For the next ten days, I continued doing my normal activities, including a few 3-mile runs, but I never felt very good.  I had a nagging feeling in my esophagus that wouldn't go away,  as if I had scarred it with acid when I threw up, or needed to burp all the time, etc.  Nothing I tried would make it go away -- eating, not eating, aspirin, etc.  The last few days I also starting getting minor aching pains in my back, shoulders, and arms, and some nights I would wake up in a sweat.

One night I had a very vivid dream that 3 men were interrogating me.  I finally told them that it didn't matter what they did to me, I would never tell them what they wanted to know.  So the leader said, "In that case we might as well kill you." And they all drew their pistols and aimed them at me.  But before they could shoot, the oldest one of them suddenly fell down having a heart attack.  At that time I woke up in a sweat and wrote the dream down (I always journal my vivid dreams.)

The back and shoulder aches continued to worsen each day, until on Feb. 22, it woke me up at 6 am and I couldn't get back to sleep. I had had another vivid dream that night in which a woman came and put a gray tube with a wire on it on the end of my finger.  It was very puzzling, as I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to do that.  I wrote it down in my dream book, because it was very clear and vivid, even if it didn't make any sense.

I rode my bicycle to a business meeting in downtown Boulder.  During the meeting, I became more and more irritated with the aching, so I called my doctor and got an appointment for 4 pm, which was the earliest opening they had.  I also took a couple of aspirin, which helped a little bit. Finally about 11:15 am I told my co-workers that I couldn't pay attention to the meeting anymore and had to do something about the aching.  They suggested that they take me to the Boulder Medical Clinic to check it out while they went to lunch.  They let me out at the clinic and I checked into the urgent care unit.  I had to wait about 5 minutes while they got ready for me and just paced back and forth because I felt so irritated and anxious.  Finally I got in, took off my shirt and laid down on a table and started describing my symptoms to the doctor.  She put an oxygen hose in my nose and was asking me questions when suddenly I had to throw up (I suspect this was the point at which my heart went into fibrillation).  After I stopped throwing up, I realized my wife wouldn't know where I was so I started giving them my home phone number - 443- … At that point I blacked out and apparently stopped breathing.  The doctor immediately called for help and started giving me CPR.  After about 3 minutes, a cardiologist applied a defibrillator to me and the shock caused the heart to start pumping again and my breathing resumed.  They put IV's in my neck and gave me some drugs.

At this point I regained consciousness and then said 7654  (the rest of my phone number!). My memory of it is like a slide show -- one moment I was throwing up, then - click - and I was being lifted on a gurney and taken into an ambulance.

They took me by ambulance to the hospital about 300 yards from the clininc and put me in intensive care.   I had just gotten in the gown and gotten settled when I threw up again, but this was just a bit messy -- I didn't black out again or anything.  A few minutes after I was settled in, a woman came in with a meter and put a gray plastic tube on the end of my finger with a wire attached to it to measure the level of oxygen in my blood (see description of dream above). They took an EKG reading and said I had 40% damage to the left side of my heart. I think they said the Left Descending Artery had been clogged. At some point they gave me the drug TPA, which is very expensive ($4000/dose) but which is supposed to help dissolve clots.

In general, things were tolerable after that, although I felt damaged and weak.  I didn't know if I was going to live or die, but I didn't feel like I was dying.  They said the first 3 hours are the most critical.  Many friends and relatives came to the hospital when they heard the news, and I always had someone in my room next to my bed holding my hand and getting me anything I needed.  My firend Diana and my son Dana did a great job of organizing the mob in the waiting room and scheduling one person an hour (or so) to be with me.  They didn't need to do anything except be there and hold my hand if I wished.

About 7 pm, my ex-wife Sandy was with me.  I had gotten through the critical periods and they had asked me just to try and relax and rest. This was hard because I had this automatic blood pressure cuff on my right arm and every 5 minutes it would inflate and disturb me. I was weak and under shock from medication, IV's and the emotion of people around me. Sandy had been trying to teach me some Chinese visualization techniques for staying healthy (Qi Gong), but we'd never had time to do it (she's an acupuncturist now and president of The Institute for Taoist Education and Acupuncture!).  I told her there might not be another chance like the present and I needed all the help I could get.  So she led me on a visualization of creating and feeling smiling energy in my eyes, and then mentally washing it down internally through different parts of my body - in particular through the various organs - heart, lungs, digestive system, pancreas, liver, kidneys, etc.  The excess energy when I was done with a "wash" was then placed in a spiral around my belly button.  This was a very powerful exercise for me, so that when I got done, I had this "white tornado" of energy whirling around my belly button.  "OK," I said "WHAT DO I DO WITH IT NOW."  I don't think she had ever seen such a strong reaction and she just said "Oh, just it go."  At that, I let it spiral out into the room and I had a great feeling of release and pleasure.  I've tried it many times since then, and never have I gotten so much energy.  It apparently helps to be in that state where everything in the present is connected with life or death.  After that, Sandy left and my friend Florence came in About 8 O'clock at night

A few days before my heart attack, I had been learning a breathing meditation from listening to a tape of a Vietnamese monk named Thich Nhat Hanh. Now I decided to do his breathing meditation to try to relax and rest.  This basically consists of thinking the words "in" as you breathe in and "out" as you breathe out.  Then "deep, slow" to breathe in more deeply and exhale more slowly. Then "calm, ease," to notice where you're not calm on the in breath and allow "ease" to fill those places on the exhale.  Then "smile, release."  The smiling is to allow healing energy to come in on the in breath and then release all tension or harm on the exhale.  The last part of the series is "precious moment, wonderful moment," to be in the present moment and appreciate whatever is happening right now and calm yourself down, which is what I was trying to do.

In order to relax in spite of the noise and pain of the pressure cuff, I used another technique on the same tape. When you hear the sound of a small bell, you stop whatever you are doing and think:  "Listen, listen, this beautiful sound brings me back to my true self."  Again appreciating the moment and your true self as being one with the universe.  When the pressure cuff motor came on, I thought: "Listen, listen, this big squeeze brings me back to my true self."  This helped a lot and I was relaxing well.

I had been angry at my heart at first, for letting me down and stopping, but then I realized it wasn't my heart's fault, and decided to meditate on healing my heart.  When I thought of being my true self and being one with everything, I was also one with my heart.  Suddenly I had a vision of actually seeing my heart in front of me as a red amorphous object.  My consciousness also apparently moved down into my autonomic system as I was actually controlling the beating of the heart and my breathing and everything else in my body.  One of the nurses noticed that I wasn't breathing and thought I was holding my breath, so she told me I had to breathe.  At that point I told my lungs to keep breathing on their own as my attention would be elsewhere, and I started breathing again.

 Then I gave a little pep talk to my heart and told it how much I loved it, and what a good heart it was, and that I wanted it to keep beating and pumping forever without me having to think about it. Then I spoke to the part of the heart which produced the electrical signals to trigger the beats and told it how important it was that it keep putting out the signals in the right order and rate and continue running no matter what.  I didn't want another heart attack!

Then there was a complete change of scene in the vision. I suddenly felt that I was in a room with a crystal-clear view looking down the inside of a tunnel, which I eventually realized was an artery in my heart. I didn't plan any of this, it just happened.  The view was as clear as an electron microscope photograph in its clarity and focus with a complete depth of field.  I could see the ragged-edged parts of the artery with small square little chicklet or tile shaped pieces clinging to the walls.  Later I found out that these were probably plaque -- crystalline structures, but I didn't know what they were at the time. The color I was seeing (with my eyes closed) was basically red with an orangy-peach colored background light (similar to shining a light through the skin between your thumb and forefinger).

Next I had the feeling that "I" (the point of view in the vision) was moving slowly down the artery. I had no sense of what "I" was, but just something moving down the artery.  As I encountered these plaque structures, they would be absorbed into whatever "I" was. There was some kind of transformation, with those square things becoming one with whatever consciousness "I" was. They were dissolving and coming back to being with the body as a whole instead of being these separate crystalline structures.  This moving slowly down the artery proceeded for a while until I came to a pile of "junk" that was clogging it up. I then absorbed and dissolved that whole pile.  When that happened, I (the I of my normal consciousness that communicated with nurses and friends) actually felt better!

I began to notice that I could be in this "internal vision" state while still being aware of what was going on around me.  I suddenly realized that I was exhausted and that I needed more energy. I was holding the hand of a woman friend who was standing beside my bed. Holding someone's hand had been really helpful and comforting through the whole process (I had the ambulance attendant hold my hand also). I realized then that holding her hand was taking energy I needed for the internal work. I needed to talk to her, but. I was afraid that talking might ruin the trance state, like it would in a dream. After thinking about it briefly, I decided I had to risk it. I spoke very carefully and told her I had to let go of her hand, that I needed the energy, and that I was OK and she didn't have to worry.

Then I realized that I was very thirsty.  I had never felt such an intense thirst in my life.  I don't think I had had any liquids in my mouth for eight hours. My friend had a wash rag that was used to moisten my lips. I asked her for the wash rag and I sucked the water out of it. When I did that, it was like turning on an energy switch. It gave me an incredible burst of energy inside and the process of moving through my arteries sped up. I began to feel even better, but I would quickly run out of energy and had to ask for more water. That process continued for a little while with me sucking more water from the washrag.

Then I became aware of other aspects of the internal vision state. Whenever the pressure cuff would come on for the automatic blood pressure measurement, my vision of the artery was blotted out by solid black and red stripes (like an out of sync TV screen). I quickly realized that those colors and that blotting out represented  (were "caused by") something hurting me instead of something healing me. As soon as it would go away, my vision of the artery would return and I could continue on with the healing process.

I also discovered that when someone said something negative, like "You've got to be quiet" or "You're moving too much," or anything that was trying to stop what I was doing, my healing vision was blocked out with black and white lines, like a black and white TV picture out of sync.  Once I realized that, I talked to the doctor and the nurses that were there.  I  carefully chose my words and told them something like: "I know this may be hard to understand, but there is something very special and important going on here inside. It's very important that you don't interfere with what I'm doing and I need for you to believe that what I am doing is good." I asked them to tell me that they believed me.

At first, they wouldn't do that. The doctor said "What's my name?"  I think he was trying to see whether or not I was hallucinating. Fortunately, I knew his name was Bob and I told him so. And I told the nurse that her name was Judy (I've change their names in this story to protect their privacy). Then they both said that yes, they believed me. That in itself removed the black/white lines and gave me even more energy to continue on.

At the same time, one of the nurses asked if she could touch me. I think she wanted to take my pulse or something. I said "No" because I thought it would take more energy for me to deal with that. But she touched my wrist anyway. After she touched me, the inner sensation was the orangy-peach-colored glow, and it was clearly healing, not harmful. I had a sudden realization of how healing it is for humans just to touch one another. She only touched me briefly.

I continued on and soon got to the point where I was no longer moving through the artery. My vision had changed into something similar to a two-rut dirt road in a valley. On the right side of the road was a "glass" wall that was holding back a lake of red and black stripes that seemed to represent pain and chaos. The parts close to me were very clear and straight stripes, but as it went into the distance, the lines mixed together to be more chaotic. On the left side was a low "hill-like" orangy-peach structure that seemed to represent my heart.  As I moved down the road and passed by it, my heart would heal and I felt better and better. I had the sense of keeping an ocean of pain and negative energy at bay on my right while I carried on healing by moving down this road.

Then I was actually moving my legs in the bed as if I was walking. There was something about actually doing the physical motion of walking that accelerated the process. It really felt good. But at this point I needed more water and realized that I couldn't get enough energy by sucking on the wash rag, I told them this and asked for a glass of water. They didn't want to give me a glass of water because they were afraid that I might choke or throw up. A nurse got a paper cup of water and gave me a spoonful. When I got the tiny bit of water in my mouth I felt betrayed, so I opened my eyes, saw the paper cup of water, grabbed it out of her hand and drank the whole cup. Then I laid back down. This relatively large amount of water gave me a tremendous burst of energy. I felt so good and energized that I said out loud: "I'm not going to die!"  It was a firm decision.

With all this new energy, I began running down the road, and my legs were actually running very fast in the bed. I was accelerating until it felt like I was actually moving my legs faster than was actually humanly possible. Then it really was humanly impossible and the vision moved into a sense of flying. It was like going from [thump…..  thump, …. thump,  thump (higher, faster) whirrrr, zowie!].  I believe one of the nurses later said that my heart rate went over 180 beats per minute and she was worried that I was going to go into cardiac arrest again.

However, instead of having another attack, I was healing at an incredibly rapid rate and feeling better and better. I began to notice a joining of the inner vision state and the outer reality state. Instead of being in a vision inside myself or going down the road, I was again laying in the hospital bed in intensive care, and healing was spreading through my whole body -- it had expanded beyond my heart. This was an ecstatic state but the connection and awareness of the normal "real" world made it absolutely clear that what was happening was not a hallucination but an expanded part of our normal life experience. It was a wonderful feeling.

I ran out of energy again and appealed for another glass of water. This time a woman friend of mind who was there had a glass of water and I sat up, took it out of her hand, drank it and laid back down. In just a flash, energy went through my body and I felt completely healed.  I was also in a state where everything seemed completely clear -- there were no doubts in my mind, no questions.  I was in direct contact with reality with nothing to interfere with how I perceived it.  (Now, 2010, I think this is what is called the "Beauty Way" state of consciousness, and the healing was done in the "Regeneration State". See Peak States website for more information.) This was part of that wonderful feeling and I didn't want it to end, but no matter what I did, the sensation continued to fade until I returned to the kind of reality that existed before I had my heart attack. It's impossible to describe with words, but you could think of it as going from a black and white, monaural view of the world to one in full color and surround sound.

At this point I sat up in bed and said: "I know you won 't understand, but something miraculous has happened, I'm completely healed. I'm alright." The doctor came around the bed and grabbed my hand and was trying to get me to lie down again. Telling me I just had a heart attack and I shouldn't be doing this. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it really hard and said "Would a sick man be able to do this?  Do you want to arm wrestle?" And then he let go because he didn't want me to strain myself. I said, "Look, I'm perfectly alright. I could walk out of here right now."
I proceeded to stand up by the bed with wires and IV's dangling all over me. All of the nurses and doctors were very upset, telling me "No you can't do this, if something happens to you we'll lose our jobs!" And I said. "I really need to pee badly, so let me pee while I'm standing up."  They gave me the urinal bottle and. I peed into the bottle and then I gave a large belch from having drunk all that water. Then they said "OK that's good, but we'd like you to lay down and rest for a while." I was feeling a little dizzy (I'd been flat on my back for many hours), so I said "OK " and laid back down. I said "I'll lay here and rest but promise me you won't give me any drugs or try to put me to sleep or anything. Just let me rest." They said "OK" and they did.

I felt perfectly normal from then on.  After a few days I passed a treadmill test with no difficulty and was released from the hospital.

Two and a half weeks later, my doctor suggested that I have an angiogram to see if there was any residual damage in my heart or arteries.  The results of the angiogram were that the damage was so small (if any) that if the doctor put the picture up there and told someone it was the heart of a 21 year old Olympic athlete, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference.  There was no narrowing of any of the arteries, and pumping was complete and normal.

This is hard to believe, since I probably had high cholesterol from when I was little until I was 49 (I was 50 years, 8 mo. old when the attack occurred), since I grew up on a diet of meat and potatoes, hot dogs, hamburgers, eggs, bacon, etc.  In particular, from 1976 - 1984 I ate out often at good restaurants where my favorite entrees were rich fatty foods like prime rib and lobster. In 1984 I began moving towards a vegetarian diet low in fat and was running 3 or 4 miles a day, but it's hard to believe that that could reverse 49 years of unhealthy eating.  My father and his three brothers all died of heart attacks -- all lived on the same diet that I did.  My favorite uncle had similar symptoms as mine, but they send him home, thinking he had the flu, instead of to an emergency ward, and he died of a heart attack in bed at home -- which is what could have happened to me as well.  He was 51 when that happened.

A month or so later, I did a treadmill test to exhaustion and put out an excellent effort with no ill effects.  In fact, my EKG improved as I did the test!  Now, 9 years later, I'm sure that the healing process cleaned things out totally and repaired any damage that was shown by the early EKG's in intensive care.  I'm still in good health, climb 14,000 ft peaks, ride my bike and go backpacking with no ill effects.  I have had two episodes of eating chocolate and sugar on an empty stomach and then getting a serious arrhythmia in my heart beat after about 5 hours that lasts for 2 or 3 hours.  I've had EKG's after these episodes that show no problems, and all my tests over the years have been fine.

I continue to be a vegetarian, eating only organic foods whenever possible.  I've never taken any heart medications, even though the doctors wanted me to, but I do take 1/4 of an aspirin per day and make sure I get plenty of vitamin e.  I would be very interested in hearing about any similar healing experiences that others have had.

Epilogue

It's now Dec, 2010. In 1991, I began having symptoms of inflamation in my right foot. I saw many doctors, massage therapists, acupuncturists, a rolfer, a faith healer, etc. to no avail, although I got temporary relief with the acupuncture. Finally, my right leg collapsed when I was walking home, and they ran tests for the blood flow in the right leg and discovered that the artery was blocked, probably caused by artery damage during the angiogram I had done in 1990. The Surgeon said I had to have surgery to repair the artery quickly or I could develop gangreene in that leg. The next day they did ANOTHER angiogram using the left artery to determine exactly where to operate, and this was then followed by surgery to repair the right leg. Fortunately, they were able to cleanout and patch the artery instead of inserting a length of artificial artery. I have had no difficulties since then, although I take an aspirin a day to help prevent further artery problems. I stopped for a month once, as I know the aspirin can cause bleeding in the stomach, but after 2 weeks I began getting symptoms in my right foot again, so I resumed taking the aspirin and continue to this day. I also started taking daily doses of Vitamin C, E and a multivitamin (Shaklee).

In 2002, I began to develop some symptoms similar to those preceding the attack in 1990. I reluctantly went to the hospital emergency department, where they determined that another artery in the heart was 95% clogged and other ones were 30% to 40% clogged. The Drs. and I decided that the best thing would be to put a stent in the most clogged artery. This is done by passing a tube through the artery in the groin, similar to the angiogram process. Because of the surgery in the right groin, they put the stent in though the left one. I was only in the hospital one night and recovered quickly and have had no further symptoms. I read a book called "The Power Protein Plan" that a friend loaned me, which suggested returning to a diet more like what we humans ate 15,000 years ago, and other changes to avoid problems with clogged arteries. At this time I had some blood tests done and learned that I carry a genetic problem called "Lipoprotein Little a" or LP(a). This causes the blood to form clots more easily, and may be a big factor in the men in my family having heart problems. Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done about this, so I have just followed their advice in reducing the other risk factors as much as I can. I added potassium and fish oil to my daily vitamins and eat lots of leafy green vegetables (kale is the best) while reducing carbohydrates. I'm generally in excellent health, rarely getting colds or flu, and have no problems with my muscles or bones, etc.

In Sept 2010, I had a minor Transient Ischemic Attack (minor stroke) which slightly affected the sensation under the skin on my left side - probably caused by a small clot lodging somewhere in the brain. The hospital did a lot of tests, including an MRI and cardioechgram and found my heart is good and the carotid arteries in the neck are clear. I've increased my aspirin a bit and added more fish oil. Hopefully, I'll update this in another 20 years! :)

The end.

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