Back in the 80s, there was a man named James Fixx whose best-selling book "The Complete Book of Running" led tens of thousands to take up jogging and made him a guru of the running world. One day, while out running, Jim collapsed and died of an apparent heart attack. Friends described him as being in fine physical condition and said he had not complained of any symptoms while running 10 miles a day and pursuing other vigorous physical activity. An autopsy revealed that Mr. Fixx's left circumflex coronary artery was almost totally blocked; only trickles of blood could flow through the pinholes that were left of the inside of that artery. About 80 percent of the blood flow in the right coronary artery was blocked. The chief nourishment to Mr. Fixx's heart came from blood flowing through the third artery, the left anterior descending, which was less severely affected. Nevertheless, half that artery was blocked in places.
Not so far back, in March, 2013, I had an experience which brought memories of Fred Sanford and Jim Fixx to the forefront of my mind. Let me explain.
On March 26, I was standing at the bottom of the stairs in the lobby of Alliance Francaise Paris, where my wife and I were attending French language classes. This was the penultimate class in the four week series we were enrolled in. We were in two different classes. Hers was on the fourth floor, mine was on the third. My class usually got out a few minutes before hers, so I had a few minutes to wait before she came down the stairs.
That morning, we left our apartment as usual and took the twenty minute walk to school. Along the way, we passed now familiar places near our apartment on Rue de Sevres - Le Bon Marché department store and Le Grand Epicerie supermarket. After turning the corner and heading down Boulevard Raspail, we passed a Mini Cooper dealership on the left and a Smart car dealership across from it on the right. In the center median of the boulevard was the city's major marché biologique (organic market) where we had shopped for fresh produce, meat, and cheese on the weekends. We were living a long-cherished dream of mine to spend a month in Paris and learn a bit of french via immersion.
The classes were held three days a week for three hours each, with a short break somewhere around the midpoint. That day, I began to feel something funny in my chest part way through the first half of the session. By break time, I was feeling moderate discomfort, but walked down the stairs and got a café crème, then back to class to learn some more french. By the end of class, I was convinced I was having a heart attack. I had the classic symptoms of chest pain, with pain radiating down my arm and up into my neck and lower jaw. However, It wasn't intensely uncomfortable, so I walked down the stairs and waited for my wife to come down from class. When she arrived, I told her I wasn't feeling so good, that I thought I was having a heart attack, and that we needed to call for emergency help. We went to the front desk, found someone who could speak English, and explained that I was sick and needed emergency help. (I have since learned that "crise cardiaque" is passable french for heart attack. I hadn't learned that in class. All I could think of was "coup de coeur". If had gone around saying that and holding my chest, I might have ended up in a psychiatrist's office instead of a hospital.)
The lady at the desk summoned the school security person, who escorted me to his office, where I sat on the floor and waited while he called the pompiers. The pompiers arrived within a few minutes, asked me a few questions, and hooked me up to their portable heart monitor machine. Blood pressure and pulse were normal, and at first, they were indicating that there might not be any serious problem. They hooked up some electrodes and did a quick EKG, which showed some problem. They then called for an ambulance with a doctor on board. The ambulance arrived within a minute or two, they carried me out to the ambulance, and the doctor confirmed that I was indeed having a heart attack and needed to be transported to the hospital.
So off we went to the hospital, with my frantic wife riding in the front of the ambulance and me in the back. WEE-OOH WEE-OOH. Our first (and hopefully last) ambulance ride. That was the beginning of five days in cardiac intensive care in Hôpital Cochin Paris, complete with two angioplasties and three stent installations. We extended our stay in Paris for an additional two weeks before getting a doctor's release to travel back home.
Overall, it was quite an experience, and gave me a first hand view of the French health care system. In terms of quality of care and cost, I would recommend it to anyone who is contemplating having a heart attack.
After arriving back home, I took one more week off work, and then came back to the cubicle with a whole new perspective on life, or what's left of it for me. This experience has been a demarcation point. I feel like my old "cubicle career" life is over, and I am ready to launch into a new phase of living. After thirty-two years of corporate cubicle life, have decided to retire from the company.
In a serendipitous turn of events, the corporate overlords have rolled the "restructuring/work force management" guillotine out of the closet and are preparing it for another round of job cuts. This time the plan is to cut two percent of the workforce, or about four-hundred fifty people. I was notified today that my head will roll. (It also means that I will get a fairly generous separation package, which is a nice surprise.) My last day of employment here will be 28 June 2013.
With this post, I plan to return to more actively posting in this blog. I expect to follow this post with some reflections on my cubicle career, followed by more tales of a transformational journey through a new, post-cubicle phase of life.
As someone who is approaching the autumn of life, I leave you with this little verse to contemplate:
I like spring, but it's too young,
I like summer, but it's too proud.
So, best of all I like autumn.
Because its leaves are a little yellow,
Its tone mellower, its colors richer;
And its golden richness speaks not
Of the innocence of spring nor
Of the power of summer,
But of the mellowness and kindly wisdom
Of approaching age, and knows the
Limitations of life, and is content.
- June Douglas 1919 - 2008
