December 21st, 2009: heart attack

It was just after 1 am, when I woke up with immense chest pain. The pain was radiating from the front and my back and was the strongest pain I ever experienced. I went down the spiral stairs from our bedroom to the kitchen to take some medicine. Still hoping I was dealing with a stomach reflux episode I took a DGL tablet, but also grabbed a Nitroglycerin.

I did not know, that the Nitroglycerin was expired and needs to be taken under the tongue, I swallowed it. I forgot to take aspirin. The pain did not go away and I went to the living room.

What to do? Waduda my beloved and partner was sleeping upstairs and she did not like to be awoken. I called her name "Waduda I need help!"

Waduda came rushing down and I said "Let's call the ambulance". The pain was still there and no position of my body changed anything. "I called the ambulance" Waduda gave me the phone and a voice on the other end asked me to describe my pain and if I have shortness of breath. For the first time the thought crossed my mind "Maybe this is a heart attack". I am 62 years old and heart problems are part of the history on my mother's and father's side.

"Where is the ambulance" I cried out. "They are nearly here" Waduda answered. "See the lights?" I was moaning and groaning on the couch. I asked her to drive me, but luckily she refused, It would have been my death.

Finally the door bell rang and the ambulance crew arrived. They gave me some aspirin, put me on the stretcher. "You will not die!" Waduda said to me. "Stay awake, whatever happens" I said to myself. The outside steps were icy, but the ambulance put me in their truck and we left down the dirt road. The last thing I heard was "We are reaching the main road"...then I lost consciousness.

I have not figured out yet, if they gave me some morphine or something else at that time. I woke up 24 hours later in the ICU room at St. Vincent Hospital, Santa Fe. Those 24 hours I needed to recapture by talking to Waduda and friends. The first picture my mind collected was with Waduda, Ralf and Gabrielle. But as Ralf told me later, that combination never happened at the same time. So my mind must have created a composition of the first images. I also remember looking at the clock at the hospital wall, which was around 1 o'clock and my mind tried to figure out, what time of the day or night it was, which day etc.

There were some beautiful memories. I was flying or floating on top of a peaceful meadow with a white light behind it. There was a wonderful feeling to it all, which I cannot describe. It was just a perfect moment. There was no 'I', no future and no past. No memories of 'me', just a wonderful place, where 'my consciousness' or 'all consciousness' or 'oneness consciousness' could float and stay forever. The white light was not penetrating, more like a screen. Something like a resting place of souls. 'I' was totally content.

Then out of nowhere came a flash of energy, with a message: "there are a few things I need to complete with Waduda"- and with this energy I was pushed though a blue door....back into my individual life here in Santa Fe. If I was somewhere else, this was it and it was a beautiful place.

I also feel that I can have access to this place anytime now, it is part of me.

Not sure, so if this was death or just a dream.

There was not much memory of my first hours in the hospital. Although I was awake, I was in and out of memory. Slowly though I gathered some information from Waduda, who was by my side all the time. Apparently my heart had stopped in the ambulance and a defibrillator was used to resurrect me and get my my heart beating again. Luckily they were sucessful with this. The chances were pretty thin. At arrival in the hospital I was immediately brought into the operation room. Later I found out, that the 90 minutes window is critical. It was found that my main descending artery was 100% blocked. This artery is called 'The widow maker'. I spare all the medical details here, but the artery was opened with a balloon and then a stent was placed into the artery. A secondary artery nearby was found clogged 90%, but the doctors decided to leave this alone for now, since this artery supplies the same areas and now with the open artery and the medicine, it did not look like an urgent issue to deal with. Most people do not even have this secondary artery. My other arteries showed 30% blockages, which is maybe normal.

This operation took 45 minutes and meanwhile Waduda had called Chaitanya (Deuter) our friend and Ralf and Gyana, who came and supported her, while I was unconscious. She also called for 45 minutes our best friend Anando in Italy on the cell. These people were with me in those critical hours after the operation and supported me at the ICU.

I had no clue, what close call with death I had had and when I woke up, we already had moved to the cardio station into a single room with view on the snowy mountains around Santa Fe. Gabrielle also had shown up to support Waduda, who had not slept at all. Also someone had posted a message on facebook, which later became a major source for well wishers from around the world. I had a hard time understanding what happened. Sometimes my mind grasped it and I became very emotional and started to cry. I cried a lot those days.
Or I became super high to be alive and laughed. It was an emotional roller coaster, since my chances to survive this were really small. The average survival rate for heart attacks is 50% in the US.

At this point on Monday it was not clear, how my condition was. The doctors and nurses were working and watching to stabilize my condition. I had to take medicines like Beta Blocker, Aspirin, blood thinner and statins. I refused to take statins and argued with my doctor, Dr. Zolnick, who had operated me. He said, it is up to me, but my survival chances were higher with those medicines. I meditated upon these and decided to give these medicines a chance.
It was allopathic medicine, which saved my life after all. Would I take acupuncture, when I have a heart attack? So after two days I told Dr. Zolnick, that I am willing to take the statins.
So far now 3 weeks later I had no side effects of the medicines. My blood pressure was low, about 90/60 average. My back was heavy like granite from the defibrillator. I had no appetite and felt weak and drowsy.

Waduda was full in action, organizing life in the hospital room. The nurses were mostly great and there was a night shift and day shift. Every few hours my vitals were taken, blood , oxygen and blood pressure. Looking backwards I am surprised, how active I was on the first day. I could hardly talk, since there has been a tube in throat for breathing during the first hours. Everything was soar and I was coughing and spitting blood all the time. But I had Angela coming, our assistant from the office. I got also some messages, that my kidneys were not doing so great, that I had water in my lungs. Apparently that happens, when your heart stops.
All news to me. I cannot even watch hospital scenes on TV. I also got very agitated about Internet access on Monday. My Apple laptop was with me, but I could not get a proper WiFi signal. So we called Dotfoil, the local Apple service. They sent a guy over, who located the problem. The hospitals Internet service was in the process of being upgraded and one hour later on Monday I was back online.

So here I was fresh from heart surgery, but my main concern was WiFi. And I got a surprise.
Back on facebook my account was flooded with healing messages from my friends from all over the world. So much love was flooding in, you could nearly physically touch it. Anytime I started to read these messages I started to cry. Then I cried again, because I was still alive.
The alternative was hard to fathom. Waduda brought me tea and organized the space. She also managed to have a sofa chair next to me, which transforms into a bed at night. She called the mechanical services of the hospital to shut down the noise of the heating system.
Visitors were coming, but although I talked to everybody, I was still in a daze, trying to re-connect all the dots. Waduda organized a mozarella sandwich, which I ate. First food.
Calls were coming in though our cell. My family called from Germany.

The nights were very tiresome. We did not get much sleep. I think the nurses came every two hours for the vitals. We were both dazing around. The doctor came back for a short visit. They wanted already to let us go on Tuesday. Everything looked stabilized and good. A woman came in. "My name is Barbara, I did the defibrillator machine in the ambulance, how are you?". My life's savior! We all cried. She is an unpaid volunteer with the El Dorado Fire Brigade. The Hospital's director was also present in that moment. He also cried and said "That made my day".

Another nurse came and told me: "I am 58 years old, I had a stent implant two years ago. I am a sports woman and I am doing sports better then before. Do not go into that poor me, old man with heart attack syndrome- there is a great future in front of you". I liked the spirit and the message she gave me. Now I was full in action. Although I could not move much and still had no appetite, I felt I had my spirit back and a new life was given to me. A life with all possibilities and I was sure, that life would be unfolding by itself and show me all the offerings. A life, where I can be grateful every day of this new lease on life, a gift.

We talked to the doctor and decided Wednesday would be the best day to leave the hospital.
I was slowly doing some rounds in the corridors of the cardiac station. Waduda was connecting with all the nurses and all the stuff. We ran some more tests and everything looked fine.

On Wednesday December 24th I left St. Vincent hospital in a wheel chair. It was snowing outside, it was Christmas, I was alive, I was crying.