September 11th 2021 was spent doing what most Americans were doing, remembering the tragic events that occurred twenty years earlier when terrorist struck the United States. Other than that, there was nothing abnormal about the day. I watched some college football and was looking forward to the start of the NFL season the next day. Overall, it was a pretty good day.
I didn't realize as the clock struck midnight, my life would change forever. Yes, I was turned into a pumpkin. Well...my heart was. Shortly after going to bed, I began to have some nasty heart burn brewing inside my chest. The burning seem to be growing right in the middle of my chest. It wasn't in my throat or the pain wasn't on one side of the chest or the other. It was smack dab right in the middle of my ribs.
I told my wife it was just heart burn. I popped a bunch of chewable antacids and waited for the pain to subside. It didn't. It didn't matter which position I was in. I could sit, lay down, stand...nothing changed. The pain only grew and grew but I continued to believe it was just heart burn. I knew from my internet physician's degree that cardiac pain would be on side of the chest or the other and that upper back and shoulder pain would follow.
I had no back pain or shoulder pain. It was simply just heart burn building in my breastbone area. Sure, the burning felt like Mount Vesuvius was about to explode but I knew for certain, it wasn't anything but heartburn. The molten hot lava rising increased my body temperature so much that the sweat began seeping from my skin which remained clammy. But, I was still sure I was okay and didn't need rescue.
Suddenly, the rolling and boiling inside my stomach was too much for me to handle and I began to get nauseous and made repeated attempts to the porcelain throne. My wife refused to listen to me and called 911 requesting rescue. I thought she was overreacting. She sat me down and wanted to take my blood pressure as we waited for the rescue to arrive.
She strapped the cuff around my left arm and began pumping the gage up. As the cuff filled with the air tightening around my bicep, the river of blood flowing through my veins and arteries suddenly feel like the baseball was being forced through the blood vessels.
"Get that dang cuff off of me!", I yelled and ripped the velcro cuff right off. The pain that tore through my arm felt like the sun exploding inside my body. I looked at my wife and nothing would ever be the same.
"Okay, we need to go...," I said as my seventeen year-old daughter stood by watching nervously.
"The fire department is here," my daughter said.
"We need to wait for rescue," my wife said.
Two fireman arrived on scene and began taking my vitals. A few minutes later, two young female rescue crew members showed up. They gave me a vomit bag because I couldn't stop dry-heaving. Everything that had been in my stomach was now gone so there was nothing left to come up. They put me on a stretcher and wheeled me into the rescue to do a mobile echocardiogram.
Which hospital we were going to go to depended on what the echo showed. A few minutes later, the young lady who was in the back of the rescue with me leaned into the driver's area.
"We need to go...now!" she whispered trying to keep her voice low. She began putting an IV into my arm as the other young woman went outside to tell my wife where we were going.
"His heart is angry right now," she told my wife. "We're headed to the heart hospital."
They explained to me what was happening on the way into downtown Columbia to the heart hospital. I kind of figured I was having some form of cardiac event when I added up all the symptoms I was experiencing. The symptoms were all subsiding and I was starting to feel a little better.
I though it all through. Okay, my heart was angry. I'll have to start changing some things in my life. I accepted that in the twenty minutes it took me to get to the hospital. I could deal with that. Then we pulled in and they wheeled me into the ER.
"That room," a nurse said pointing to a set of doors labeled "Trauma Room 3".
Uh...trauma room?
The doors opened and the seriousness of what was happening slammed into me like a tsunami. Beyond the doors were thirteen medical personnel waiting for me to come into the room. From there, everything was an absolute blur. All kinds of wires were strapped all over me. Another IV was opened and everyone started talking to me and at me.
The hospital's computer system crashed at that very moment. I know...not a good sign when you're in the middle of a cardiac event. But, it gave everyone a moment to breath and they explained to me I was having a widow maker heart attack and the cardiac catheterization lab was getting ready for me.
A hour later, the lab came down wondering where I was. Since the hospital's systems were down, nobody knew they were ready. I was whisked away and given some medicine to keep me sedated during the procedure. I was awake but had no idea what was happening.
When I did become lucid, my cardiologist looked point blank at me while he was performing the procedure.
"Mr. McGee, we need to make some changes going forward or you're wife and I will be having a lot different conversation next time. Do you understand?" he said.
"Yes sir," I mumbled back trying to nod my head.
In the hours after, I was informed I had a 99% blockage of the widow maker artery and 80% blockage of the others and stents were placed to relieve the blockages. I spent several days in the hospital recovering.
Life had changed in an instant. Cardiac rehab awaited me once my body could handle it. A ton of daily medicines sat in a pill container for me to take in the morning and then at night. I took a week off of work. Other than thinking every ache and pain was from my heart ready to explode, I felt okay.
So, I went back to work. I worked from home so I thought it was no big deal. I took some calls and started to get a little stressed out and stood up. I woke up on the floor with the bridge of my nose split wide open. Apparently, I passed out and struck my face on a table.
"I am not invincible," was the prevailing through in my mind. How could that be? How is that possible? I didn't know but it was true. So, I took some more time off of work and couldn't do much physically. The boredom left me to nothing but my own thoughts. Change, change and more change was the one though that ran through my mind over and over again.
How? Sure, I can change my diet but I knew that wasn't going to be enough. I had to change everything and I knew where it needed to start. Everyone did. My wife. My kids. My friends. They all knew...for me to make the changes I needed to make in my life, it needed to start with my job. I had to quit my job.