Too old to Rockn'Roll...too young to die

December 24th, 2009

20 minutes after we came back from the hospital to our home, our friend Niyama arrived from Boulder. She had left Boulder in a snow storm the day before with her Subaro, stayed overnight in Pueblo CO and just made it back at the same time then we did.

Niyama and other friends had offered herself to Waduda to help out with whatever needed to be done. We were all not sure, what that exactly meant, but it was great to have her with us and we showed her the guest studio, which is attached to our house, between our home and the New Earth office building.

It was four days since my heart attack and I was very weak. I could hardly make the few steps up to the second floor and needed to take rest in between. So I chose one of our sofas in the living room as my new ‘headquarters’ and made myself comfortable there. Our house has WiFi everywhere and I felt safe here for now. Waduda and Niyama exchanged information about the house, kitchen etc.

It was good to be out of the hospital in a certain sense, although the hospital provides continuous services like checking vital signs etc. So it was also a bit fragile to deal with this situation suddenly all by ourselves. The doctors had prescribed a bunch of medicines to take like aspirin, a blood thinner to avoid blood clots, a beta blocker for blood pressure, a diuretics and a statin. Only after 10 days did we realize, that we took the double dose of the beta blocker and that was maybe one reason I was not much moving from my new home base on the couch. UUHHpps…..

We all decided to take it ‘one breath at a time’ and not to think too much about the heart attack. I was still very emotional, reading facebook messages and contemplating, what suddenly had happened to my life. I am 62 years old and was fully integrated into a busy life running New Earth Records as a CEO. Since we have been doing this for exactly 20 years, it was more of a fun and flow, then a stress situation. At least that was my belief system.

But I could choose my own hours and the company was running even in this difficult economic time without much of a bleep. So in the middle of a very regular life, which we had created for ourselves and which we both enjoyed, my life suddenly hit a train. My mind needed to grab this “You had a heart attack, you nearly died…actually your heart stopped for a few seconds, you now have a stent in your heart artery and your life will never be the same!” Bum, bum, bum.

In one way I did experience a series of continuous highs from the realization, that I am actually still alive and that so many friends love me. Reading the messages I received through facebook, email, skype and phone I always had to cry. I could nearly feel the love and healing energy coming through from these messages. Thank you all for those.

Otherwise I felt my new life as very fragile and delicate. Can I not any moment experience an attack again? I guess from now on this will be the state of my being for some time to come. Every day is an extra gift, with absolute no guarantee how many will follow. Trying to make the best out of it. My friend Siraj from Ibiza asked me yesterday, if I am out of danger and I think I can say ‘YES”, but only as much as everybody else on this planet. Anything can happen to anyone, any time, anywhere.

Meanwhile the girls were thinking and acting more in a practical way and preparing dinner. Four years ago I had my first health crisis and during the last four years I had to deal with episodes of Acid reflux. Looking backwards many of these episodes were probably already heart related, but neither myself nor the many doctors and practitioners I visited did the right diagnosis. So I was treated for GERD and adjusted my life to it. I ate a very strict organic vegetarian diet. Whenever my health went down I switched to a vegan diet. Every week I went to Japanese acupuncture sessions and also added visceral cranio sessions and lymphathic drainage to my program. Diner was served at 5.15 pm, so I had enough time to digest before going to sleep and I raised the heads under my pillow. The doctors prescribed PPI medicine (Proton Pump Inhibitors) to reduce the acid in my stomach. I was ok with this, but still had the occasional night episodes like once a month, which sometimes left me terrified. Now I realize, that many of these symptoms might have been heart related.

In January 2009 my father died in Germany and we were flying to his memorial service.

Strangely he died on a Sunday after a lung infection at the age of 84, but we already had tickets to Frankfurt for the coming Wednesday, which we had bought 9 months before!

So we arrived in Frankfurt on Thursday and drove up to Hamburg to arrive just in time

for the service on Friday. I was surprised about how much this ceremony touched me.

On Saturday we already had to leave, since we had booked a tradeshow in Cannes, which started Saturday afternoon and from there we left to our annual stay at the Osho Resort in Pune India. It was there where my health problems started to flame up. I had troubles sleeping, my stomach was upside down and during my whole stay I felt completely out of synch. I had an infected tooth and I was on antibiotics. Coming back to the US I felt like someone was poking me with a finger from within my chest and we decided to go for a heart check up in the St. Vincent Hospital here in Santa Fe.

They did an EKG and suggested a 24 hour observation to run more tests. We agreed and stayed in the hospital overnight. In the morning I did a stress test, a cardiogram and some kind of nuclear test, all related to the heart. But nothing showed up. I also did a calcium score at the Albuquerque Heart Institute (240) and started to add Niacin to my supplements. Later in the summer I had pain in my left arm, went to the Urgent Care and my blood pressure was something like 220/110. Alarm! The Urgent Care called the ambulance, which brought me again to the Emergency Room, where they gave me a Nitro tablet and my blood pressure went down and they let me go after some hours.

So the signals were there during 2009. But I stopped drinking soy chai, stopped all caffeine, also black tea and on advise from my doctor started taking a small half dose of a blood pressure medicine, which actually helped and kept my blood pressure around 120/80. I also took in the morning and evening Olive oil extract and garlic pills to keep my blood pressure down and continued with my acupuncture sessions. Waduda’s sister Lisa gave me this tip.

Since I was not eating any kind of junk food I felt I took good care of myself and never considered myself a candidate for a heart attack. At least not for the next ten years.

In August we went to Europe to one of Waduda’s seminars in Italy “Zen- The Magic of Now”. This seminar was very strong for me. I was invited to participate during one of the last days and under hypnosis or in a semi-wake state experienced a melting and opening of my heart, which stayed with me for a long time.

I also added fish to my diet to get more Omega 3 into my system. Strangely after 40 years of being a Vegetarian, I did not feel bad to eat fish, the opposite: I enjoyed it. It added some friction into our lifestyle, since Waduda is not only a vegetarian, but a very strict one. So I had to eat my fish somehow by the side.

Coming back from Europe I felt very good, very strong and very healthy for a few months until December.

December 25th was Christmas Eve and Ralf and Gyana had invited us to their Christmas Eve Gathering in their home. I was determined to make it, since both of them had showed so much support during the first few days in the hospital. Although I was more wheel chair material then anything else, we all sat in the Subaro and drove over to their place.

It was a wonderful evening and we left after 2 hours. I was a bit weak, but happy to be entering back into life.

By now I started to encounter a very strong pain in my upper rib cage and the upper back. This pain got stronger by the day. I realized that when my heart had stopped in the ambulance they did twice work on me with the defibrillator, which ‘fried my ligaments’ and tore them apart. We used Traumeel cream to help the pain.

Waduda called Ivy, who is running a clinic in the El Dorado neighborhood with Ayurvedic Hot Oil Massage. Ivy was very booked, but promised to come over for 45 minutes to give me a session in the house. She gave me a very beautiful soft oil treatment with Indian chants and declined payment. What a great spirited woman!

Gyana called and suggested that we connect with Kevin her ex partner, who is a very particular healer. I was very aware, that I am in a new situation for me and that it would probably be very helpful to stay open to new ways of treatments and new people entering into my life. I actually was not in a hurry to go back into my old routine and do the same treatments then before. So Waduda called Kevin.

That evening we had a lot of fun with Niyama fooling around on YouTube and listening

to music. At the end we loved Leonard Cohen a lot and we were singing along with his favorite tunes. “Dancing to the end of love”. It was then, when Kevin called back and announced his visit for the next afternoon. He would be bring his Mora and Vega machines and we planned to set aside six hours for the initial session.

Kevin arrived the next afternoon in the snow really committed with lots of equipment, which we set up in our meditation room. He first spent some time with muscle testing, chiro practitioner work, before we went to the Mora machine. But then it was getting late and Waduda had started to make dinner, one of her famous Gnocchi dishes and Kevin was impressed by her cooking and enjoyed the break. So we spent some social time. Since coming out of the hospital neither Waduda nor myself has gotten much sleep, Kevin offered the Vega machine to Niyama and Waduda. The Vega machine is supposed to give some deep relaxation based on certain wavelengths. Kevin and myself spent time with the Mora machine, which gives exact information which homeopathic medicine (from Germany) would be fitting best for my condition and Kevin also had a assortment of samples with him, which he left for me. It was late by now, about 10 pm and Kevin left for his home in Tesuque and we agreed that he would be back the next day.

I personally felt that this was a strong session for me, and that adding homeopathic medicine to my allopathic medicine could do no harm.

Altogether the first 2 weeks after the hospital stay felt like being in an altered state and things happened in a very magic way. Maybe there were really angels hanging around our house.

I encountered some trouble though with sleep. Anytime I would close my eyes to relax,

either during day time or at night, I felt short of breath and anxiety. We were of course informed by the doctors, that after such a heart attack, it will take time to recoup the strength of the heart and it was not really clear, if the heart will ever come back to its original strength. Of course we were hoping for the best. For two nights though I was not able to close my eyes and sleep. So we made an appointment with my general doctor, Dr. Caskey. He had wanted to put me on statin medicine some months before and I had refused to take these medicine, since I found in different books and on the Internet, that there are lots of side effects associated with statins and the relationship with cholesterol and statins and heart disease are not fully proven.

Since now I was on statins I apologized to him, which he brushed of. He checked me and complimented my excellent healing process. For the problems at night, he ordered a test to check at night my oxygen levels and gave me an anxiety pill, which up to now I did not need to take.

The Oxygen test though revealed that my oxygen levels at night were 25% down from my day time levels, so I got an oxygen machine delivered, which I use at night and since that time I slept very deep again and that also made Waduda sleep too. For two nights though I had to sleep on the downstairs sofa, since I felt not safe to sleep upstairs (where the heart attack happened). But we enjoyed this. During those days I realized, that my whole system has undergone a massive shock and for a moment I looked into the abyss of shocks and traumas down to the cellular level. I decided then, that I would need to do some trauma work soon to heal.

I have always been a sunny boy, who looked at life with a very positive attitude and until now had never encountered any serious hindrances. Life has always been good to me with one exception, when my 3 months old son had died in Anjuna Beach, Goa in 1975. But that has been healed very fast due to meeting Osho in October 1975 and becoming part of his worldwide community.

Meanwhile facebook messages came floating in and I did some skype calls with good friends overseas. Deuter came to visit and brought some sketches from his new album.

This was good news since Chaitanya (Deuter) had himself encountered a long story of health problems with his encounter of prostrate cancer. After his treatments in Scottsdale last August, healing did not go as well as hoped for and he did not do any new recordings. Although now still in pain very often he is back in the recording studio. Good news for him, for us, and all of his fans.

I also received some messages from friends, who shared their heart problems with me. Prana a good friend wrote about her heart still stand in Vienna two years ago and the implant of a stent. These messages helped very much, that there are other people out there, who had a similar experience and are alive and enjoying a good life. I did not feel anything of the stent and probably my heart is now in a better situation, then it has been during at least the last four years.

Kevin came back the next day. I was still a bit exhausted from the treatment the day before and he gave me some cranio work, which I needed to interrupt, due to the anxiety, when I laid down and closed my eyes. So we suggested that Niyama gets some healing work done and they both continued their work until late in the evening.

Niyama’s presence in the house was a very positive one. We all three were fitting very well together, shared stories of our past and kept the energy light. Niyama mentioned a few times, that she would like to move to Santa Fe, which was an interesting idea. Boulder and Santa Fe are very different kind of places, with Santa Fe more of a very artsy and magic kind of place and Boulder more the alive American college town. I always loved Boulder and also the sannyas community there, but must admit that Santa Fe has a charm of its own.

Before the holidays we had started to re-model the bathroom in our office, which we thought was a straightforward job. Now after coming back from the hospital the plumber informed us, that he wanted to check out our septic system with a camera. From then on the problems started. The camera showed two cracks in the septic line. So the plumber ordered a Backhoe to dig in and fix the problem. While he did this he broke the main water pipes to our house. This was December 31st. So while we were all doing healing work inside our house, outside of our windows the now 3 man Mexican plumber team were digging around with their Backhoe in the freezing cold and we were afraid, that any moment our water lines would not re-connect again. So Waduda was double stressed. Compliments though to these brave people, they managed to fix the job, worked at new year and got it all done..

Meanwhile Waduda had called Darshanie, a good friend from Albuquerque to come and visit me. She did a Psychic Reading with me and relating to the story with the ‘Peaceful Meadows’ she told me something, which struck me deep. “This place now will stay with you forever and you will always have access to this space”. I was still very emotional and any time I was thinking, how great it is to be alive I started to cry.

After all these happenings it was not surprising that we went to sleep on December 31st at 9 pm. Finally we got some sleep and the 2009 year was over. Welcome to 2010!

While I was still in the hospital I was introduced to a guy called Bill, my new personal trainer at the rehab. He left some brochures at that time and now it was time to visit the rehab. Niyama was driving us and all three of us turned up at St. Vincent. In the basement level of the hospital there was a fully equipped gym. My hours were Monday, Wednesday, Friday 8.30 am to 10.30 am. Beside the workout there were classes for diet, cholesterol and psycho therapy. This was a 12 weeks program and paid by the health insurance. I was surprised that the US health service offers this and was also committed to stick to it. It also helped, that during those days it was in the news, that people participating in these programs had a much higher survival rate, than those not participating. Bill said though, that only 20% of people with a heart operation join.

Bill was the right guy for me. He showed me the machines, explained the warm up and stretching exercises and took my blood pressure (90/60) and hooked me up to a wireless heart monitor. At the beginning the levels were very low. They wanted to check out, how my heart is responding and then over time the grades would become more difficult.

There were about 25 other people with me exercising and most of them had a similar story to tell. I looked like I was one of the youngest.

I also had a 30 minutes class on nutrition, which was focused on eliminating salt. Since I am already eating a very healthy diet and use no salt, there is probably not that much to learn in those classes.

I left the Gym with a very good feeling and was happy, that I have the opportunity to work on my weak point: exercise.

You ask yourself of course: why me and what is the reason for this heart attack?

I lived a conscious lifestyle, meditate and eat organic healthy. One thing the doctors always stressed is family history. My mother had a triple bypass operation at the age of 69, my father was a diabetic. Also I did no work out. Besides some walking during the summer months I was pretty much fixed on my desk and computer. Now with the new 3x a week Gym I was determined to change that aspect. The idea is to raise this to 5-6 times per week after the initial 12 weeks rehab program.

We had talked with Kevin about diet too and he was strong in favor of eating fish, lots of fish. I think he likes 3x a day. He left a catalog from an online fish delivery company in Bellingham, which delivers the most healthy and unpolluted choice available in the US. This takes a premium price, but I did my first order. The fish comes in portions, pre-packaged and frozen. http://www.vitalchoice.com

Since our home still was a vegetarian household, we settled on an agreement, that I eat my fish in the guest house. And Niyama supported me with some pieces she got from Whole Foods.

We celebrated New Year with Niyama, Ralf, Gyana and her daughter Naima. Naima is actually the daughter of Gyana and Kevin. Niyama and Waduda had created some wonderful and delicious food servings. It was Waduda’s superb fresh Gnocchi in tomato sauce and we opened a box of ‘Lebkuchen’ (German Christmas cakes) shipped from Nuernberg, Germany. Waduda had offered Gyana, that Naima can do a sleep over and so later at night, Ralf and Gyana took off and Naima and Waduda spent some valuable time together.

The new year started with some heartfelt skype communications with Terry and Soraya Oldfield in Australia, Mallika in Switzerland and Pradeepa in Marin, who shared details of her heart attack five years ago. I sometimes think we can open a facebook group ‘Osho Sannyasins and heart attacks’. It is always interesting to hear from others, who went through a similar life experience and are going strong. It nearly feels like we are sharing our war stories.

But slowly, slowly life started to settle a bit. Just when we though things are quiet, we got the news from Melissa’s brain tumor in Pune. A heart attack suddenly felt like a blessing and our love went out to her. I also saw my cardiologist Dr. Zolnick on January 6th.

He did some tests and thought I was doing great and said ‘see you in six months’. I enquired about the other descending artery, which ran next to my blocked main artery and which was also 90% blocked. He was not very concerned about it at this point and asked me not to worry. Basically my now open artery and that secondary artery, which not everybody has, aredoing the same thing. Let’s hope he is right. My other arteries had 30% blockages, which is pretty ok. And with my medicine and work out, things should improve.

Our friend Carol, who moved to Florida recommended a healing practitioner Donald VanHouten, One of the elders in Santa Fe, a Feldenkrais teacher and doing healing since 35 years. We set up a meeting and were lucky to get into a cancellation. It was an amazing session, very gentle, very healing, very subtle body work. We set up a series of future appointments and he gave us the name of a Trauma specialist Jan Boysen, who does Somatic Experiencing. Things just seem to fall in place.

Meanwhile I became much stronger again, my energy came back. The pain in my upper rib cage became less strong and I could get up from a lying position without this incredible ligament pain. My mood was still very positive and I enjoyed my meetings with the other heart patients at the rehab, my exercises, my classes. I basically spend all mornings taking care of myself and my health and in the afternoon doing some work from our living room. We had meetings there with our stuff, which we kept short and on the point.

Niyama started to mention, that she felt like driving back to Boulder and take care of her things there. She works in real estate and could take this time off, since this was part of the holidays. But since a snow blizzard was heading towards Colorado, we all thought it was better to wait until Friday. Which brought her total time with us to 15 days. It was a very precious time we shared together. We all became much closer. We watched no TV or movies, but just spent our hours with sharing our energies. We also felt, that by now I should be out of immediate danger. We all got some more sleep together and it was clear, that now things became much more ‘normal’.

It was funny, that Kevin had some classes in Boulder that Sunday and Kevin and Niyama spent some time together up there. January 9th I left for the first time my cocoon and did some shopping at Whole Foods and REI. I had one anxiety attack one night, when I dreamt of my heart attack. But I drank some tea, Waduda gave one of her magic hypnosis sessions and since then I slept good. I hope that soon I can get off oxygen at night. My life has completely changed. There are new priorities, new friends, a new life.

But every morning I wake up and I am in love with Waduda, who surely saved my life.

The sun is shining outside, a new day……

January 6th we were supposed to fly to India for our annual visit to the Osho Resort. Waduda has been booking some of her groups there. Unfortunately now we are not able to do our annual visit for the very first time and had to cancel all of our tickets. Much love to all of our friends there. But the year is not over…hope to see you again December 2010 for the 21st anniversary of Osho’s death. Remember: Oshos’s numbers always ran with sevens, not with tens (as the medium said)!

So what did I get out of this? The understanding, that our sangha is not confined to one physical place….that facebook is a great medium for feeling the presence of all of our love, when needed. Thank you Mr. Zuckerberg. And to know and feel, that I am alive and healthy again for further adventures and the knowledge that so many people love me from their hearts. Thanks to you all!