The last weekend in January,
I took a few days of vacation to run the Arizona Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon in
Tempe, Arizona. I raised several hundred dollars for St. Jude’s Childhood
Cancer research. My time was a bit slower than my normal, but I figured maybe I
was just a bit off from having flown in the day before.
The second weekend in April,
I drove down to Kansas City and finished the Garmin Land of Oz Half Marathon.
By the end, I was dragging. I finished nearly a half an hour off of my best
time. I’ve finished 15 Half Marathons, 13.1 mile races, and one Marathon, 26.2
miles, over the past 5 years. Six in the calendar year, when I finished the
race in April. Though, I wasn’t exactly setting land-speed records, I thought I
was in pretty good cardio-vascular shape.
When I go to camp, in July, I
take some time to run. This year, I tried. I could run for a bit, but mostly
had to walk. I thought I had bronchitis, which I probably did. My doctor called
in a prescription for anti-biotics and soon my cough went away.
A few days after I returned
to Des Moines from camp, we flew to Orlando, to Universal Studios, for a family
vacation. We walked all over the parks. Probably six miles a day. I had to rest
every now and then, but we rode just about every ride, including going on some
of those “People with Heart Problems are discouraged from riding this ride”
roller coasters multiple times in row. Yes, I am a roller coaster fan. The
faster and more time spent upside down the better!
We went to Volcano Bay,
Universal Studios waterpark, and of course, I had to go on the fastest, most
intense water slide, right away. Over 200 steps up and a straight vertical drop
for a couple of seconds. You reach the bottom pool in seven seconds. I had to
stop and rest to catch my breath about ¾ of the way up the stairs, each of the
five times that I climbed them. Since, I’ve been running long distances, I have
gotten fairly used to never being tired unless I’ve been doing something fairly
intense. I was a surprised at being tired.
We were back in Des Moines
for a few days and then we flew to North Carolina for my wife’s family’s
reunion. With a brother in Japan and nephews in France and Switzerland as well
as in a couple of different US states, it isn’t often that they’re all together.
As it is, one of the French nephews couldn’t attend.
One of the things one does in
the mountains is hike. When we went hiking, I found myself winded pretty
easily. I couldn’t keep up. I started to suspect that a medicine that I had
been taking for a while might be preventing my heart from working as fast as it
needed to work. I didn’t feel bad, just tired, and I was fine after I slowed
down. I called to set an appointment to meet with my doctor about it after I
got back. The appointment was a couple of weeks out.
We got back to Des Moines in
time for the state fair. I went three times. Each time, I was tired pretty
easily walking around. I never went up the hill this year. On the way back to
the car, the second time I went, I had to stop several times to catch my
breath. Again, after resting a bit,
things seemed okay. That night I was winded walking up a flight of stairs at
home.
Now, I was quite concerned.
It’s scary to not be able to breathe.
I didn’t want to wait for my
scheduled doctor’s appointment, the next day. I called and asked to see
whomever was available. I got in with a different doctor that afternoon.
My EKG was normal. My heart
sounded normal. My blood pressure was slightly up, but not high. My cholesterol
was good. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but said, “If this is only
happening when your system is under stress, we should get a stress test. It
might be something electrical. The stress test would show that.” The first
available stress test was nearly a week out on Wednesday.
The next day, we went to the
fair again, on our 25th wedding anniversary, we went to see our
favorite comedian perform. Again, I had to stop several times on the way back
to the car. It felt like I was under water too long. But again, after resting a
bit, things seemed okay.
The day before the stress test,
I drove three other local Jewish professionals to Cedar Rapids, over 2 hours
each way, for our Iowa Jewish Professionals meeting.
The next day, Wednesday, I
took my stress test.
They started off giving me an
EKG, which was again clear. They did an Echocardiogram as well, which looked
good. Then they had me get on the treadmill. It was fairly clear fairly quickly
that something was wrong. My heart rate needed to get up to 90% of my max, but
well short of that my EKG started to get wonky. They stopped the test and had
me lay down to do another Echocardiogram. A few minutes later, I was downstairs
in the cardiologist’s office.
They did another EKG then,
which came back normal.
A few minutes after that, the
doctor came in to see me:
I
think it fairly certain that you have a blockage and I’m fairly certain that
it’s in a pretty bad location. You need an angiogram. They’ll inject dye into
your veins and that will show them where the blockage is. My guess is that
you’ll need a stent and probably will have to stay overnight at the hospital.
Normally, I’d ask you which doctor and which hospital you want, but you’re
lucky. You get to have the first available appointment! As long as your EKG
stays normal, you can go home tonight, but if you feel like you have felt when
you’ve been short of breath, don’t call your wife or me, call 911.
On Thursday morning, I went
downtown for the angiogram. They explained what they were going to do and all
the risks. If they found something, which they anticipated, they would put in a
stent if they thought that would work. Otherwise, if things were bad, they’d
stop and we’d reassess for treatment another day. Then the nurse put in the IV
line. They wheeled me into the OR and I was out like a light.
I woke up a while later and
the doctor came in to see us. “We had to stop. You have several major
blockages. You need bypass surgery.” Another doctor told me that one of the blockages
is normally discovered by the forensic pathologist and that I was extremely
lucky.
They weren’t going to let me
go anywhere. Rather quickly, I was given a room and put on a blood thinner.
They scheduled the surgery for Monday, an expected Triple Bypass, but told me
that if anything happened in the interim, I’d be going to surgery right away.
My cardiologist came in and
told me that I’d had this condition to a pretty severe degree for a very long
time. My heart had created natural bypasses, collaterals, veins that went
around the blockages. Those were what was enabling my heart to perform okay on
a resting EKG. They just weren’t providing enough blood flow to allow my heart
to do anything more than that at this point, because blood flow was so limited.
That Saturday, I walked a
little in the hallway with my IV pole in tow. I could walk about 100 feet
before I was very tired. I was afraid that I would need the surgery right away;
that I wasn’t even going to make it to Monday. But I did.
People kept asking me if I
was afraid about the surgery. I really wasn’t. I had been afraid all of those times
when I couldn’t breathe. I was upset that I had made my family stress out. When
I started running in early 2015, I did so because I wanted to prevent exactly
this sort of thing. I wanted to get myself healthy and thought I had done a
pretty good job of it, shedding weight and getting my heart in shape. I didn’t
know that by that point, most, if not almost all, of the damage was already
done.
I just kept thinking of all
of the times, running dozens upon dozens of examples through my mind, when the
worst could have happened. I thought about how miraculous it is, in fact, that
it didn’t happen, all things considered. How many times had I gone on long
runs? How many trips had I been on? Several times to Israel. Long drives in the
car by myself? Those times when I was running by myself on the sports’ fields
at camp while everyone else was at lunch. No one else around for an hour. And
on and on.
No, I wasn’t afraid of the
surgery so much as relieved for having made it to surgery and hopeful that it
would be fixed. One doctor told me that with decent blood flow to my heart, I
would likely find myself able to do far better at my running than I had before.
I was hopeful.
I ended up having Quadruple
Bypass surgery, which they tell me, went extremely well.
Recovery isn’t and hasn’t
been easy. I have been able to get moving a little easier than most people
would. The rest of me was in pretty good shape. But coughing and laughing hurt
for a while. Sneezing, hurt a lot. And a week after surgery, when my kids
decided to play some funny videos on their phones and were laughing, it hurt
when I joined in. I had to ask them to stop making me laugh and I love to
laugh.
It’s was especially hard for
me not to be able to do all of the things I would like to do with my family and
friends over the past few weeks. No, I am not going to be running the Des
Moines Half Marathon again this month. I deferred my entry to next October.
It’s also been difficult for me to not be able to be there for you as rabbi as
much and in the ways that I would have liked since this began. Being tired
while recovering is a real thing.
What has made it all better
for me is the tremendous amount of support that my family and I have received.
So many people have reached out in concern. Again, your support has meant a
great deal. Thank you.
Today, Yom Kippur, it is said
that we Jews rehearse our death. We contemplate what will happen when the end
comes. What will be accrued to our benefit? What to our detriment? Have we had
a positive impact on people’s lives? Can we do better? If we heard eulogies
about us, what would they say?
Over the past couple of
months, I have had the opportunity to hear some of these things about me. Thank
you for all of your beautiful sentiments, heartfelt thanks and concerns, and
wishes for a full and speedy recovery.
I have also had ample
opportunity to imagine not being here today. To not have been here, to not have
experienced so many wonderful things over the years, to not have been able to
be there to help others either. It’s been quite a time of Cheshbon Nefesh, of
an accounting of the soul.
This morning, we read, “Atem
Nitzavim hayom kul’chem lifnei Adonai Eloheichem,” “You stand this day, all of
you, before Adonai your God.” It is a passage that reminds us that today, we
should humble ourselves, recalling the dictum of the rabbis, “Da lifnei mi atah
omeid,” “Know before whom you stand.” Think about what it means to be where you
are. For me, this is not just about before whom, but how and why.
Why are we here today? What
has our journey been to reach this place? Thinking not only of physical
movement, but of thoughts and feelings. Am I appreciative? Do I want things to
change? Am I willing to do what is necessary to bring about the changes that I
would like to see? In my life, what do I stand for? How did I arrive here at
this moment? Would I like to be in a different place physically, spiritually,
mentally?
This afternoon, during our Healing
service, I will come up to stand before the open ark thanking God for allowing
me to reach this day, for the many miracles, far too many to count, that have enabled
it to come to pass, for the skill of my healthcare providers, for loving family
and friends who lifted my spirits and may well have given me a lift in their
cars to go out as well, and for all of those whose thoughts and prayers helped
bring me healing of spirit as well as body. It will be all the more meaningful
a service this year and every year going forward for me.
I have come to realize that every
moment is one deserving a Shehecheyanu:
“Baruch atah,
Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu, v'kiy'manu, v'higiyanu
laz'man hazeh.”
“Blessed are you, Adonai, our
God, Ruler of the Universe, for keeping us alive, sustaining us, and enabling
us to reach this moment.”
L’shanah Tovah tikateivu
v’teihateimu.
May we all be inscribed and
sealed in the book of life for a good and healthy new year.
