My Brush with Death this Week

This is going to be a long one.

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In the late rainy morning of Monday, 12/18, I had a heart attack.

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I was doing what I normally do on a typical work day. I work from home 100% remotely, so I was standing at my desk, when I started to feel light-headed. I must have blacked out momentarily while I was standing, but luckily I did not fall, and managed to stumble my way to my office chair. Puddles of sweat started coming out of me. I felt extremely dizzy, and I remember saying out loud, "Oh, no…"

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Then the chest pains started.

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I called out to my wife, Cathy, telling her that something was wrong. We first drove over to the nearest Urgent Care, which is about five minutes away from us. I felt nauseated, and had to ask Cathy to pull over on the way so that I can try to throw up, but nothing was coming out. At the urgent care, they said that they couldn't do anything for me but they called an ambulance right away. I was able to walk myself slowly into the ambulance and lay myself onto their stretcher. As the EMTs started connecting things to me, one of them started talking to me.

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"Mr. Chew, do you know where you are? What is today's date?"

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"Sir, you are having a heart attack."

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That was something that I never would have thought I'd hear someone telling me, especially at my age and with my currently healthy diet and fitness levels.

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Once I got to the hospital, the cardiac surgeon went to work right away. He did not find any plaque buildup or anything like that. As it turns out, they discovered that my right coronary artery is enlarged and abnormally shaped, probably something that I was born with and otherwise undetectable. The abnormal shape is what led some blood clots to form and get lodged, so the cardiac surgeon worked on removing as many as he could. He also installed a balloon to help my heart pump blood. Thankfully with modern methods, he is able to do all of this without opening me up, but rather by inserting some lines through my groin area that leads up to my heart, and I am awake for the entire procedure.

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After the balloon was installed, the doctors observed me for a short while and saw that my blood pressure was fluctuating, so I was brought back to the table and the surgeon tried installing a temporary pacemaker to try to help with the heart pumping. However, I think my heart rejected it as it totally threw off my heart rhythm. Essentially I started having another heart attack. I started to feel an intense headache, along with increased chest pain. I could also feel the bizarre pattering of my heart as it was fighting with the pacemaker. They had no choice but to defibrillate me. That was another new experience for me.

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I was airlifted to a nearby hospital that is better equipped to monitor my specific condition (first time on a helicopter!) and arrived in their ICU. I stayed there for about 48 hours; I was fortunate to be under the care of one of the nation's best hospitals for cardiology, heart and vascular surgery. By Wednesday evening, they were able to remove all hardware out of my body, and I was transferred to a regular room in their cardiology wing.

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During the last few days of my hospital stay, the cardiac surgeon (who is now my cardiologist) mentioned that they were afraid that my heart was going to stop at one point during the surgery. That really stuck with me -- I guess I was really that close to death... but he said that we were very lucky and I was also made a miraculous recovery. After testing out some new meds and being under observation for a bit longer, I was released on Saturday morning.

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As I think about the past week and all of the events that occurred, a lot of things come to my mind. This week started off as any other ordinary week for me, and there was no way that I thought that I would experience something like this on that fateful Monday. I think about the cliche:

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"Tomorrow is never guaranteed."

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Through my own personal development and growth over the past several years, I was certainly able to conceptualize and understand this, but this heart attack really hit it home for me. I would even say that only thing that we have for sure is the present moment. Any one of us may wake up in the morning, but the afternoon or evening may not be inevitable. And the same goes with anybody that is close to me.

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"Carpe Diem."

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Seize the day. Really make the most of the time that each of us have. And the only time that we really have is right now. To me, this means that I should no longer go on autopilot, for anything. This means that I no longer have my thoughts lingering in past memories, or daydreaming excessively about the future. I strive to take my experiences from my past and all the lessons learned, while also looking ahead at my 1-year, 5-year, 10-year, 20-year goals, and marry them all into the only time that I am able to do something about any of them -- right now. Really be in the present moment and take in everything that is happening around me. Take inventory of all of the great things that I have in my life at this moment, big and small, and let myself be overwhelmed with a sense of everlasting appreciation of it all.

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As I was fighting for my life on Monday, and while I was going through these past several days in recovery, I watched as my wife lead the charge of keeping in constant communication with the doctors, while also keeping close relatives in the loop of everything that was going on as it played out. And on top of that, coordinating at home to ensure the kids are also being taken care of. And every day that I was in the hospital, she stayed by my side as long as she was able to. That is something that I greatly appreciate about her and how she simply took care of everything on that side of things.

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I have appreciation for all of the little things, such as the ability to lay in bed without any type of restraints. To be able to have a good stretch after all of the cardiac hardware was taken out of me. To be able to get up out of the bed after being on my back for over 48 hours. To be alive here and with my family for Christmas. I really feel like I was given a second lease on life, because it's true. There could have been other circumstances on that Monday that would have caused a completely different outcome. But I think that the best possible outcome happened.

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If you made it this far, I am really happy and grateful that you have for sticking with my long and winded story, and I really appreciate you. I wish you a very Merry Christmas, and hope that you have a wonderful and magical time with your loved ones.