August 13, 2019
My sudden cardiac arrest left me feeling very betrayed by my body and, specifically, my heart. I wondered how it was possible that a healthy guy like me who competed in marathons, had healthy-normal cholesterol levels, had a high VO2 Max and a normal BMI of 22, ate veggies and fruits at each meal, and didn’t smoke could have a left anterior descending cardiac artery 90% occluded. Worse, just 300 metres from the finish line of a half-marathon I was racing with my daughter, my heart went into ventricular fibrillation when its demands for oxygen weren’t being met by that artery and I dropped to the ground, VSA. As for my daughter, she’d already beat me to the finish line and then spent the next 30 minutes looking for me with her mom. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
The Korean Soldiers’ Study, which started in 1951, before I was born, involved doing autopsies on 200 American soldiers who had died in the Korean War, closely examining their cardiac arteries and hearts. None of these 200 men had a prior diagnosis of heart disease or any heart trouble. These soldiers were mostly young men; their average age was only 22 years. Yet, in 77% of these young hearts, some evidence of atherosclerosis or “hardening of the arteries” was found and for 5% this narrowing blocked 90% or more of the cardiac artery involved.
I remember my dad cooking us kids our fried baloney and egg breakfasts, in butter of course, and the Velveeta cheese sandwiches for lunch every school day, and getting up early to catch the milkman so I could drink the cream from the top of the milk bottle before my siblings. I won’t even talk about my dietary and lifestyle choices during my teenage and university years except to say that any thoughts about their implications on my future health were fleeting and quickly forgotten. So perhaps my coronary artery disease had already progressed to the point of no return by the time I discovered running and started consciously managing my diet and health better in my mid-30s, about the time my daughter was born.
So perhaps I betrayed my heart, not it me. Perhaps it’s time to forgive myself.