State of the Heart – 2 years Ago
Two years ago today I felt a little off. I did some gardening, kissed my kids as they went to a sleepover at a friends house and had a nice dinner with my wife. I started feeling a little chest pain – right side, like heart burn or a stomach ailment – but otherwise okay. Linda went to bed, I went to play video games, for the life of me I can’t remember what game it was. After an hour or so I woke Linda up, the pain was worse, but it still felt stomach related so she authorized me a second pill (Prilosec) and went back to sleep. I took a shower to help defer the discomfort and went back downstairs where – unbelievably to me now – I had a cigarette.
After about another hour I was back upstairs, the pain a little worse and laid down next to Linda. Without knowing it, I began to writhe. She woke up and we agreed to go to the Emergency Room to see what was wrong with my stomach (I have a history of bowel and stomach problems). We went to the closer ER – the one that isn’t a Heart Hospital. Once there they whisked me right to a machine, hooked me up and I got to watch a doctor, a nurse and my wife-nurses’ faces all fall at the same time. Like a cartoon, jaws dropping and going clunk – clunk – clunk to the floor. Its always bad when the hospital staff then begins gesturing over everyone else that works there and their jaws go clunk too. Linda got teary and the doctor said, very earnestly, blah-blah-blah. The next thing I knew I felt GREAT! Morphene is GREAT! And I got to take a really fun ride in the back of an ambulance, which was GREAT! They even played the siren! Only problem was, they looked kinda worried. Soon I was being wheeled really fast down twisty turny halls and into a bright room where “Funky Town” was playing loudly on the speakers. A nice doctor leaned close and said blah-blah-blah and then darkness.
I woke up with a bad headache and feeling nauseous. This might not have been the first time I woke up but I remember being told at this time that I’d had a really bad heart attack, I was scheduled for open-heart surgery, but for now I was stable because part of my leg wiring was in my heart and helping it work. My parents came to visit and then my kids walked in AT THE WORST TIME POSSIBLE! I had another heart attack, right then. I was wheel away and I’ve been told my surgeon was wonderful with my kids.
The next time I woke up I was in absolute hell. My chest had been sawed open and what they found in there, they fixed. It took a long time to recover and I was blessed with help and good wishes from most of the video game community. From Penny-Arcade, to Joystiq, Destructoid, the ESRB, Disney.com, and fans like you.
Hug your children and remember that heart problems might not manifest the way they do on warning videos. Your symptoms might be very different than expected. You might not even be fat, or lazy, or any of those things. You too young to say goodbye to such a perfect wife and two little children (7, 5 at them time) and too you yourself to leave this Earth while listening to “Funky Town.”
My wife and kids call this bizarre anniversary “Life Day.” We try and keep it a happy day. Because it is.
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:49 am
Thanks again for sharing your story. I’m glad you’re still around to share your GamerDad love, and selfishly enough I hope the site is still around in a few years when I’ve got my own family to watch out for.
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
GamerDad, congrats on another “Life Day.” I lost my father (59) this March to a sudden heart attack and I am very thankful that your wife and children have you around to laugh, cry, and most importantly beat you in any number of games as they grow up.
Thanks for sharing your story and I hope all of us gaming-dads take care of ourselves in order to continue to share our passions, hobbies, and lives with our families.
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:38 am
Aye. Life is too short as it is and we never know whats around the corner.
While I didn’t have anything as serious as you, about 18months ago I was sat in work, felt a bit spaced out and next thing I know I’m waking up on the floor, surrounded by staff, drenched to the skin, dizzy and vomiting. The paramedic said my heart had slowed almost to a stop and it continued to do that on and off for a few hours. I spent the next week in a Cardio Thoracic hospital, scared everyone to death but was pretty much ok. Just some strange fainting thing thats happened to a lesser extent maybe a dozen times since. No warnings at all and they’ve not got to the bottom of it (although I suspect a wisdom tooth infection) .
A pleasant, painless and quick enough way to go but I’d much rather not go just yet. My wife and son would kill me.
Glad you’ve recovered.
September 3rd, 2009 at 6:49 pm
It is your “Life Day” and we are so happy you are here. The kids and I are so lucky to still have you. Life is so precious, your heart attack and surgery made us realize that. Thank you for working so hard to make it and stay with us. We love you
September 3rd, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Happy Life Day, GamerDad, and may you have many more!
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Thanks all.
There might be nowhere or no way to explain this but I feel the need to commit it to “paper” somewhere. First of all, I mean no disrespect to any deaths in your families and you have my condolences. Here’s the weird thing … my experience was horrible and painful but far worse on everyone around me. Especially at the beginning. I learned I don’t fear death. At all. Not a bit. This is mostly because I didn’t have time to fear it, but even after the initial shocks, it wasn’t fear I felt. I feared leaving my kids with a dad sized hole in their lives and my wife with a giant plate of irony (her dad died of a heart attack when she was 6, Maggie was 7 at the time of my episode).
In fact, I still have a hard time relating to it. I sometimes forget it happened, but daily I’m reminded by the handful of pills and the giant “zipper” scar on my chest. At times I feel like it’s the greatest excuse ever – what? Huh? Oh, sorry I let you down back then… see I almost died and it messed me up a bit. It taught me a lot about friends, family (who stands, who ducks), and work – some editors have been extra kind (WhatTheyPlay, Disney), some were total assholes (CrispyGamer, CommonSense Media). I had the tremendous experience of learning how much I mean to gaming and how people like Penny-Arcade and Joystiq mobilized to help me. I got donations from the ECA; ESRB and even a few celebrities who want to be anonymous.
The weirdest thing is when I read anything maudlin about death. I have sympathy for people with cancer but a moronic voice in my head bitterly says: “Yeah, but you have some warning. You get some closure.” I hear comercials where a 65 year old bemoans his heart attack and I think “I was 36! Screw you!” When I see another ‘survivor’ memoir I think “big whoop.” It’s very weird being on the other side of the tragedy wall. Realizing that the shit you’ve been through, the near miss, the pain puts you in a league of suffering that used to make you feel super-empathetic. I still feel empathy, but it’s changed. I can’t really describe how or what that means.
I’m not a bad person but I find stories about people dying less interesting not because they bother me – they just seem like less of a big deal. Death – I came close – is not so scary really. I can’t explain why I KNOW that to be true. It doesn’t scare me that it’s likely I won’t live a super-long life. That my heart might fail – or something else might happen. It just doesn’t. Part of this is just me. I have an accepting nature and even though I fought constantly about pain management I’m a lamb when it comes to doctors doing stuff. Kind of like when my wife had our babies. I was a nervous wreck until we got to the hospital. Once there, THEY were in charge and I was there to help Linda. That’s relaxing.
Pain scares me, however. Suffering scares me. I have a few memories that still make my body tense up painfully.
This didn’t bring me closer to God or some other heavenly power. It let me make peace with oblivion and it introduced me to suffering and my own breaking points and it made my wife and my relationship super strong but the main thing this event did for me – the most dramatic thing – is that it helped me finally quit cigarettes.
It’s weird. Quadruple Bypass is a major, major surgery but it’s common enough to feel almost normal. It’s kind of like how your wife gets pregnant and you have a baby and you feel like the clouds parted and the sun is shining directly on the magic of that moment – and then you remember that this miracle is one of the most common things on the planet Earth.
Oh, as an aside, if you want to get a feel for a little bit of this stuff – watch The Wrestler. He has my surgery and the scene where he takes his first shower and removes the bandage for the first time are … uncomfortably accurate. That scar. The image of what created it. It’s a real feeling of violation. I’m wincing right now.
I’ve met so many survivors and so many of them went right back to their hamburgers and smokes. I don’t get that. It’s like nothing can faze them. Maybe it’s too hard to think about it. It is really hard to think about it, I’ll grant that, but my biggest problem was my non-belief in fatalism.
I was having a rough time. Suffering from mild depression, my appendix burst the year before, extended family strife, estrangement and my career was floundering a bit. I was unmoored and unsuccessful at quitting smoking and being a stay-at-home dad trying to keep a small activist business running was burning me out.
Then my heart stopped.
Random.
Cause of genetics more than anything else.
A bolt out of the blue
My biggest problem was dealing with how freaking surreal that was. I confess in the hospital, in great pain, I whined to Linda one morning: “What’s next? Huh? What horrible thing is going to happen next?”
“Penis Cancer,” she deadpanned.
I love her so much.
September 4th, 2009 at 6:53 am
I was having flash backs on the events 2 years ago. I don’t know how we all got through it, especially you and the kids. It was a trying time, definitely trying. But we did it, we are all here and healthy and safe. We will have other events come up and I know we will get through it, we’re Bubs!
Humor is part of the process. Love and respect and empathy round it out.
I love you too