It was mid-March and the last day of our winter in Florida. Since my retirement, my wife and I have become snowbirds, spending from Christmas until early Spring in Florida with her daughter and son-in-law, also visiting her adult grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
For many, spending that much time with relatives would be an intolerable strain, but not so for us. My wife and her daughter are best friends who never tire of each other’s company. And the entire family has welcomed me with more than open arms.
So on that last day of our winter sojourn, the men in the family went on a final adventure—go-karting. Not the little put-around karts you might find at an amusement park but racing at one of the twisty indoor karting tracks where karts can get up to 50 mph—and seem a lot faster.
If you’ve never attempted one of the fast-track karting events, you likely can’t fathom how physically exerting karting is. After just a few laps, your chest and arm muscles ache, and you’re breathing hard.
Despite my regular motorcycle adventures, I was a bit rusty since I hadn’t gone karting since before the pandemic. But before that, I’d regularly led groups of fellow lawyers at bar association meetings to nearby karting tracks.
Normally, my karting limit is three eight-minute heat races, but that day we did five. I must say, despite giving away 50 pounds and 40 years, I turned in the fastest lap on the second heat. But by the final two heats, fatigue had taken the racer’s edge from my speed.
Afterward, like fishermen swapping tales about the one that got away, we had a great time dissecting our races. Lots of bragging about racing lines, passes, and spins. Then we headed to the farewell family dinner where everyone was gathering. In reality, I was closer to a farewell than I expected.
As we drove along, I began having chest pain. It wasn’t too worrisome because I thought it likely that I’d strained a muscle. I’ve done that before while karting. And by the time we reached the restaurant, the pain had subsided.
But the next morning, the pain was back. And while not excruciating, it was worse than the night before. I still thought it was likely a muscle injury, but swallowing some of my stubbornness, I went to the emergency room.
At the registration desk, the intake nurse called into his phone. It had the familiarity of a fast-food worker shouting out, “That’s a Number 1 with sweet tea!” (We were in the south, after all.) He reported, “71-year-old male with complaint of chest pain.”
Ooooooh. Suddenly, things didn’t sound quite so innocuous.
I was taken back to a hospital room. For only the second time in my life, I was attached to an IV. Within 30 minutes, a nurse came back with initial test results: My troponin levels were conclusive. I suffered a heart attack. Increasing enzyme levels confirmed the initial finding.
A couple of hours later, I was in the back of an ambulance headed toward another hospital where a heart catheterization could be performed. My only other ambulance ride had been from a sports field where my softball career ended with a rocket line-drive off a $500 bat that hit my kneecap before I could react.
But this was a new experience for me. I spent hours on a gurney with my backside exposed in those stylish hospital gowns as nurses and techs performed all types of tests. Then there was the joy of having my wrist shaved for insertion of catheterization devise—and shaving a more embarrassing place to be available as a backup in case the vein in my arm wasn’t sufficient.
Finally, I was rolled into the operating room. I was told I’d be given the same type of mild anesthesia used in colonoscopies. If I was, it had no effect. I was completely awake for the entire procedure.
There was one good thing about the process. Since I was wide awake, I didn’t have to nervously wait back in the recovery room for the doctor to come see me. He just told me right there. The heart attack had been caused by a small vessel. There was no need for stents or further procedures.
That was the very good news. The issue could be taken care of with meds, which I’ll have to take for at least a year. But the heart attack wasn’t without damage. Cardiac rehab and regular trips to a cardiologist were in my future.
That night, I sat sleepless in my hospital room. Every hour or so, nurses came into the room to check my vital signs and the clear plastic brace and bandages over the place in my wrist where the catheter had been inserted.
They were friendly and professional, except for the nurse who responded every time I hit the call button because I needed to pee. I didn’t quite catch her name, but it may have been Ratchet. Peeing bedside with someone in attendance was also a new experience—or at least one I hadn’t experienced since I was maybe three years old.
Throughout that night—and often since—I’ve reflected on the impact of that event. Life goes on in its mundane normality. Then, in an instant, everything changes. We all intellectually know about our own mortality. But there’s a difference between having an intellectual knowledge that we’ll eventually die and having death in the room with us like a Bergman film—or a Monte Python film, if you prefer.
Singer-songwriter Marc Cohn put his near-death experience with an armed robber whose gun misfired into a song. He pondered: “Maybe life is curious to see what you would do with the gift of being left alive.” Maybe so.
The next day, I was released from the hospital and returned to where my wife and I were staying. The following morning, I was up early. I walked outside and gazed across the St. John’s River where the sun had recently risen. A bald eagle swooped across the water, then perched on the roof of the boathouse at the end of the pier. He sat majestically, unblinking, seeming to peer at me.
I stood on the deck, looking out at him for long minutes. I could hear the rollers coming on shore and smell the salt water. I heard a fish crow call, then a distant laughing gull. Over the outstretched arms of a nearby live oak, a small flock of picturesque black-and-white swallow-tailed kites glided directly overhead.
I sipped my cup of coffee (decaf, of course) and took it all in. It was one of those small moments in life that we too often let slide by without notice.
For me, it was a new world—one with which I’m still struggling, not so much physically as emotionally. I always knew there would be an end. But now it’s closer, more finite, almost tactile.
I’m trying to move forward with as much positivity as I can muster but with the reality a heart attack brings. I’m still making plans for future travels, just with a little more urgency. And putting things off is now something in my past.
Taylor Swift sings, “Everything will be alright if we just keep dancing like we’re 22.” Having reached my 70s, and having experienced a heart attack, it’s easy to see the fallacy in her words. But dammit, we’ve got to keep dancing as best we can—until the curtain finally drops.
