There are times in life that can change you forever. I mean, change how you walk. Change how you think. Change the way you see life itself. I had one at the age of 36 that I can honestly say changed the way I see life forever. In 2018, I learned just how precious life is and how we often take it for granted.
On the morning of October 10, 2018, my wife and I woke up with the same type of dream. We both woke up after dreaming that one of your family members had passed. Obviously, this did not sit right with us and immediately we turned to God and prayed. We still felt uneasy, but we placed everything in God’s hands. After saying our goodbyes for the day( Krys was going out of town for an overnight stay), we went off to work as usual.
The day was going as normal. I teach high school, and my 9th grade homeroom class was super-excited for the day, making banners for the "Battle of the Freshest” 9th grade homeroom competition, and thinking about how the game of Tug-of-War was going to go. We arrived at the gym, feeling confident we would take home first place. The first few matches were fairly easy, as we had a lot of big, athletic guys and gals in the class . As we came to the semi-finals, that’s where things took a turn for the worse.
After we won a hard-fought match against another homeroom, I suddenly felt light-headed and collapsed. After a few seconds of being unconscious, I came to, but had no idea what was going on. My heart was racing 100 miles an hour. I tried to cool down with water. That didn’t help. Just sitting there, doing nothing, I felt like I was running a marathon. My heart rate would not come down and I eventually passed out again. With quick thinking by school administration, faculty, and staff, paramedics were called to the school. While en route to the ER, I suffered multiple cardiac arrests and paramedics had to perform defibrillation using electric paddles to restart my heart a total of three times!
At this time, my wife was traveling to Northern Virginia when she received the call that something had happened to me and that she needed to come to the hospital. When she arrived, the doctors immediately pulled her into a side room where they told her, “We’re doing everything we can, but we don’t think he’s going to make it.” Can you imagine? After years of struggles, being foreclosed on, evicted from an apartment, being homeless for over 3 years, and finally to the point where you feel everything is getting back to normal, and now a doctor tells you that your husband is about to die. To her credit, with all faith in God, Krys immediately rebuked that statement and knew in her heart that I would live.
After 12 hours on life support, I began to recover from the cardiac arrest. Thank God for quick action by everyone involved! However, before I came to, there was something else that happened to me. While I was in my unconscious state, I had an out-of-body experience. I know some people may be skeptical of these sorts of things, but all I can tell is my truth. It felt like a dream. I literally saw myself on the hospital bed hooked up to the EKG machine. I remember looking at the machine puzzled. It read that my heart rate was at 247 bpm! I was puzzled because in the state I was in, I felt a sense of rest and peace that I had never experienced before. It felt as though I was weightless, not feeling any sense of tension, hurt, or danger. It was a peace that truly surpassed all understanding. I did not see any pearly gates, or even God, but in that moment, I knew God was with me.
Soon after I woke up, tests came back and I was diagnosed with ARVC (Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy), a genetic disease of the heart that can cause a heart arrhythmia while exercising vigorously or performing strenuous activities, especially while competing in a sporting event. Doctors gave me a 2% chance to live a normal life from my cardiac arrest episode. By the grace of God, I was able to make a full recovery, and was released from the hospital after only 8 days! With prayer, careful monitoring, and medication to regulate my heart rhythms, I have been able to resume the life I had before suffering cardiac arrest.
I used to be so mad at God for allowing this to happen. I was mad for myself, enduring all those years of heartache in our wilderness season just to have this happen to me. I was mad for my wife, who had to hear that her husband was about to die and that she should start making calls to bring the family in. I was in a dark place emotionally for a while. However, I started to realize what just happened. I went through an event that most (98%) people don't make it out of. So in that moment, I started to focus on praising God for getting me through that moment in time and thanking Him even more for allowing me to share this testimony of His goodness with others. When tragedy strikes, it’s easy to start looking around for someone to blame and be mad at. What I realized is that it is a privilege to be here to be mad, to feel, to praise, to do anything because not everyone has this opportunity. My prayer to you is that whatever you go through in life, turn to God, thank him for getting you through it, and look for opportunities to share your testimony so that others can be inspired to get through their fires with their heads held high looking towards God.
Please continue reading for more information about Sudden Cardiac Death, ARVC and how YOU can help save lives!
The Facts
What is Sudden Cardiac Arrest?
Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) is a life-threatening emergency that occurs when the heart suddenly stops beating. It strikes people of all ages who may seem to be healthy, even children and teens. When SCA happens, the person collapses and doesn’t respond or breathe normally.
What Causes Sudden Cardiac Death?
Most sudden cardiac deaths are caused by abnormal heart rhythms called arrhythmias. The most common life-threatening arrhythmia is ventricular fibrillation, which is an erratic, disorganized firing of impulses from the ventricles (the heart's lower chambers). When this occurs, the heart is unable to pump blood and death will occur within minutes, if left untreated.
What is ARVC?
Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) is a form of heart disease that usually appears in adulthood. ARVC is a disorder of the myocardium, which is the muscular wall of the heart. This condition causes part of the myocardium to break down over time, increasing the risk of an abnormal heartbeat (arrhythmia) and sudden death.
ARVC may not cause any symptoms in its early stages. However, affected individuals may still be at risk of sudden death, especially during strenuous exercise. When symptoms occur, they most commonly include a sensation of fluttering or pounding in the chest (palpitations), light-headedness, and fainting (syncope). Over time, ARVC can also cause shortness of breath and abnormal swelling in the legs or abdomen.
How You Can Help
TAKE ACTION. More than 350,000 deaths occur each year as a result of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). In fact, SCA claims one life every two minutes, taking more lives each year than breast cancer, lung cancer, or AIDS. To decrease the death toll from SCA, it is important to understand what SCA is, what warning signs are, and how to respond and prevent SCA from occurring. More than 65 percent of Americans not only underestimate the seriousness of SCA, but also believe SCA is a type of heart attack. But they are not the same thing.
October is Sudden Cardiac Arrest Awareness Month, which represents a critical initiative by the Heart Rhythm Society to raise awareness for Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) and help the public become more familiar with what it is, how it affects people, and what can be done to help save lives.
Time-to-treatment is critical when considering the chance of survival for an SCA victim. Ninety-five percent of those who experience SCA die because they do not receive life-saving defibrillation within four to six minutes, before brain and permanent death start to occur.
Despite such a high number of SCA deaths annually, SCA can be treated successfully if caught in time by using CPR and/or defibrillation with an automatic external defibrillator (AED). If a rescuer can perform these lifesaving tasks, survival rates increase from an average of 10 percent to 50 percent.
Get CPR and AED Certified!
Anyone can learn CPR and everyone should. The American Heart Association reports that 70% of Americans feel helpless to act in the event of a cardiac emergency because they either do not know how to effectively administer CPR or their training has lapsed.
For more information on how to become CPR/AED trained, visit: https://www.redcross.org/take-a-class/aed/aed-training
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