Dude... you just won the genetic lottery!

My doctor told me a few years ago that I had an irregular heartbeat. It was caused by a thyroid problem that runs in my family (we’ll get to THAT one later). We thought it wasn’t the biggest deal in the world, but because it had been there for several years he recommended I go see a Cardiologist to make sure it wasn’t something we needed to be worried about.

According to the cardiologist we should have been plenty worried.

As it turns out, what I had was called Dilated Cardiomyopathy. Because of the extended period of time spent in the irregular rhythm my heart muscle had swollen and was only pumping about 15% of the amount of blood I really needed. That's barely enough blood for an eighty year old. Did I mention that I was only thirty-seven? The doctors and nurses were all surprised that I was walking around upright let alone not tired and sleeping all the time. Guess I’m lucky drummers like syncopated rhythms!

The doctor told us that the disease was treatable with medications and minor surgery. So we were sort of relieved. Wait a minute… is there such a thing as “minor” heart surgery? Yeah right. Then he told us the bad news. Even if the treatments we were discussing worked, I would most likely need a heart transplant within a couple of years.

Mushroom clouds anyone?

A HEART TRANSPLANT? Me? Wasn’t that something that happened to someone’s grandfather? Or to some dying lover in sad sappy romance movies? Other than profanity and a tremendous amount of fear there wasn’t really room for much else in my head.

Was this all my fault? I mean, I had lived a pretty fun life. I ate junk food most of the time, for a few years back in the day I smoked cigarettes and of course I loved the bourbon. Admittedly I did my fair share of recreational pharmaceuticals, but I stayed away from the really hard scary stuff(…mostly anyway). I certainly wasn’t an addict or junkie or anything like that. I was overweight, but my heart should be pretty healthy right? There had to be people out there treating their bodies worse than me who would go first right? Isn't Keith Richards still walking around with his Telecaster?

All seemed to be valid arguments. But as one of my closest friends would tell me a few years and several diagnoses later, “Kids with autism, thyroid problem, M.S. and heart disease? Dude, I guess you just won the Genetic Lottery!”

I remember distinctly laying in bed that night next to my wife and all of a sudden my face felt damp. It was like an out of body experience. I didn’t feel like I was crying, but I was. I remember hearing a voice say, “I don’t want to die.” Of course that voice was mine, and my wife was there holding me and comforting me until I eventually fell asleep.


A few months and many arguments with my insurance company later, we headed to the hospital for the big day. I felt strangely calm. Probably because at this point it was completely out of my hands and there was nothing I could do except lay there. I trusted that my cardiologist knew what he was doing and he had put together a great team for the grand event. If you were to ask my wife, I guarantee that she was feeling a bit different that I was that day. I can only imagine that it was much harder for her than it was for me.

They wheeled me into the operating room and I shifted into position on to the table. My anesthesiologist was very funny although I don’t really remember what he said. I think we talked about music for a while until…

According to my wife I am apparently not the nicest person when waking up from anesthetics. I tore the entire recovery staff of the cardio thoracic surgery department at that hospital a collective new one! See I had to lie still for four hours after the surgery to make sure the sutures held. Apparently I wasn’t so pleased with that and the profanity stream now permanently etched into the walls of my room remain there forever as a testament to that fact.

Believe it or not, the worst part of the recovery was not my heart. Thankfully, that had gone surprisingly well in a fashion. When they perform an Electronic Ablation they cut small incisions into the groin area and send small cameras and tools attached to the ends of long cables up into the heart via the femoral arteries. In order to prevent any damage on the way up and to make sure the heart is protected during the procedure, they have to strap your body down to the table securely so you cannot move.

Apparently as I lay there at some point in the first or second hour, my arm supports gave way and fell backwards and just hung there beneath me. The doctors could not risk moving them back into place for fear of the damage that might be done to my heart by shifting and jarring my body around. If it had been just my arms alone I would have been sore, but I probably would have been okay. Unfortunately I was laid out in a cross-type pose strapped to segments of metal table. For close to nine or ten hours my arms were hanging behind my back, supporting their own weight in addition to that of the metal supports that were supposed to be holding them up.

While I should have been experiencing chest pains as my heart recovered, my arms hurt so bad from the tears in my muscle tissue I didn’t even notice my heart. For about six months after I went home, I could barely raise my hands up to my stomach. I will say that the pain medications they put me on were AWESOME! When we could actually get them that is.

My doctor prescribed me some heavy pharmaceuticals and he recommended I be very careful as to not become addicted. He also said, “Use as needed.” Um… Okay? I was in a lot of pain most of the time, and I took quite a few of the pills. Not beyond a reasonable dosage, but we ran out of them a little bit earlier than expected.

My wife called in to the pharmacy to re-up the prescription and of course they said it was too soon. She called the doctor and he wasn’t in so she left a message for him to call back as soon as possible. He didn’t get back to her until about 10:30 that night when the pharmacy was closed and she was in bed anyway, so there really was nothing we could do that night. I would just have to tough it out and try to sleep through it somehow. Not likely.

The next morning I had finally passed out from exhaustion so my wife let me sleep and went to work. Can I just say how much fun that day was? It was awesome. Sweat drenched and screaming, unable to move and yet unable to find a comfortable position. Did I mention the cable went out around lunch time too? I was not a happy guy by the time my wife called later that evening. It turns out she had been playing phone tag with the doctor all day and had yet to speak with him directly about what was going on.

On her way home she went to the pharmacy and told them our situation. They would love to help of course, but the medicines I was prescribed were narcotics and they could not by law give them out without direct approval by the doctor himself. She finally talked to him a little while after getting home and he agreed to call in the orders. Guess what? By then the pharmacy was closed again!

Say it with me now, “And there was much rejoicing!”

We knew of a twenty-four hour pharmacy near by and decided to have the doctor call it in there as well. So by then it was after midnight, she was exhausted by taking care of two young cranky kids who did not want to bathe or go to sleep, her husband who was a complete pool of screaming inconsolable gelatin on the couch, and she had worked a full nine hour day with lawyers who treated her like the lowest form of pond scum that had just splashed into their caramel macchiato. Even with all that going on, she was going to make sure I was taken care of. Somehow. She piled herself into the car and drove to the twenty four hour place. They got the call from the doctor but unfortunately did not have any of the medicines we needed in stock.

That was when I believe that she Lost IT!

Bloodshot eyes, hair flying everywhere, pajamas and slippers… the lady behind the counter told her they wouldn’t give the medicine to “drug seekers” anyway. Wrong thing to say and wrong time to say it. After a screaming match that would have sold more pay-per-view tickets than Mike Tyson vs. Muhammad Ali, she finally got the manager to come out and speak with her.

I don’t know how she did it, but she convinced the manager to call another twenty four hour location and have the orders transferred over to them. By then it was close to three a.m. and my wife could not have looked more like a junkie. So when she walked into what we have since lovingly dubbed the “Heroin Pharmacy”, I am sure the employees were more than just a little hesitant to perform their duties.

When she got home she threw the little white bag full of goodness on to my lap, kissed me on the forehead and the stomped up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door. I don’t know if there had been a time when I ever loved that woman more.

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