The Silent Heart: A Personal Journey Back from Cardiac Arrest

By Larry J. Matthews

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Americans survive heart attacks. The journey back to a normal life is not always easy. In THE SILENT HEART, author Larry J. Matthews provides a road map of the physical and emotional obstacles encountered on his personal journey through the ten months following his heart attack and cardiac arrest.

In this memoir, Matthews offers an intimate look into the mind of a heart attack survivor, sharing the events and his thoughts and feelings after his heart stopped beating. Combining personal experience with medical facts and reflections from his family, THE SILENT HEART shows the realities of heart disease, heart attacks, and rehabilitation as they affect not only the patient, but loved ones as well.

THE SILENT HEART gives hope and encouragement to those facing the same hurdles in their lives by presenting firsthand insight into one mans personal experience, the road to recovery, and the goal of practicing heart-healthy living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475932591

Larry J. Matthews

LARRY J. MATTHEWS worked more than twenty-four years as a middle school and high school guidance counselor and served as an Army Medical Service Corps colonel. Matthews volunteers with the American Heart Association. He and his wife, Sue, live in Minnesota. They have three children and four grandchildren.

Book preview

The

Silent Heart

A Personal Journey

Back from Cardiac Arrest

Larry J. Matthews

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

The Silent Heart

A Personal Journey Back from Cardiac Arrest

Copyright © 2012 Larry J. Matthews

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-3257-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3258-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3259-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012910254

iUniverse rev. date: 7/25/2012

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

The Event

Hospital, Day 1

Hospital, Day 2

Hospital, Day 3

Hospital, Day 4

Hospital, Day 5

Home Again, Home Again

Cardiac Rehab

Session Two of Rehab

Changing Habits

Worship

The Comforts of Home (Depot)

Sue Recalls

The Matrix Reloaded

Getting Out

Giving Thanks

Weekly Reader

Amy Recalls

My Doctor(s)

Tuna Christmas

Sarah Recalls

Sadness

A New Year

No Promises

Super Sunday

Warning Signs

Why Did This Happen to Me?

Having a Purpose

Christine Recalls

Face to Face with Myself

Carbohydrate Hell

Broken Eyes

A Passing

Clean Bill of Health?

New Beginning

And Then

For my dear wife, Sue.

Preface

What happens when a heart stops beating?

When it goes silent for a time?

The pages ahead contain a personal story of my encounter with cardiovascular disease beginning with cardiac arrest and continuing through the first ten months of my recovery. I’ve attempted to record the events, my thoughts, and my feelings as accurately as possible, but I’ve discovered my memory is not always reliable. When it was practical, I consulted with those around me who shared these experiences, but in the end, the recollections and writing are mine.

My own journals provided the bulk of material for this book. These volumes contain nothing of literary quality—only sketchy accounts of what has occurred in my life and some of my thoughts. They are replete with serious spelling errors, a variety of penmanship styles, and a few scribbles that tell me I must have been dozing off as I wrote. The important thing the journals provided, however, was a roadmap of where I had been and some reference points that jogged my memory about sights, sounds, and emotions I experienced along the way.

Other sources of material were recordings of formal interviews with my wife and each of my three daughters. I wanted to hear directly from them what they remembered about my medical emergency. What were they doing when they heard about it? How did they respond to the news? What did they do, and what did they feel? I was fortunate to have family members who were gracious enough to take time out of their busy lives to not only share their thoughts but to also proofread and confirm the accuracy of the chapters bearing their names.

Although it was necessary for me to inject medical terminology throughout this work, I made no attempt to provide comprehensive definitions for the words I used. I encourage readers who encounter unfamiliar medical terms to make use of the American Heart Association and Mayo Clinic websites. These sites contain definitions for heart and stroke terminology, as well as a wealth of information for anyone who wishes to learn more about cardiovascular disease.

Millions of people are impacted by heart disease every year. Whether you are a survivor of this or another chronic disease, a family member of someone who has suffered from heart disease, or simply a curious reader, I sincerely hope you will find something of value within these pages.

Risk of Heart Disease

With years in time

Gender differences

And family traits

With tobacco use

And fat in veins

When pressure builds

Or pounds are gained

When sugar smolders

As if that’s not enough

Serious tension

And relaxing drinks

Also

add

to

the

risk

LJM

Robbinsdale, Minnesota

Acknowledgments

I am thankful for the many people who supported me through my cardiac event, but I am especially grateful to my wife, Sue. She performed the minor miracle of living with me for over forty years, and her perseverance is one of the reasons I am alive today. In addition, Sue was the first in line to correct my all-too-frequent mistakes with grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Thanks also to my three daughters for their constant love and understanding, which keep me going. I will also always be indebted to the emergency room staff at North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, for their expertise on that fateful day and to Dr. William Kimber, Dr. Robert Helgren, Colonel Clorinda Zawacki, MD, US Army, and Dr. Abrar Mohammed for their medical care since then. I am also thankful for those who were kind enough to read and critique early versions of this book, including Dr. Raymond Bonnebeau Jr., MD, Barb Livingston, Deborah Keenan, Julie Neraas, Pat Felth, and Perry Lueders.

The Event

It’s 7:15 in the morning at a place where time begins and ends. I’d rather not be here, but this morning I told my wife, Sue, I need to go. The drive took only five minutes. Now I sit here in a wheelchair.

I’m pushed into an emergency room examination area while Sue gives my name and address to the receptionist. People in white move around me like the gears of a clock, ticking steadily. There’s no rushing, no signs of alarm—just efficient, continuous movement. Sticky plastic disks are pressed to my chest and legs while questions fill the air. Where is the pain? Is it sharp or dull? When did it start? Are you taking any medications? I glance around, as if the answers are hidden somewhere in the room. All I can see are white tiles, white curtains, and faces on heads sticking out of white smocks. More questions. I hope I’m answering these correctly. There’s no telling what these people will do if they catch me lying.

I’m asked to remain still while the electrocardiograph does its work. This routine is familiar, since doctors administered an EKG to me four months ago in San Antonio as part of a periodic physical examination with the army. The EKG was normal then, as were my lipid panels, good cholesterol, bad cholesterol, blood pressure, and triglycerides. Everything was A-okay. A woman—presumably an emergency physician—inspects my new EKG results. She looks at me calmly and says, Mr. Matthews, you’re having a heart attack. Sue must have finished her business with the receptionist because she’s at the foot of my gurney. We exchange a bewildered look.

This makes no sense. I took an army physical training test last summer and achieved a personal best in the two-and-a-half-mile walk. I have no family history of heart problems and none of the traditional risk factors, other than smoking. Don’t tell me smoking alone can cause a heart attack.

A nurse hands me a tiny, white tablet and tells me, Place it under your tongue.

I do as I’m told, and the discomfort in my chest seems to be subsiding. Yes, I feel better. Thank God. Someone must have started an IV and injected medication. I recognize the sensation—those few seconds before a general anesthetic takes effect when you are asked to count backward from one hundred. You start with one hundred. Your fingers and toes tingle. By ninety-nine the tingling spreads up your arms, and by ninety-eight your entire body is …

Silent

Life expelled from the lungs

Floating, swirling, thinning,

Into a musty odor,

Leaving children

Like fractured teeth

With only one root.

I don’t know how long the dream lasted, and I don’t recall the details. I only know it was a very pleasant dream, and I’m perturbed now that someone is yelling, Larry, Larry! I’d like to finish my dream, but instead my eyes open. A bright, round, white light shines above me. Someone starts in with the questions again. These are easier. What is your name? Do you know where you are? What day is it? No way am I answering any of these questions wrong. Someone—maybe that ER doctor—is kind enough to inform me, Your heart stopped. The words don’t make any sense. My heart stopped? I thought I was sleeping, dreaming. Sue is among the strangers who have gathered around. She wears a look of fear.

More white appears. It’s the white hair of a man leaning over me. He introduces himself as Dr. Something or Other. He operates with Swiss-clock efficiency as he holds a clipboard in my line of vision and clicks through the dangers inherent in the procedure I’m about to undergo.

Do you understand? asks the man with white hair.

I must have said yes convincingly enough, because he hands me a pen. Is this what is meant by the phrase signing your life away? The pen slices across the Ts in my name as