It has been over one year. And despite all that has occurred in that year, I am deeply grateful! My story:
On May 20, 2019, I woke up struggling to breathe. My heart was racing, and I could not take a breath that satisfied my need for oxygen. Debra, my wife, noticed my struggle, and asked if she should call 911, and I said “no, just get me to ER”. And she did, fast! I’ve never appreciated her driving capabilities as much as I did that morning!
My visit to ER turned into a journey through a healthcare system in which I had been an executive for 23 years, retired 4 years earlier. For the first time in my life, I was completely in the care of people with whom I had been in a working relationship for decades…a pretty dramatic way of testing the system! A diagnosis of a serious, life-threatening pulmonary embolism, a dose of heparin, a trip to the cardiac cath lab for TPA, a night in ICU, and three days in med/surg gave me plenty of time for reflection. I am a very lucky guy! And for the past year, I have made many changes. I now have a nutritional coach, changed what I eat based on a series of lab tests that revealed many food sensitivities, go to the gym to work out (temporarily suspended due to COVID-19), walk 2 miles every day, and spend more time that is “my time”, focused on doing the things that I have been putting off for years, expecting that “someday” would magically arrive. “Someday” is now!”
I am grateful for the wonderful healthcare professionals who saved my life, and who are now very busy dealing with the pandemic. I am grateful for family and friends who have offered me their love and support this past year. And I am grateful that I am back, more fit, more energized and more in love with life. I am consulting again, honing my photography skills, and writing more than ever before. Given all that has occurred, literally everything I do today, I do because I want to! I should have done that years earlier! Life is good!