Jacksonville Bar Association Diversity Committee Co-Chair
Labor Day Weekend 2009, the end of summer.
Younger kids are back in school starting various activities: band, football, soccer and dance tournaments, etc., etc. Older kids are getting situated in high school or starting college. Some people were looking forward to the start of college football season, maybe you were going to a game. Maybe you were about to go on your last vacation of the summer before getting back to the daily grind of work until Thanksgiving. Maybe you were going to take advantage of the long weekend and start your last house project before weekends go back to being only two days.
Me?
I was looking forward to seeing my 11-year-old son play his first tackle football game for the Ponte Vedra Sharks. I had been taking him to practice twice a week since July and I was like all the proud papas at practice when our 80-pound boys would make that big hit. That’s my boy!
At the beginning of summer, my wife and her friend challenged me to run the Washington, D.C., Marines Corps Marathon in October. So, never backing down from a challenge, we signed up for the race, bought our airplane tickets and made hotel reservations. I trained by running on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with some long runs Saturdays and then a long bike ride Sundays. I was actually losing weight and increasing my mileage. At my biannual physical, my endocrinologist was pleased with my A1c levels and told me to keep up the good work.
My Labor Day itinerary was to continue with the training, see my son’s football game, catch part of my daughter’s soccer tournament, have a typical barbecue Labor Day with friends and neighbors at the beach and finish by watching the Florida State-Miami football game.
Unfortunately, it didn’t happen as planned.
Saturday morning at about 3:30 a.m., while sleeping, I began to feel a small weight on my chest. I believed it was my wife of 17 years of marriage and I’m thinking it’s my lucky night. But, when I open my eyes, I see she is on the other side of bed. I jumped up out of bed and brushed my chest to shake the weight. I still felt a weight, so I went to the bathroom, but nothing. I drank water and took some Tums tablets for stomach relief but now the weight had become diffused chest pain. Ten- to- 15 minutes later I finally woke up my wife, a board certified internist and Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and told her of my heavy chest discomfort, and pain radiating in both arms, more the left.
She told me we must immediately go to the hospital. I said let’s wait, maybe it (pain) will pass, as my son has his first tackle football game at 10 a.m. She said I may not make it to 10 a.m. Fifteen minutes of more pain and I finally decided to go to her office. At the office she gave me an aspirin and performed an EKG, which showed abnormal results. She gave me a nitro pill under my tongue and does a second EKG with still abnormal results. She gave me a second nitro pill under my tongue, and I felt less chest pain. Problem solved, right? She did a third EKG, again with abnormal results. I finally conceded that we must go to the emergency room.
I arrived at Baptist Downtown at 5:30 a.m. and they immediately took me to the cauterization/operating room. At 6:30 a.m., Dr. Edward Bisher, an interventional cardiologist told me I was having a heart attack. I told him it was impossible, because rumor has it that lawyers don’t have a heart! The cardiologist told me to stop moving my right leg, knocked me out with anesthesia and began cauterization. He injected dye and finds 100 percent blockage of my right coronary artery and 50 percent blockage in my left ventricular artery. The blockage is caused by a blood clot, which they removed and put a stent in the artery.
At 8:45 a.m. I wake up in hospital room and I feel fine.
Dr. Bisher kept me in the hospital until Monday for observation. When I asked Dr. Bisher what caused the blood clot he said that although my low-density lipoprotein at 136 was not abnormally high, combined with my adult onset Diabetes, it’s a bad combination that leads to blood clots. I asked about my marathon training for October, and he said maybe next year, but the extra training actually had strengthened my heart to withstand the stress of the heart attack. I was released from the hospital on Labor Day and told to stay away from the office for at least a week.
I missed my son’s football game, but hopefully, I’ll be around for many more games to come.
So what’s the purpose of this column?
Finally, I need to thank the Good Lord as he decided it wasn’t my time. I rationalize my experience and I believe I’ve been given a second chance to carry out his good work or message. I don’t know what it is, but hopefully I‘ll spend the 45-50 years trying to figure it out.
While I’m convalescing here at home, I reflect how difficult and stressful the legal industry is. Rarely, do attorneys take a moment to appreciate that everyday is a gift. Yes, enjoy the challenges of your work, but more importantly, enjoy your relationships with your spouse, your family, your God, your friends and colleagues and, yes opposing counsel. Although, I’m not a doctor (I just get to sleep with one) but everybody over the age of 40 should take an aspirin a day as it will save your life! There are just too many good football games and dance recitals to be seen. iI not for yourself, I know your kids want you to be there, so take care of yourself!
(Arthur Hernandez is back at work traveling across the country to take depositions, but he must now do that without meals that include chicken tenders or hamburgers, as he maintains a proper diet.)