Along The Angels Path

(The story of my heart attack)

For the last six years or so, I have gotten into the habit of daily meditation and have found it hugely beneficial to my life. Without really trying, I began to wake up early in the morning and found my way to this meditation practice in these wee hours, typically between 3am and 5am. I never set an alarm and often once I wake up, it’s almost impossible to fall back asleep. The house is quiet and so is the world and my head has not yet begun to fill up with thoughts pertaining to the busy-ness of life. It is in these quiet moments, in meditation, that I connect with spirit, with inspiration and I’ll put these inspirational messages into the writings that are posted on our Angels Path website. Many people call this process “auto writing”. Typically, these messages are profound, enlightening, and very helpful for Cindy and I. Each message is a miracle in and of itself. This morning was no different, as far as my routine, but how the messages came to me and were manifested was quite a bit different and saved my life on this particular morning.

On Friday, April 7th, I woke up at 3am, earlier than I would prefer, but it was what it was. After about an hour, as I dropped deeper and deeper into the meditation experience, I focused on feeling love in my heart, asking for divine love to align within my heart. Within ten seconds, I began to feel some mild heartburn, which I thought was because of the spicy cauliflower pizza for dinner the night before. I tried to surrender this feeling, but it persisted and began to expand to a point of uncomfortableness that I could no longer ignore. I came out of my meditation and looked for something to distract me from this growing pain in my chest, hoping that it would subside. I tried drinking a cup of coffee, I tried playing a game on my iPad to no avail. I walked outside to the cold air and doubled over in pain and staggered about.

Miracle number #1 Our cat, Mango, who often sleeps in our garage came running up to greet me, as she always does. She took one look at me and froze in her tracks. All the fur on her body stood straight up and she whirled around and sprinted back into the garage. This alerted me to the realization that this was a serious situation. Mango is very sensitive to our moods and our energy fields that surround our bodies and I believe she could sense that my energy fields within my body were severely disrupted. I think this is a similar trait that allows animals to sense impending earthquakes.  Miracle #2 At this moment, Guidance came to me and said, in clear words, that this pain would not subside on its own and a hospital was my best option. I remember thinking, “That sounds about right.”

I woke my wife up from a sound sleep and told her I was feeling lousy. She encouraged me to lie down and try to relax, calm and control my breathing. Normally I follow her instincts, because she is quite often correct. However I knew I needed to find relief at a hospital and I insisted we go. Miracle #3 She asked if we should call 911. As a swim coach with first aid training, I know this is the recommended action, however, Guidance stepped in again and said that an ambulance would take too long and we were better off leaving directly.  So we did. Luckily, Palomar Hospital is minutes away and at 4:45am, traffic was light. On the way, the pain continued to increase. I have felt intense sharp pain before, but this was the most uncomfortable pain I have ever experienced.

With the sound healing work we do with crystal alchemy bowls, we are aware how sounds can soothe us. Think of a gentle humming or lullaby we use to calm an infant or when you stub your toe and make that pain/moaning sound. The midwives during my wife’s childbirth had her moan/tone/hum during the most painful labor  contractions. We as humans often do toning instinctively to manage our pain. As we drove, I was deeply focused inside my body.  I was moaning to try and match the intensity and vibrations of pain in my chest.

By the time we pulled up in front of the emergency room, I was nearly delirious. I was moaning loudly as I half-fell, half-melted out of the car when my wife opened the car door. I noticed two security guards at the entrance. I intentionally moaned louder to alert the staff.  It worked. Suddenly, several people came rushing out and tended to me immediately. As I was rushed into the hospital, I heard someone say “He is having a heart attack and his pain level is 10 out of 10.” I was unwilling to open my eyes and was only dimly aware of what was transpiring before me. They stripped my clothes off and shaved my chest and groin. They also attached AED paddles that the paramedics use and that we have at many of the pools I work at. I do remember thinking that I always thought I would use these paddles on someone else and not be the recipient of such actions. I found out later that these were EKG monitors and not AED paddles.

They wheeled me into an operating room. With closed eyes, I asked them out loud to please make the pain stop and a doctor said, in a very kind and compassionate voice and manner that I will always remember, that they would do exactly that. I could dimly hear them discussing whether to go in through my groin or through my wrist. They decided to use my wrist and the procedure began.

Miracle #4  In my mind, I once again asked Guidance for help and I heard the familiar internal voice in my head say, “We got you. We have been helping all along, smoothing the path. Trust us. Trust these doctors. Trust yourself and trust love.” At that, I began to feel an expanding level of mental comfort, trust and acceptance of what was happening and the pain began to ebb away. (I also found out later that they had given me 50cc of fentanyl.) I was aware of them manipulating my wrist forcefully. I had no real idea of the amount of time that had passed.

As I came to a more normal state of awareness in the recovery room for postoperative cardiac patients, the male nurse, Theo, was very helpful and kind. As other attendants came in and out of the room, I started hearing their experiences of the event. Miracle #5  The doctor who placed my stent and will now be my cardiologist, told me I was lucky that I had survived a “widowmaker” heart attack.  He said that I had 99% blockage of my left anterior descending (the LAD artery). I also learned that I was very fortunate in that the ER Cath team had just had a cardiac patient before me and the team had yet to dissemble, so they were all still standing near the ER when I came in.  The fact that they were still together allowed them to tend to me much more quickly.  My wife said the ER team was quite proud of their “door-to-floor” response time and that they surely had set a new hospital record for a start to finish emergency prepping procedure, which (apparently) is great for their hospital ratings. 

While Theo was monitoring me, post-op, I told him that we had passed on calling 911 and I insisted on having Cindy drive me directly to the ER to save time. Also, the fact that it was so early in the morning and the ER was nearly empty also aided them in giving me their full attention with a full team of cardiac specialists. Any later and it would have taken much longer to assemble the team and they would most likely not have had the full team in attendance. The more team members present, the more efficient the procedure goes. Theo said that these timesaving circumstances saved my life and if they had seen me even 15 to 30 minutes later, I would not have survived.

Over my stay in the hospital, I had four different doctors or cardiac therapists tell me I was lucky to be alive and they had had some doubt about my ability to survive this heart attack when they first saw me and began working on me. The doctors/therapists also emphasized repeatedly that my lifestyle was a huge factor in my surviving the heart attack. All my numbers were actually very good and this was also very helpful. I remember sitting there, in a lovely private room, feeling fairly normal and thinking “What the hell?”

We all, at times, have moments of feeling angry and this feeling passes over time once we address the issue that we are feeling angry about. We also know people who live in a constant state of anger. I have had my share of living angry, but now I feel my general emotional state is more consistently one of gratitude. It was interesting that once I was resting in my hospital room, I held this state of gratitude when different people entered my room. Some came in happy and others came in with a sense of distraction or general frustration with whatever was holding their attention at the time. I found myself intuitively feeling gratitude and compassion and finding myself saying something inspirational that seemed to touch them in some way  and before we knew it I was hearing things like “I shouldn’t be telling you this but…”, etc. It was very fun and interesting to be part of these experiences I was sharing with them.

After thirty-six hours of wonderful and exhausting care, I came home and have since been working on wrapping my mind around the past events. I was told that the top half of my heart hadn’t been carrying much of the load and the bottom half was doing double duty and it would take some time for my heart to rebalance and stabilize. I may have some damage to my heart, but they felt it would be significantly less than most who have this type of heart attack and that my diet and exercise was a very major factor in saving my life. It turns out, the recovery protocols are a reflection of how I already live my life. The only diet changes would be eliminating the very small amount of butter and cheese I consume.  I was already actively working out more than they recommend and had recently resumed going to the gym with my training partner, our son Jadan. 

I now am committed to taking some pharmaceutical drugs, that I have been able to avoid up to now, for the rest of my life. The biggest reason is to help my body not to reject the metal stent that is in my heart and avoid further blockage. The doctors have said that I did everything a person could do to avoid such an event, but genetics are genetics and there is a high number of members of my family that have suffered heart attacks and strokes, but the doctor fully expects the medications will help me to live a long and healthy life.

Such a close call and the miracles that transpired during this experience. The path was indeed smoothed before me, right down to the night before when I received a text from the pool manager where we hold our masters swim workout that I needed to cancel our workout Friday morning and I sent out a text Thursday evening, so none of our masters swimmers would be showing up at the pool and wondering where I was. I also had the night off that Friday from the swim club, which rarely happens. Cindy didn’t have to deal with any of those things that would normally need attention in my  absence. All of these miracles that transpired to save my life and smooth my path are, to me at least, jaw dropping  amazing.

All this before breakfast.

Since these events, I’ve been grappling with the aftermath, more emotionally, spiritually and energetically than physically. Guidance has encouraged me to surrender to and accept the changes in my life without resistance.  I have made the decision to step away from coaching full time and will be in a substitute role. Guidance has made it clear to me that, in some manner, I will be focusing on more sound healing work and I believe doing more one-on-one channeling sessions. I have been shying away from the individual channeling sessions since the pandemic and only doing sessions with friends I know well. I think this experience is in part to help me surrender the self doubt that sometimes triggers this shyness.

Now that the crisis has passed and some time has passed, I feel very grateful for where I am at this point in my life, with my spiritual development and the opportunity to have so many people in my life to love. I touched death’s door. I purposely chose not to go through it, however, because I knew I had more work to do and more people to love, and was not ready to leave Cindy. Death has become a trusted friend, whispering in my ear, “Enjoy and cherish every moment you can. Life is short. Embrace love and live with a vibration of joy and gratitude. This is your gift to yourselves and to others.” 

I recently heard on a Ted Lasso episode, “It didn’t happen to me, it happened for me”. I believe that. It resonates with me. I’m a better, more loving, more accepting person because of this experience. I don’t regret it or bemoan it, and I do not feel like a victim or let this experience define me. I accept both the light and the dark of life. Both help me to grow in understanding and compassion. Such is life’s journey. I am a lucky man.

Love,
Scott