I used to spend a lot of my time working with CAD. AutoCAD, to be specific. CAD, in this instance, refers to Computer Aided Drafting or Design. It's been a long time since I'd worked with that software, or did that type of work. Maybe if I was still spending my working time plotting vectors on a virtual piece of drafting paper I wouldn't have ended up staring at my medical records, slightly confused because those three letters were staring back at me and I was pretty sure they had nothing at all to do with commercial interiors, design or drafting.
Not this time. Nope. CAD, in this case, stands for Coronary Artery Disease.
Whee!
On October 8th I was running sound for a live music event at the Alpha Acid Brewery in Belmont, CA when I had a heart attack. My band, The Bonstones, was due to play third on the bill after Hank Manninger and The Trouble With Monkeys. I'd hauled my PA from home, set it up and run sound for Hank's set. Moved the mics out of the way and got set for Trouble With Monkeys, who were either playing their third or fourth tune of the day when I broke out in a torrential sweat. I wasn't exerting myself. I was sipping a glass of water, tweaking controls on the mixing console to try to get rid of a kind of icky midrange honk on one of the vocal mics. Not exactly the sort of thing to cause someone to break out in a sweat.
Then came the chest pain. It was like someone had wrapped several belts around my chest and was tightening them more and more, while simultaneously driving a stake through my heart. Specifically, a barbed stake, coated in acid. It really hurt.
This was followed by pain shooting down both my arms and up both sides of my neck and into my jaw.
Naturally, I immediately stopped what I was doing and sought help.
If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.
I went and sat in the shade. My friend and bandmate, Rich, came over and asked if I was ok. Once again, I smartly told him my symptoms and asked for his help.
Nope.
I went back into the venue and tried to distract myself with more audio tweakery. Then I remembered one of my college professors, Dr. Pollack, who some of my fellow students found sitting in his office long after classes were over for the day, looking pale and decidedly unwell. He'd had a heart attack during class earlier that day, and figured if he was going to die he wanted to do it while teaching. Very noble (and stupid). Instead of succumbing he'd spent most of the day, miserably and in great pain, waiting to croak in his office. I had an epiphany that expiring whilst mixing vocals for a Monkees tribute band in a suburban microbrewery was a lot more like fading away than burning out, so I found my friend, and singer in the Bonstones, Rob and told him I was about 90% certain I was having a heart attack and needed an ambulance.
That was 16 days ago.
I obviously survived. Big thank yous - on the level of there's no chance I can repay you ever - to Rob, Rich, Mark and Nancy, for being there with me and seeing to it that I got the emergency care I needed. Also for loading up my gear in my truck.
More than thanks to the EMTs, the nurses and the doctors who took care of me. A few days in the hospital wired up to the various machines that go BING will do wonders for extracting one's head from one's ass regarding the various things you're obsessing over that you really should just let go.
There are no words for how much I appreciate Karen for sticking by my side and telling me she'd really, really, really prefer I keep breathing. No words. I love you, to the moon.
Karen and I met with my cardiologist (because, apparently, you have one of those after you have a heart attack - who knew?) yesterday and the news is pretty good. I have a blocked diagonal artery and 100% had a heart attack (feels weird to type that), but the heart muscle damage seems to be very limited and prognosis for the future looks good. Gonna be on meds for the rest of my life, in all probability, and I've still got some recovering to do, but, as the doctor put it, the good bit is to take this as a warning that didn't cost me all that much in the grand scheme of things.
I've been trying to apply the Derick Sivers method (Sivers Razor?) to my life more in the past few years - if the answer isn't “hell yes” then it's a no - and I think that razor's going to get good and sharp now.
I wrote this because I want my friends to know what's going on with me. Super short version - I had a heart attack. It didn't kill me, or disable me permanently. I'm recovering and will be back to normal stuff soon.