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My Dad is Still Alive

March 1st, 2022

It was sometime mid 2019 (I forget when exactly) when my Dad surprised us all with a decision that he wants to train to do an Ironman! He had some running experience with a few marathons under his belt, and my sister completed Ironman Lake Placid in 2016 so he’s seen one in person. We don’t really see any harm in it, we just don’t want him to push himself too hard, of course. He starts running, biking, and swimming.

It’s February 2020. The pandemic hasn’t hit, though we have heard rumblings of this virus that’s moving around. Dad is down in Puerto Rico volunteering with Disaster Response Services who is helping clean up the mess made by Hurricane Maria. My dad is up on a ladder and something shifts, knocking him off. He hits the ground and breaks multiple bones in his left arm, including a clean split of his femur. We spend a rather difficult week working to get him stitched up enough to get him back to the States. It takes a good six months for him to heal.

It’s February 2021. Both of my parents are down in Florida for some vacation time. Dad keeps training and one day goes on a bike ride, hits a patch of sand, and lands squarely on his shoulder. His clavicle is definitely out of position and needs to be set. More healing, more downtime, (and more stress, particularly on Mom) but he keeps at it.

Oh and I should mention my Dad’s birthday is in February.

It’s February 2022. My parents have talked a bit about buying a winter home down in Florida. Dad is getting set up in a new job and things are looking up for 2022. A house opens up on the market that looks promising so Dad jumps in his truck and drives down to look at the house, possibly put in an offer, and to do some golfing on the side.

We (myself and my sisters) get a call from my Mom, distraught. She just got a call that Dad had gone for a morning run, collapsed, and was on the way to the ER. In her words, “Here we go again…”.

Well, then we find out what really happened.

Ventricular Tachycardia

You know those stories that show up periodically of the fit, healthy, and active people that inexplicably keel over dead? That is often due to a condition called ventricular tachycardia (VT), where the heart is beating too quickly and out of sync to actually move blood through it. Thus, death often occurs due to lack of oxygen.

That image is from my Dad’s ER visit. That’s what ventricular tachycardia looks like. The arrows and the word “Shock” are the defibrillator syncing to the pace of his heart to hit him at the right time to shock the heart back into rhythm. Oh and Dad’s still conscious so he now also knows what it feels like to take the full brunt of a defibrillator blast. In his words, it was “a solid 10” [on the 0-10 pain scale].

We were told that of the people who make it to the ER with VT, around 10% of them survive at all. Of those that survive, only around 10% leave with zero brain damage. My Dad is now a member of a very small cadre of people. He is fine. After multiple tests that show no blockages and really no problems with the heart itself, we are waiting to see if this is indeed a genetic issue (a common source of VT). Because there is no obvious cause, and because there’s around a 30% chance of this happening again within a year, Dad will walk out of the hospital with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) which is exactly as it sounds: a device, similar to a pacemaker, installed into Dad’s heart that will shock the heart if it detects VT. This is to ensure that if VT hits again, Dad is able to get to an ER in time for full treatment.

There is one more thing. My Dad is a retired Air Force Colonel who flew the F-15 for many years, and had just recently started a job to be a charter pilot. He’s also done Civil Air Patrol, and in general, loves being in the air.

But now, that is over. You can’t be a pilot if you have heart problems, especially of this severity. In that vein, while I still have my Dad, an important part of him did die on the ER table that day.

And that is not to downplay that the fact my Dad is alive today is itself a miracle. Somehow his heart and the situation were able to keep enough blood flowing into his brain to prevent any serious damage from this incident.

Finally, I can’t help but think, and wonder:

would I still have my Dad today?