{"id":212,"date":"2015-05-17T10:00:58","date_gmt":"2015-05-17T10:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/2015\/05\/17\/may-17-2014-i-died\/"},"modified":"2015-05-17T10:00:58","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T10:00:58","slug":"may-17-2014-i-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/2015\/05\/17\/may-17-2014-i-died\/","title":{"rendered":"May 17, 2014 I Died"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have written about this a few times, but as I woke today I
\nwas thankful for life again. For those who do not know my story on May 17th<\/sup>
\nI came in from a run said hi to my wife and hit the floor. My heart had stopped
\nworking, I was dead. This event is \u201caffectionately\u201d known as the \u201cwidow maker\u201d
\nsince there was no warning and it hit immediately. May 20th<\/sup> I woke
\nup and cracked a smart ass joke to someone asking me a \u201clogic question\u201d to see
\nhow I was thinking. I then got the story.<\/p>\n

My daughter called 911 and they immediately went into action
\nwith a stroke, since that was the more logical condition based on recent family
\nhistory with Veronica. I had no CPR for 5 minutes as I turned blue! The EMT\u2019s
\nfrom station 13 in Gwinnett and engines from 13 and 21 showed up and stated to
\nwork. I was paddled 7 times and they got a heartbeat after 45 minutes. By then
\nwe arrived at Emory John\u2019s Creek ICU where I was put into an induced coma. <\/p>\n

Now take my family, they were not being told when he pulls
\nthrough but rather don\u2019t expect him to survive and if he does he will be brain
\ndamaged. So for three days after following the ambulance and watching the EMTs
\nperform CPR all the way to the hospital everyone waited for the inevitable. I
\ncame to and freaked, they figured I was having some episode but rather noticed
\nthe date on the white board was 5\/20\/15. \u00a0So once the ventilator was pulled I was
\npeppered with question, the first asking if I had rubber boots and was standing
\nin a puddle would my feet be wet. Of course I had no idea why they were asking
\nme dumb questions so I retorted back, \u201cHow deep is the puddle\u201d. To that Katy\u2019s
\npent up angst was relieved, I was back.<\/p>\n

One story that I recently learned was two close friends from
\nour church 12 Stone had come to pray over me. God had coordinated these two
\ncoming together to pray. I was out and they started to pray fervently over me.
\nWell during this time I started to come out of my induced coma. The nurse
\nfreaked told them to stop praying and to leave. Then she started to load me up
\non the drugs to keep me in the coma. An hour later I was being asked silly
\nquestions.<\/p>\n

Now all was not over since I bounced back and forth between
\nICU and surgery, but 2 weeks later I walked out the door weak but alive. Now one
\nyear later I have taken the doctors serious and changed many things. I am
\nrunning again, I am eating well and am actually losing weight now. I PR\u2019ed for
\na 5k and my triglycerides went from 686 pre-death to 85!! \u00a0So things are progressing in the right
\ndirection!!<\/p>\n

Now what have I taken from this after a year? First, I
\nexperienced a miracle. Not just a miracle of timing, but a flat out miracle. In
\nthe months since I have heard story after story about many who went through
\nwhat I did and lost the battle. This was not an \u201ceasy win\u201d for God, everything
\nhad to happen perfectly. If something dropped out of sequence and if God had
\nnot have thrown in that \u201cspecial sauce\u201d I would have not made it. So I am
\nhumbled to have experienced this. <\/p>\n

Second, is my diagnosis of what happened leading up to this.
\nSure hindsight is 20\/20, but my eating sucked. I was eating organic when
\npossible, like Cliff Bars, Organic Ice Cream and Organic cookies. I was
\ndrinking energy drinks for life support; a minimum was 1 or 2 a day. If that
\ndid not work a Redline was added to the mix. Sodas were ok as well. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s amazing how unfettered access to healthy food is not
\nalways good. Couple warning signs I had. First, I was cramping on short runs
\nand having done marathons, a cramp at 1 mile was something wrong. Doctors
\nfigured it was nutrition or Compartment Syndrome, little did they know it was
\nIntermittent Claudication or an early indicator of a heart blockage. Another
\nsign was slower metabolism. Everyone complains about that as they get older, so
\nI figured it was normal. Guess what, eat crap and your metabolism slows down.
\nDoesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s \u201cdiet\u201d, \u201corganic\u201d or \u201cenergy\u201d too much will literally
\nkill you. <\/p>\n

So my warning to those who are experiencing slow metabolism,
\neat better and get checked out. Since my \u201cevent\u201d I am losing weight, eating
\nwell and experiencing a metabolism from my 20\u2019s. Keys are RAW and ORGANIC!
\nThose few times I dabble into something outside this, it\u2019s packaged organic.
\nAnd note Monday\u2019s are Mexican Coke Monday (since they do not use HFC\u2019s),
\nThursday\u2019s are Krakatoa (an expresso drink) Thursdays and Sunday\u2019s are Ice
\nCream Sunday, so I do treat myself, just not once or thrice a day. <\/p>\n

Other health tips are avoid GMO\u2019s, and not those like
\n\u201cseedless grapes\u201d that have been genetically modified through breeding to get
\nthere, but rather Monsanto Corn that cannot be handled since it\u2019s been spliced
\nwith toxins to kill pests and be immune to Round-up. Sorry for the long
\nsentence, but this is critical!! I don\u2019t have a problem using nature to
\nnaturally evolve new strains of food, but using chemicals to evolve new toxic
\nstrains is dangerous! Enough of the health rant.<\/p>\n

Every day I wake up and thank God for life, this is no
\nlonger a clich\u00e9 for me. Second I thank my family for getting the ball rolling
\nand acting fast to get EMT\u2019s here quickly. Third, the EMT\u2019s led by Dave Yarbrough
\n(who has become my running buddy) who did NOT give up on my when many would
\nhave. Forth, Emory and the crew for putting up with me and making sure I am
\nback on my feet. Also, for picking up the tab!!! Fifth, the many people who
\nhelped and prayed for me, that made a huge difference. Sixth, 12 Stone church
\nfor all the additional support and post event counseling. Finally, my family
\nagain for the love and support from everyone here and away! <\/p>\n

We have moved to a new part of the country into a home that
\nis a fantasy. It\u2019s exactly what we had dreamed for, only better and we are debt
\nfree now!! I still have not completely come to terms with that and being part
\nof a miracle while seeing the outpouring of compassion from so many. Why me? If
\nit\u2019s like any other dealings with God it will all make sense in years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have written about this a few times, but as I woke today I was thankful for life again. For those who do not know my story on May 17th I came in from a run said hi to my wife and hit the floor. My heart had stopped working, I was dead. This event … Continue reading “May 17, 2014 I Died”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/emailsfromdad.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}