I will never forget going from absolute euphoria that I had finished the Mount Shasta triathlon to extreme terror and the worst pain I've ever felt in my entire life. I just spoken into my friend Chad who is going to be conducting the next triathlon that Becky and I were going to be doing. Ironically we won two free entrance to this race. Little did I know that a heart attack would throw my life into chaos and unfortunately keep me from doing this race. My cardiologist said it wasn't a good idea for me to race. Ha ha
I'll never forget several years ago getting a call from my sister-in-law that my best friend in the world, my brother Tom had died. He had just finished a run and had a massive heart attack that killed him. This thought kept going through my head as I was being rushed to the emergency room.
At the emergency room they did a CAT scan because the doctor thought I had a torn aorta. It was interesting when he came back into my room he was kind of frowning. He looked at me and said well I've got good news and bad news. The good news is you don't have a torn aorta. The bad news is you're having a heart attack your arteriosclerosis I significantly blocked, do you have what is almost an aneurysm on your aorta, and you have small growths in your lungs.
As they loaded me into the ambulance my only thought was of my wife and how much I would miss her and how much it would hurt her if I had died. I was determined to stay alive. I was very fortunate they took me directly to rogue regional medical center in Medford which is one of the best cardiac centers in the country. I remember the ambulance doors opening up in the parking lot and the cardiologist was waiting for me there he looked at me and said Mr. Hacker we're taking him to the Cath Lab right now. All I could think of was Far out let's fix this thing!
As they rolled me in for the angiogram I had a sense of peace and connection to God. I've always been spiritual but I realized that I was in his hands now and that all will be well.
After the procedure they transported me to the ICU where I experienced awesome care and discovered that the drug Toradol, a nonnarcotic, is fantastic for heart pain. I was there for several days experienced awesome care from incredible people and very grateful that I was in the right place at the right time. Even when I realized I was going to have to pay $12,000 for this experience, it's a small pet price to pay for still being on the planet, I was just so happy to still be alive!
