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.