and my progress. I survived 11 more shocks and 10 intubations. Simply miracle 3. I do not know why Dr. Ramos did not stop after the normal 4 or 5 shocks. What kept him going after 8 or 9 or 10? Obviously it was the grace of God! Somewhere around midnight I was stable enough to be on life support and transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU) where I spent the next day,friday, comatose all day.
The family was told if I hadn't awoke by Monday they were going to remove the tubes from me. My sister from Ohio and her husband (Pat and Randy) arrived late Friday and came to the hospital on Saturday. On the elevator ride up to the third floor, two african-american ladies entered the elevator and one of them began saying to the other, "You know God is a Healer. My God heals. Jesus is the healer." When my sister and brother in law got out of the elevator the lady turned around and looked my sister in the eye and said "You need to expect a miracle today". They went to my room and to their surprise I was sitting up with all the tubes gone and talking. Just fyi, this was my third day in the hospital. Miracle 4.
The next few days passed without much memory on my part. I was told one night I was very upset and Lauren put my iPod on me with the Jesus Culture playing. Evidently I calmed right down and in a few minutes I was singing "We Exalt Thee" at the top of my lungs. I'm sure everyone in the ICU loved that.
A few days later I remembered several doctors and nurses coming in and wanting to shake my hand and calling me the miracle man. One Doctor told me that no one is shocked 11 times and is sitting up in bed talking to him and walking the halls. The neurologist, Dr. Ryder Cook, came in and said he had never seen somebody survive with no damage what I survived. I asked him what he was talking about. He said they believed I had a large clot in my chest and with all the shocks, it exploded the clot into a bunch of small clots which most of them went to my brain. He said I had suffered numerous minor strokes and to his amazement NONE of them had caused any damage to me in terms of speech, motor skills, etc. He said most of them ended up residing in the part of the brain that controls short term memory. I told him that was obviously true. He said he had never seen this before, had no medical explanation and called it a miracle. Miracle 5. He said I still had two small clots in my brain and they were monitoring those and expected them to dissolve on their own.
I was having a hard time making sense of all this as I was just going to the Y. It was just another day. The nurse that intubated me (breathing tube in the throat) came by and wanted to meet me and was glad I was alive. He then said with some frustration (?) that he had intubated me 10 times and that he never intubates anybody that many times. I didn't realize until later how risky that procedure is to do even once.
The next few days passed without anything eventful happening from a medical standpoint. I had alot of visitors, which unfortunately I do not remember hardly any of them. My memory seemed to get better towards the end of my stay. About all I remember is after 10 or 11 days all I wanted was to go home and sleep in my own bed. Thats all I could focus on. The cardiologists wanted to put an implantable cardio defibrillator (ICD) in me to prevent anymore arrhythmia's and SCA. I really just wanted to go home, rest in my own bed, and think clearly about whether or not to put this device in my chest.
They wanted to implant this device on Monday and send me home Tuesday. Sunday night I talked to one the nurses, Yurly (sp) (the largest mexican woman I've ever met, she had to be six feet tall and spoke perfect spanish) for over an hour about the pros and cons of the ICD. I'd decided to put this on hold and just go home for a few days. Yurly came in an hour later and said you know Art, if you go home and have an episode there is good chance you would die or at least become a vegetable before the emt's could get there. I told she was exactly right and I had no logical response to that. I called the Doctor and said ignore my previous voice mail to him from an hour earlier.
That night I had the best sleep since I had been in the hospital. But of course in the middle of night they woke me up to take my blood pressure and temperature. This really upset me because I knew I would not get back to that deep level of sleep. But I rolled over and returned to that great sleep level. Sometime later, it could have been two minutes or two hours I was awakened by Yurly who was squeezing my hand and was eyeball to eyeball with me saying Art, stay with me, don't close your eyes, squeeze my hand. I thought I was still dreaming and was thinking Man this dream is almost real. I awoke again to Yurly's frightened face and squeezing hand imploring me to look at her and squeeze her hand. I noticed all the lights were on in the room and my bed was surrounded by what seemed like 30 nurses, all yelling and shooting stuff in my IV which was now a p.i.c whatever that is. I went out again only to be awoken by Yurly again. This time I realized it wasn't a dream and was actually real. I realized my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest and I couldn't breath real well.
The nurses were trying to figure out which ICU had room for me and realized I would have to go to the CICU on the first floor. As they readied me for transport downstairs I realized I had a sudden urge to urinate. As we rushed down the hallways and were passing bathrooms I asked them to stop so I could relieve myself. Finally one nurse leaned over and said Art just do it now. I'm thinking not in the bed. But evidently that's exactly what happened. As the ceiling tiles rushed by and my breathing became more difficult, I think I realized this was a life and death situation. I prayed to God that surely we just didn't survive that last two weeks for me to die like this. I prayed this prayer over and over. I also was singing in my mind the Kim Walker song "I need you". I arrived downstairs in what had to be a Piedmont world record time. They were putting more drugs into me to break the arrhythmia. They had also put the pads on me to shock my heart again. After a little bit of time passed, I twitched my left leg and the nurse yelled out "He's out of it!" and my heartbeat had dropped from 219 to a normal 70. I had just survived a vtach arrhythmia. At this point, around 5 am, needless to say I was ready for anything they wanted to put in me. I didn't care if it was an ICD, ADD, PMS, CPA or anything else. Just as long as I didn't have another vtach it was good with me.
The ICD was implanted that day around 2 pm and two days later I came home. There were numerous doctors and nurses who did just miraculous work. There were also thousands of people who prayed for me whom I'll never meet and I am so humbled and thankful for their support. My family did the work of angels and for whom I will be forever indebted. My friends were phenomenal and whose caring and support I will always appreciate the rest of my life.
It's so ironic that my last post was about how fragile life can be. I died on June 11th, it was just another day.
The Miracle Man
Art
I went to the Y and at some point in my workout suffered a sudden cardiac arrest (sca). Miracle number 1, I was at the Y and not at home or by myself. The survival rate of sca is 5% and it is reduced by 10% for every minute the emt's do not get there. Larry Shields (angel) who happens to live one block over from me, performed CPR on me and when he tired out instructed another gentleman to do it. The EMT's showed up shortly, started an IV and shocked me four or five times until they got a heartbeat. I was loaded up and went to the ER of Piedmont Medical Center.
As family and friends arrived at the ER I was worked on by a host of nurses and Dr. Ramos for several more hours. Pastor Larry Soles of The Shield of Faith Church (you have to have a "Larry Team") showed up and immediately began speaking life into me, the medical staff and all of those around us. I believe this to be miracle 2. He returned to the ER numerous times to check on me and my progress. I survived 11 more shocks and 10 intubations. Simply miracle 3. I do not know why Dr. Ramos did not stop after the normal 4 or 5 shocks. What kept him going after 8 or 9 or 10? Obviously it was the grace of God! Somewhere around midnight I was stable enough to be on life support and transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU) where I spent the next day,friday, comatose all day.
The family was told if I hadn't awoke by Monday they were going to remove the tubes from me. My sister from Ohio and her husband (Pat and Randy) arrived late Friday and came to the hospital on Saturday. On the elevator ride up to the third floor, two african-american ladies entered the elevator and one of them began saying to the other, "You know God is a Healer. My God heals. Jesus is the healer." When my sister and brother in law got out of the elevator the lady turned around and looked my sister in the eye and said "You need to expect a miracle today". They went to my room and to their surprise I was sitting up with all the tubes gone and talking. Just fyi, this was my third day in the hospital. Miracle 4.
The next few days passed without much memory on my part. I was told one night I was very upset and Lauren put my iPod on me with the Jesus Culture playing. Evidently I calmed right down and in a few minutes I was singing "We Exalt Thee" at the top of my lungs. I'm sure everyone in the ICU loved that.
A few days later I remembered several doctors and nurses coming in and wanting to shake my hand and calling me the miracle man. One Doctor told me that no one is shocked 11 times and is sitting up in bed talking to him and walking the halls. The neurologist, Dr. Ryder Cook, came in and said he had never seen somebody survive with no damage what I survived. I asked him what he was talking about. He said they believed I had a large clot in my chest and with all the shocks, it exploded the clot into a bunch of small clots which most of them went to my brain. He said I had suffered numerous minor strokes and to his amazement NONE of them had caused any damage to me in terms of speech, motor skills, etc. He said most of them ended up residing in the part of the brain that controls short term memory. I told him that was obviously true. He said he had never seen this before, had no medical explanation and called it a miracle. Miracle 5. He said I still had two small clots in my brain and they were monitoring those and expected them to dissolve on their own.
I was having a hard time making sense of all this as I was just going to the Y. It was just another day. The nurse that intubated me (breathing tube in the throat) came by and wanted to meet me and was glad I was alive. He then said with some frustration (?) that he had intubated me 10 times and that he never intubates anybody that many times. I didn't realize until later how risky that procedure is to do even once.
The next few days passed without anything eventful happening from a medical standpoint. I had alot of visitors, which unfortunately I do not remember hardly any of them. My memory seemed to get better towards the end of my stay. About all I remember is after 10 or 11 days all I wanted was to go home and sleep in my own bed. Thats all I could focus on. The cardiologists wanted to put an implantable cardio defibrillator (ICD) in me to prevent anymore arrhythmia's and SCA. I really just wanted to go home, rest in my own bed, and think clearly about whether or not to put this device in my chest.
They wanted to implant this device on Monday and send me home Tuesday. Sunday night I talked to one the nurses, Yurly (sp) (the largest mexican woman I've ever met, she had to be six feet tall and spoke perfect spanish) for over an hour about the pros and cons of the ICD. I'd decided to put this on hold and just go home for a few days. Yurly came in an hour later and said you know Art, if you go home and have an episode there is good chance you would die or at least become a vegetable before the emt's could get there. I told she was exactly right and I had no logical response to that. I called the Doctor and said ignore my previous voice mail to him from an hour earlier.
That night I had the best sleep since I had been in the hospital. But of course in the middle of night they woke me up to take my blood pressure and temperature. This really upset me because I knew I would not get back to that deep level of sleep. But I rolled over and returned to that great sleep level. Sometime later, it could have been two minutes or two hours I was awakened by Yurly who was squeezing my hand and was eyeball to eyeball with me saying Art, stay with me, don't close your eyes, squeeze my hand. I thought I was still dreaming and was thinking Man this dream is almost real. I awoke again to Yurly's frightened face and squeezing hand imploring me to look at her and squeeze her hand. I noticed all the lights were on in the room and my bed was surrounded by what seemed like 30 nurses, all yelling and shooting stuff in my IV which was now a p.i.c whatever that is. I went out again only to be awoken by Yurly again. This time I realized it wasn't a dream and was actually real. I realized my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest and I couldn't breath real well.
The nurses were trying to figure out which ICU had room for me and realized I would have to go to the CICU on the first floor. As they readied me for transport downstairs I realized I had a sudden urge to urinate. As we rushed down the hallways and were passing bathrooms I asked them to stop so I could relieve myself. Finally one nurse leaned over and said Art just do it now. I'm thinking not in the bed. But evidently that's exactly what happened. As the ceiling tiles rushed by and my breathing became more difficult, I think I realized this was a life and death situation. I prayed to God that surely we just didn't survive that last two weeks for me to die like this. I prayed this prayer over and over. I also was singing in my mind the Kim Walker song "I need you". I arrived downstairs in what had to be a Piedmont world record time. They were putting more drugs into me to break the arrhythmia. They had also put the pads on me to shock my heart again. After a little bit of time passed, I twitched my left leg and the nurse yelled out "He's out of it!" and my heartbeat had dropped from 219 to a normal 70. I had just survived a vtach arrhythmia. At this point, around 5 am, needless to say I was ready for anything they wanted to put in me. I didn't care if it was an ICD, ADD, PMS, CPA or anything else. Just as long as I didn't have another vtach it was good with me.
The ICD was implanted that day around 2 pm and two days later I came home. There were numerous doctors and nurses who did just miraculous work. There were also thousands of people who prayed for me whom I'll never meet and I am so humbled and thankful for their support. My family did the work of angels and for whom I will be forever indebted. My friends were phenomenal and whose caring and support I will always appreciate the rest of my life.
It's so ironic that my last post was about how fragile life can be. I died on June 11th, it was just another day.
The Miracle Man
Art
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