How I Think Differently Since My Heart Attack

“How do you think differently since your heart attack?”

Someone recently asked me this. I wasn’t ready to respond immediately with anything intelligible. 

But I can now offer a few reflections.

First, I’m still somewhat in shock that I actually had a heart attack and now sport four stents and take daily heart medicine.

I am fit. I’ve eaten responsibly. No breads. Nothing fried. Few added sugars. No red meat. I maintain 145 lbs. I bicycle almost daily and completed a vigorous 6-day, 250-mile bike tour the day before my heart attack. How and why did this happen to me?

Such questions linger in spite of cardiologists in NYC and Indy telling me it was 100% genetic. Still puzzled, I live the question without necessarily having to have a resolution.

Second, I am more tuned in to my body’s functions and signals. I pay attention to core body aches, pains, and changes. Since I thought a heart attack was just indigestion, I am now alert to every minor blip. I am also working to let each one go and move on. “Noted,” I say to myself, “Now let it go.”

I also think about body parts and systems interacting and about what I can do to help it all continue to function well together as I age. If we are, in fact, “fearfully and wonderfully made,” why should I not cooperate with and promote that in every conscious, actionable way as long as I am able?

Third, I think more about the fragility and preciousness of life and about aging in relationship to loved ones, neighbors, community and legacy.

“Nothing promotes growth like the prospect of a deadline,” M. Scott Peck, MD, used to say. My heart attack brought the prospect of death near. Successful heart catheterizations and stents offer the prospect of time for resolutions, reconciliations, development, psychic growth, adventures, and breakthroughs.

I don’t know how much time I have—and neither do you! But this awakening event is helping me start to let go of trivialities and smallness and reach for things that matter most to me and to life.

Fourth, I have intensified my thinking about “eternity.” Contrary to what was pounded into me in church as a child and young adult, I do not obsess about where I will “spend eternity.” Heaven, hell, whatever happens at death, today is what matters—and the people I’m given to know, interact with and impact here and now. 

You likely know I am a seminary-educated (M.Div., D.Min.), evangelically-oriented minister (not to be mistaken for the blasphemy of political Evangelicalism). Still, heaven, to me, is acting responsibly now in creative stewardship of all I’ve been given—recognizing humanness, cultivating relationships, being a wounded healer, challenging systemic injustices, offering who I am and what I have. In contrast, hell is just serving myself and quelling my fears at others’ expense. 

If heaven and hell are a time and places, so be it. But today, here, now, these people and life-challenging situations (to borrow from Tolstoy)—with these life and the future hang in the balance.

With gratitude for good health prospects going forward and aware of life’s fragility and preciousness, the challenge of being a good neighbor draws me forward.

Post Heart Attack

Back Home Again in Indiana

One week removed from a heart attack in NYC, I’m glad to be back in the heartland.

I feel good! No pain. Riding my bike a bit. Attempting to move toward normal activity. But high energy yields almost immediately to “yeah, I need to slow down a bit, here.” Lots to do and catch up on with a low threshold of stamina for the time being. 

I continue to shake my head in disbelief that this happened. As fit and careful in eating as I am, why did this happen to me now? It’s still just sinking in that I’ll be addressing this little wrinkle in reality for the rest of my life. There's a bit of anger as I reckon with this. There's also quite a bit of gratitude and wonder.

Diet, physical exercise, lifestyle guardrails, and reasonable precautions are to be considered for a vigorous future. But I see creative work, more cycling adventures and my hope to run a marathon before age 70 as absolutely doable.

For now, though, I’ll settle to just walk and bike around our Near Eastside neighborhoods a bit.

Genetic footnote: the cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan attributes my heart attack mostly to genes. Given my physical condition, activity level, cholesterol counts, diet, and lack of other contributing factors, he encouraged me to fully explore family history and the role genetics is playing. So, that will be an interesting adventure in and of itself!

Don't write me off or discount my rehabbing capabilities. There's a lot more to come!

Sprung Out!

I’m out! Of Lenox Hill Hospital, that is.

After two heart catheterizations and sporting four cool stents in my heart, I walked out onto 77th Street on Thursday grateful to be alive and looking forward to a new lease on life.

I feel good. Weak, but good. Good enough to walk around a little near our Chelsea lodging Thursday evening.

I boldly desecrated Madison Square Garden with my Pacers’ “Why Not Indiana?” shirt. We ate the best tacos in NYC while listening to punk rock band Big Girl play outside MSG and Penn Station. It seemed like a fitting celebration.

I’m grateful for a timely intervention and caring staff at Lenox Hill Hospital. Lots of memorable encounters.

I’m grateful to Jodi for flying to Manhattan to support me. She’s now my “don’t you dare do that!” and “here’s what you need to eat instead” guide. Ha!

I’m grateful, also, for your kind comments, thoughts & prayers and encouragement. Thank you!

Here’s some of what I’m mulling over:

• Take nothing for granted.
• Don’t hesitate to ask for help.
• Cooperate with those who—believe it or not—know better than you about some things.
• Be kind to those who are sincerely trying to help you.
• Trust the process.
• Hope always.

Heart Attack in Manhattan

Seriously.

After seven days of vigorous trail riding and feeling better than ever, the day after finishing our 250-mile bike ride I have a heart attack.

On Sunday I’m climbing hills along the Hudson River. On Monday I’m trying to get rid of what feels like indigestion with chest pain. I try riding my bike in Central Park. No relief. I pedal a bit along the Empire State Trail in the city. No help.

I finally pedal to a med check clinic and wait an hour to be seen by a doctor. After reading the electrocardiogram (EKG), the physician sends me to an available cardiologist.

I ride the subway to Greenwich Village, where the cardiologist encourages me to go to a nearby hospital emergency room. So, I walk four blocks to the hospital.

At the ER, I am seen immediately and after a quick EKG, I'm taken urgently to an exam room that immediately fills with smart, earnest, serious-looking medical staff.

“You’re having a heart attack” the attending physician says. Her look of concern somehow relaxes me. I'm hooked up to monitoring machines and given drugs through IVs in each arm.

Next thing I know I’m in an ambulance being whisked uptown to Lenox Hill Hospital where I am rolled into an operating room and the heart catheterization began.

Ninety minutes later I’m in a CCU room sporting two heart stents, connected to beeping monitors and being attended to ‘round the clock.

Through all this traumatic whirlwind, I am incredibly calm--even chatting with the surgeon mid procedure about BBQ in Kansas City, which is where she's from and where I attended graduate school.

Post-op I feel fine—much better than I did on Monday. No chest pain.

Jodi graciously sets aside her work and flies to NYC to be with me in my situation. She offers incredible support.

The surgeon schedules me for a second heart cath and stent on what is known as “the widow maker” artery (70% blocked). She installs two more stents as we talk more about Kansas City and BBQ.

With four stents successfully installed in my heart, I begin to appeal to be discharged and be granted permission to fly home to Indianapolis. I am discharged on Thursday and fly home on Sunday.

I’m both grateful and puzzled. None of this makes sense. It is, to me, illogical. But there it is. The conclusion of this cycling event is the most unusual of all.

Adventure awaits—just maybe not the one we have imagined.

Riding the Near Eastside

I get to share two things I love—bicycling and my neighborhood

It gives me joy to guide a weekly bicycle ride through our Near Eastside parks and neighborhoods.

It combines my love for cycling with my love for this urban community—with all its diverse wonder and weirdness.

I actually have the opportunity to pedal to and through our neighborhoods with friends on a routine basis and reveal a bit of our diverse community assets, historic places, hidden gems, emerging stories, and developing changes.

I’ve been kicking around the Near Eastside since 1987 and every time we ride through the area, I experience something I’ve not before noticed. It’s a way of tuning in and focusing on small things as well as taking in a bigger picture. Our community keeps teaching me. My appreciation and concern grows.

Our routes vary each week as we focus on different aspects of the Near Eastside: schools, churches, taverns, commercial life, nonprofit impact, distinct housing architecture, city parks, social dynamics, notable trees, community gardens, pocket parks, interesting yard art, porch life, distinct neighborhoods, and the histories and stories that abound.

I’m grateful for this community and the sense of place I’ve come to share in it. I enjoy gliding through the extent of it weekly and sharing it with others.

Living Where We Lead

Local-living leaders hold significant value

I put my support—hands down—behind neighbors who live in the community and dare to try to lead, however haltingly, over professionals who serve the community but choose to live elsewhere.

I’ve done both. The difference is vast.

I used to bristle when told I needed to live in the community where I was appointed to lead. I no longer bristle. I get it—finally.

Living where we lead is a basic Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) principle and practice of John McKnight that is often overlooked by those aspiring to lead in community service, community development, faith communities, and public service.

It is also too frequently discounted in recruiting and maintaining nonprofit Boards of Directors made up of non-resident members—who then hire and bless non-resident leaders.

Too many professional leaders have too little connection to organic community life. A lot of grass roots value and perspective can be overlooked or devalued and subtle noblesse oblige often creeps into routine decision-making.

Living distantly as professional leaders, we are not only hamstrung in our perspectives and decision making, we often cannot even recognize the power of what we don’t know—to everyone’s detriment.

Local living matters—incredibly. 

I will write more about this later, but this is an opening salvo, challenge, and invitation from a 37-year nonprofit executive director of four major local nonprofits. 

If you want to lead with organic legitimacy, then live where you lead. It’s just that basic. It’s just that important.

Letting Go, Not Letting Go

Twelve convictions which I vigilantly hold on to--and seek to creatively express

I read a lot about "letting go." It's an essential part of healthy emotional and spiritual growth. Franciscan Richard Rohr and Henri Nouwen teach this in their writings, which have significantly helped me thus far on my journey.

A lot of spiritual guides laud "letting go." The principle is that only by letting go of something lesser or false can we embrace what is greater. We say “no” to what sabotages and diminishes so we can say “yes” to life and wholeness.

I buy that--and practice it. I've done--and continue to do--a lot of letting go: regrets, hurts, harm, violence, guilt, shame, grievances, grudges, betrayals, childish notions, naivetés, presumptions, prejudices, ideologically-based assumptions, institutionalism, etc. I have no doubt I will continue to undergo what my friend Morris Weigelt calls “blessed subtraction.”

At the same time, I am convinced there are some things of which those of us who profess a call to responsible stewardship of life cannot or should not let go.

Here are twelve convictions of which I have not let go--nor plan to, unless I am mightily persuaded otherwise. In fact, instead of letting go of these, I am drawn to pursue their change or distinction as part of a creative stewardship of the capacities, relationships and opportunities I am given. Instead of resignation into carelessness, release into a nebulous "it's beyond us" activity, or yielding to collectively coercive human agendas (in the name of God or a government's will), I consider a vigilant wrestling with these challenges as part of "working out my salvation with fear and trembling" in this world in this time.

1. I'm not letting go of my God-given ability to make choices about my life, or my ability to choose my responses to things beyond my control that directly and indirectly impact my life.

2. I'm not letting go of what I have learned and continue to discover through diligent study, diverse experience, and contemplative living.

3. I'm not letting go of my sense that working daily with purpose, self-discipline, perseverance and joy is as critical to spiritual vitality as any sabbatical breakthrough or mountaintop experience.

4. I'm not letting go of my sense that all authority needs to be fairly questioned and validated through its reckoning with truth and its service to--and empowerment of--all within its range of margin-seeking and accountability.

5. I'm not letting go of my right to dissent and talk back to those who would presume to "tell it like it is" or try to define reality through their use of power, control, or influence.

6. I'm not letting go of my sense that being faithful to loved ones, friends and vulnerable neighbors is more important than doing what seems expedient for my professional or personal advancement.

7. I’m not letting go of my sense that vigilance against dogmatism and legalism of every sort is necessary for personal spiritual and emotional health, and to check the encroachment of these distortions of reality purveyed through ideologies and institutions.

8. I'm not letting go of my sense that the biblical call to compassion and justice for the poor--not as left-over charity but as a system-challenging and economic and social order-redeeming priority--needs to be lifted up through clear, pointed, and persistent articulation and action.

9. I'm not letting go of my sense that there needs to be vigorous push-back against those who reduce the Christian Gospel to institutional promotion, evangelistic crusades, speculative prophecy, church politics, partisan politics, and success strategies, instead of incarnating in word and deed the liberating kingdom Jesus proclaimed.

10. I'm not letting go of my sense that much of what passes for preaching in churches tends toward shallow, standardized propositions, franchise-reinforcing promotions, ideologically-based diatribes, or borrowed moral-of-the-story messages instead of solid biblical exposition with valid contextualization, and hermeneutics and application--and I'm holding out for the latter as the enduring best practice.

11. I'm not letting go of my sense that predominant "pro-life" positions and single-issue politics have little to do with the overarching and connected biblical value of all humans, all living things and the earth and creation itself, and, if left to be articulated and applied as it currently is, will undermine the integrity of the Word of God.

12. I’m not letting go of my sense that redemptive love can be expressed and genuine community can be found in unlikely, unorthodox people and situations, and that grace can be read and revealed between the lines of lives considered outside the walls of the church in ways which don't seem to be recognized on the inside.

John Franklin Hay

Indianapolis, Indiana