www.savingtinyhearts.org

Although American Heart Month has come and gone, it’s never far from the hearts and minds of all the people affected by heart ailments.

While I tend to focus on heart disease and preventing your loved ones from suffering the effects of it, there exists an entire group of loved ones who would gladly suffer more, if only it were possible.  I am talking about the parents and loved ones of infants born with congenital heart defects.

Saving Tiny Hearts Society is a 100% volunteer run, non-profit organization whose goal is to raise “seed money for grossly under-funded, lifesaving grass roots research of congenital heart defects (CHD’s).”

This Sunday, March 11, 2012, they are hosting a fundraiser at Equinox in Highland Park called “Sweat For Tiny Hearts.”  The event “is a multi-activty cardio event including an indoor spin cycle team relay, Cardio-Aerobic Classes, Yoga & more to raise funds for CHD Research.”

This is an interesting concept for a fundraiser.  There’s no need to worry about the weather.  There’s no need to drag that old bike out of the garage and hope that it (and your butt) can make it through the day.  Just tell your friends, grab your gym clothes, and head to Equinox for a few hours of indoor fitness activities.

If you can’t make it, you can always sponsor an athlete or make a direct donation to Saving Tiny Hearts through their website.

Saving Tiny Hearts has a very compelling story – it’s worth a few minutes of your time to visit their site and read about it.  I think any parent will relate to “Haley’s Story” and the range of emotions that come with seeing a tiny one go through so much at such a tender age.

Keep riding – or walking, running, yoga-ing, or whatever-cardio-activity-you-prefer-ing – and be charitable!

This post originally appeared on Chicago Now / Easy As Riding A Bike.  Reposted by permission of author (me).  Copyright 2012

Courtesy of Chicago Tribune

Like nearly everyone else, I was surprised to hear that Davy Jones died of a heart attack yesterday at the age of 66.

My mind instantly returned to childhood days happily watching reruns of The Monkees and the occasional Marsha-Brady-has-a-crush-on-Davy-Jones episode that was recreated in the Brady Bunch movie 25 years later.  I hadn’t paid much attention to anything he’d done in recent years, but I still was sad to hear of him dying so young.

As I read the developing news accounts, I waited for the details to come in.  The first report I read said he had complained of chest pains the night before and went to the hospital the following morning.  Most others said that he had experienced trouble breathing that morning, an ambulance was called, and he was pronounced dead at the hospital.

A few brief lines were devoted – summarily – to what killed him, then the obituary was launched.

Admittedly, I’m a little more attuned to the severity of heart attacks than your average news reader.  Or maybe not, as the case may be.

In 2012, we’re still not surprised when someone in their sixties is felled by a heart attack.  We accept it as something that is expected to happen.  Nothing to be learned here, let’s move right on to the nostalgia and mourn our collective loss.

Across America (and possibly a large part of the world) adults of a certain age are remembering whatever joy Davy brought to them with his performances.  By all accounts, he appeared to be a great guy who will be missed.

But Davy wasn’t the only one that was lost and will be missed.  1,099 other Americans died from a heart attack yesterday.  1,100 more will die today.  And tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the day after that…

According to the American Heart Association, heart disease claims over 400,000 Americans each year – one in every six deaths.  Nearly 800,000 of us will suffer a heart attack this year.  Nearly 500,000 will suffer a recurrent attack with nearly 200,000 suffering silent attacks.  Heart disease is the number one killer, bar none.

It is also preventable.

Just like stroke, diabetes, and obesity – metabolic syndrome as it is now being called – each can be treated or even prevented with lifestyle changes.  Proper diet.  Moderate exercise.  Lowered stress.

Periodic screening will let each of us know our individual risk factors.  Lipid profiles will tell us of dangerous levels of cholesterol and triglycerides.  C-Reactive protein screenings, stress tests, and angiograms can alert us to plaque buildup.  Angioplasties and stents can clear artery blockages.  If we arrive at the emergency room at the onset of symptoms, we have a very good chance of surviving.

But we have to recognize the warning signs.

I know nothing of what happened to Davy Jones.  That information may never be released or reported on.  Like me, he may have experienced classic symptoms that he dismissed or it may have hit him suddenly.  He may have had time to seek treatment or he may not have.  It certainly sounds like the people around him did all that they could to help save his life.

Ultimately, we’re each responsible for our own health.  What we put into our bodies, how we respond to warning signs, and when we seek treatment is pretty much within our own control.  Unfortunately, we’re not the only ones that suffer the consequences for our own actions.  It’s the people that we leave behind that experience our loss, as the Davy Jones story clearly demonstrates.

It was very ironic that this year’s heart month had an extra day in it and on that day we were all reminded that heart disease touches each of our lives.

So while we each remember Davy in our own way, let’s also remember the other 1,099 individuals who left behind husbands, wives, partners, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, coworkers, acquaintances, admirers, and fans.

Let’s honor their memories by vowing not to put our own loved ones through this misery.

This post originally appeared on Chicago Now / Easy As Riding A Bike on Thursday, March 1, 2012.  Reposted by permission of author (me).

Courtesy of American Heart Association You're The Cure

Today I celebrate my third birthday.

Yes, you read that right. T-h-i-r-d.  I didn’t mean to type thirty (but it sure would be nice to return to those days of relative youth).  Nor is it a typo for forty third.  February 8th marks the third birthday I will celebrate since suffering a near-fatal heart attack on August 8, 2009.

It’s a hard day to forget.

Each day I’m reminded of it when I swallow one aspirin, three prescription meds,  and four different supplements after I eat my bowl of oat cereal topped with fresh strawberries and blueberries chased down with a glass of pomegranate Kefir.  I can barely remember the days when the fruit I ingested for breakfast came in the form of loops and was spelled with double-o’s.

I guess it’s fitting that my birthday falls at the beginning of American Heart Month.  It’s a gentle reminder to not only remember those who saved my life exactly two and a half years ago today*, but to also remember to share my story with others that might benefit from it.

Failure to see the warning signs

I woke up early that fateful morning in a hotel room near Oakland, California.  I had a strange ache in my left arm and some discomfort in my chest.  For a brief moment I thought “these seem like heart attack symptoms.”

Then I remembered that I was only forty three.  I wasn’t overweight, although I was getting close to that next BMI demarcation.  I was fit.  I didn’t smoke.  I didn’t drink (not even coffee).  I had never had high blood pressure or high cholesterol (still don’t).  I thought I did a pretty good job of denying myself the usual artery cloggers – red meat, cheese, bacon, mayo, and fried foods.

I quickly dismissed my symptoms – two very key symptoms – as sleeping on my arm the wrong way and indigestion from a large meal the night before.

I popped four aspirin, two Tums, and went about preparing for my 2pm flight back to Chicago.  The intensity of the chest pressure ebbed and flowed as the aspirin surged and wore off.  About every four hours, I popped another four aspirin, took a couple more Tums, and continued on with my journey home.

Rental car.  Shuttle bus.  Airplane.  Shuttle bus.  Minivan.  Sometime after 9pm I arrived home and crawled into my bed to finally sleep this thing off.  If it was still bothering me in the morning, I would go to the urgent care.

My daughter, Erin, did not agree with my decision to sleep it off and insisted on taking me to the emergency room.  I reluctantly agreed, if only to dismiss this annoyance, pick up a prescription, and finally get some sleep.

Me and Erin before her college graduation, May 2009

Erin dropped me off at the entrance to the ER and I quietly walked up to the desk.  The moment I described my symptoms and offered my “it’s probably just bad indigestion” diagnosis, I was quickly whisked into a side room to check my blood pressure.  Within a few short minutes I was lying on my back in a triage bay with no less than five technicians hovering about me.

I had never experienced anything more surreal than that moment when the ER doctor told me, almost nonchalantly, “you are having a heart attack.”

Heart attack?  This couldn’t be happening to me.  Fit 43 year-old cyclists don’t have heart attacks!  A person can’t just carry on a 14-hour day of traveling while suffering from a heart attack…

Even though I never uttered any of that aloud, the members of the triage team were more than quick to refute that flawed line of reasoning with an “oh yes you can and you bet your ass you are, buddy.”

My new cardiologist was even more blunt.  “You should have gone to the emergency room in California.”

It was at that moment that I learned some very hard truths about heart attacks.  Every minute that you delay seeking treatment, heart muscle dies, that’s right dies from a lack of oxygen.  At any moment, the synapses that control the pumping of blood can short circuit causing cardiac arrest or sudden death.

Not only was I a walking time bomb on my sojourn home, I was causing permanent damage to heart muscle every step of the way.

After rebuking me, the cardiologist could only hope that I hadn’t arrived too late for him to save my life.

The Emergency Angioplasty

So there I was, lying flat on my back on a gurney in the triage bay of the emergency room, my life completely in the hands of a group of complete strangers.  While the catheter lab was being prepped, I continued to be peppered with questions.

Are you a smoker?  No.  Do you drink?  No.  Use drugs?  No.  Is there a family history of heart disease?  Well, now that you mention it…

As I lay there, still stunned by the ER doctor’s rather matter-of-fact diagnosis, it began to come into focus.  Despite just barely missing “preferred plus” status on a life insurance policy eight years earlier due to elevated triglycerides, I was certain that I’d beaten the family curse.  Could the cause of my heart attack simply be fate?

Before I even realized it, I began rattling off statistics like a 10 year-old Cubs fan.  First there was my maternal grandfather who died of heart failure a few years after suffering a heart attack (back in the days when bloodletting was still a treatment).  Next was my mother’s oldest brother who died of a heart attack at 47.  Then her next oldest brother who died from complications while undergoing his second bypass surgery at the age of 51.  My mother’s sister, thirteen years her junior, lives with diabetes and has suffered a pair of heart attacks and undergone numerous angioplasties.  Then of course there’s my mom – diabetic, two heart attacks, a stroke, living with congestive heart failure (and surgically implanted, state-of-the-art defibrillator) but still going strong at 77, bless her barely functioning heart.

As preoccupied as I was with amazing the crew with family cardiac trivia and regaling them with every small detail of my 14-hour journey to the ER, the gravity of the situation had yet to sink in.

It became “as serious as a heart attack” the moment they sent for my daughter.

When they told her the news, she remained remarkably composed.  She immediately called her brother and informed him that he’d better get his butt to the hospital ASAP.  I wanted to let her know how proud I was of her.  Instead, I remained speechless.  Fighting back tears, lips quivering, my voice trembling, all I could manage to mutter was “I’m sorry.”

The next thing I know I was hurtling feet first down whitewashed corridors like an Olympic bobsledder atop a luge.  I was slid onto an ice cold stainless steel table with a black boom looming ominously overhead.  And then I was out.

When I awoke I was back on the gurney rolling slowly toward an elevator.  There were many voices behind me.  Inside the crowded elevator I caught a glimpse of my daughter, my son, my fiancee, and my ex-father-in-law.  None of my departed relatives were anywhere in sight, so apparently I was still alive.

Picture all of us, two nurses, and a gurney inside an elevator...

Inside the ICU, I was told repeatedly that I was a lucky man.

I didn’t find out just how lucky I had been until I saw a diagram of my blockages the following day.  Two at ninety percent.  One at one hundred percent.  One was in the circumflex artery.  The other two were in the LMCA – the widow maker artery.  One of those two was the hundred percenter.

Two stents were installed in the LMCA during the emergency catheter procedure.  The 90% blockage in the circumflex would have to wait another four or five weeks to be opened and stented.  I was far from out of the woods.

I was given a photocopied diagram of a heart with my blockages crudely sketched in pen.  Any questions I might have could be answered in an illustrated guidebook that appeared to be written for a fifth-grader.  Meanwhile, I was scheduled for more EKG’s, more blood work, and an echocardiogram.  There was no telling how long I would remain connected to the monitoring equipment surrounding me in my private room in the ICU.

The extent of the damage to my heart – caused in large part by my delay in seeking treatment – would not be revealed immediately.  I would have to wait for the doctor’s analysis of all the monitoring equipment, the series of EKG’s, the continual blood work, and the echocardiogram.

I could only hope that the same, strong, bicycling heart that allowed me to endure a 14-hour myocardial infarction would become strong enough to propel me on many more two-wheeled adventures.

As I peered out my hospital room window, I could see the familiar Poplar Creek Trail that I had ridden close to a hundred times before.  It was either a sign of hope or a cruel reminder of what my delay in seeking treatment had truly cost me…

Courtesy of Mayo Clinic

To see the key for the above illustration, click here.  

How did this happen?

When I woke up lying flat on my back in a twin size bed on the morning of August 9, 2009, it took a moment or two for me to adjust to my surroundings.  Ordinarily, I’m not surprised to awaken in an unfamiliar room as I travel frequently for work.  But even the cheapest hotels I stay in don’t have guardrails on the beds.

Slowly, it all came back to me.  My loved ones hovering over my bed, looking as if they had seen a ghost.  The phlebotomist who drew samples continually throughout the night.  The EKG tech who attached color-coded wires to the matching post-it patches that stretched from my neck to my feet.  The night nurse who woke me up to ask how I’d been sleeping.    Everywhere I turned there was evidence that I had, in fact, suffered a heart attack.

The only thing that didn’t make sense was how and why this had happened to me.

The “how” part is actually pretty straightforward.  At some point in time, inflammation developed in an artery.  Cholesterol sped to the scene and applied itself as a band-aid to the wound.  More cholesterol piled on, causing a buildup of plaque and a narrowing of the artery.  While the plaque continued to build, blood vessels continued to grow within the plaque.  The plaque ruptured and a blood clot was formed.

The clot formed a blockage that prevented blood from flowing to the myocardium (heart muscle).  Deprived of oxygen where the blood flow had been cut off, heart muscle began to die.  While my heart continued to pump blood through a narrower opening, it also routed blood through smaller blood vessels, even forming new vessels to nourish the affected area.  This was when I began to experience chest and angina pain.

Had an electrical impulse (synapse) been interrupted by the disruption of blood flow to the heart muscle, I would have suffered cardiac arrest.  Until blood flow was restored through the reopening of the blocked artery during the emergency angioplasty, my heart muscle continued to die.

There is no question that the fourteen aspirin helped keep the blood flowing – although the cardiologist stated that one would have been sufficient.  He also concurred with me that had my heart muscle not been conditioned through nine years of bicycling, I may not have survived as long as I did.

So how long had there been plaque buildup in my arteries?  What caused the inflammation to begin with?  How could I have known that I was at risk?

When I arrived in the ER, a lipid profile was derived from a blood sample.  My HDL – the good cholesterol  – was low at 37 (should be greater than 40).  But my LDL – the bad cholesterol – was very low at 78 (well less than the <200 recommended).  The problem was with my triglycerides.  At 279, this level was nearly double the high end of the recommended range.

High triglycerides and low HDL is a deadly combination for heart disease.

Had I routinely taken advantage of discreet screenings offered by organizations like Life Line Screening, I may have become alerted to my risk factors.  I would have then had the opportunity to change my diet which likely would have prevented my heart attack.  My own health scare prompted my fiance, Nancy, to do just that.

Life Line offers a range of services from a basic lipid profile to C-Reactive Protein screening.  Nancy’s experience with them was wonderful and she found out that she was in far better health than I had been even at my peak eight years earlier (she did receive preferred plus life insurance status).  It gave her peace of mind in planning our future together.

At this point, I understood how my heart attack occurred.  I also learned what I could have done to determine my risk factors and likely prevent it.  I still didn’t know the answer to the all important question – why?  

It would take quite awhile into my recovery to begin to find the answer to this question.  It would also take a little more time to understand the full extent of the damage done to my heart muscle.

Why did this happen?

When I woke up in the intensive care unit, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the path of my life had been forever altered.  I had several questions that I really needed answers for.  How bad is this?  How long will I be in here?  How did this happen?  Why did this happen?

As much as I needed answers to each of these questions, my mind was fixated on but one seemingly unanswerable question; “did this really happen to me?”

Fixate may even be the wrong word to describe the situation.  It wasn’t really an obsession, it was more like a continual playback loop where the question repeated itself so quickly that my mind never had the chance to formulate an answer.  I was caught in a perpetual state of disbelief.

Before I could move forward with my recovery, I had to slowly overcome the shock that I had suffered a heart attack.  I wasn’t really a hospital patient, bedridden and tethered to monitors, I was the guy explaining the plot of a movie I had just seen.

I repeated my story to every person who stepped into my room.  From nurses to technicians to doctors to visitors, each time I retold my tale I would remember another tiny detail and offer it up as some big revelation.  I became so adept with my narration that I had learned to insert dramatic pauses and even punchlines.  Within a few days the shock wore off and I came to accept the fact that this was actually my own adventure and I was, in fact, very lucky to have survived.

I still couldn’t seem to understand one thing; why did this happen to me?

There was a lot of introspection on the road to discovering the answer to “why”.  Was I doomed by my family history?  Was it my diet?  Did I bring this on with stress?  Was this just an unfortunate condition that could neither be foreseen nor prevented?

A heritage of heart disease - me, my Mom, and my oldest brother

I found the family history explanation a little too convenient.  I was the fourth of five children and probably the most fit.  Three of my siblings had been smokers.  My oldest brother – thirteen years my senior – was overweight, had battled with high blood pressure, and suffered from a genetic blood disorder (also courtesy of our mother).  Six weeks earlier, he and I had remarked about just how lucky we were for winning the genetic lottery.  He suffered his first heart attack five months after I experienced mine.

It’s all about food.

Deep down I knew that my diet had to be a major contributor.  While I tried to stay away from red meat, cheese, and fried foods and eat more turkey, chicken, and wheat, my life on the road often meant sacrificing quality for convenience.  Upon my discharge, I vowed to eat better.

While I waited for five weeks to undergo a second angioplasty for insertion of the third stent in my still-blocked circumflex artery, the most exercise I could manage was a slow walk around the block.  I focused on my diet, cutting out pop and both sugary and salty snacks.  I cut back my portion sizes.

To my amazement, I was shedding an average of three pounds per week without exercise!  Three months of intensive physical therapy would only shave another five pounds, so it was obvious that changing my diet was key in transforming my health.

After a friend gave me a copy of Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, it didn’t take me long to determine what I had been doing wrong.  The book reminded me why I needed to eat more fruit and vegetables and stick with lean proteins and whole grains.  It explained to me the hidden dangers of processed foods and the insidious nature of high fructose corn syrup.

When people ask me why I had a heart attack at 43, I have a simple answer for them.  I blame it on two women; my mother and Little Debbie.

My heart disease wasn’t caused by too much cholesterol and saturated fats – it was caused by too much sugar.  Switching to a diet of whole foods in conjunction with my normal exercise routine resulted in an eventual weight loss of 35 pounds which I’ve managed to keep off for nearly two years now.

I discovered my X factor.  I attacked it with a vow to never put myself or my family through that type of ordeal again.  And it’s really not that hard to commit to a healthy lifestyle when you consider the alternative.

Living with heart disease...

The Recovery Lifestyle

As American Heart Month draws to an end, I can’t look at the calendar and conveniently say “Thank God I won’t have to deal with this unpleasant heart business for another eleven months.”

I am reminded of heart disease twice daily.  Popping pills may become as routine as teeth brushing to some, but this unnatural act only serves as a continual warning to me.  I must remain ever vigilant in my fight against atherosclerosis.

Each morning I’m reminded of that fateful day in August of 2009.  I remember the anguished faces of my loved ones gathered around me in the ICU, the surprised looks from the medical professionals who attended to me, and the stunned expressions from everyone I shared my story with.  I’m not allowed to forget how that one incident changed the course of my life.

Five weeks after my heart attack I returned to the hospital for a second angioplasty and the installation of my third (and final) stent.  At that early stage only one thing was known about the damage done to my heart; my ejection fraction – the rate at which my heart pumps blood – was at 42%.  An average person should be 50% or higher.  Athletes can rise into the 60′s.

Bicycling probably saved my life.  Nine years of recreational cycling and regular exercise likely had my EF well above 50%.  As I entered the 12-week cardiac rehabilitation program at Alexian Brothers Medical Center I had but one goal; return to my former level of fitness (and not die trying).

I hit the program full force, pushing myself as hard as I could go during the duration of exercise I was approved for.  Each successive week I was allowed to add a minute or two to each of three consecutive exercises.  Since I was being monitored remotely by the rehab staff, I was free to run on the treadmill, sprint on the Airdyne, and up the resistance on the stair stepper.  If my heart wasn’t healing correctly, my exercise results would have shown it.

Rehab meant more than just monitored exercise three days per week.  The program tracked my eating habits and surveyed my mental well-being.  Depression is a normal side effect during the recovery process and I battled that, as well.

I truly believe that recovery is not an event or even a measurable time period.  Recovery is a lifestyle.

Living with heart disease is a constant balancing act.  We know that we must exercise regularly, eat better, and avoid stress.  Unlike anyone who has yet to suffer a heart attack or stroke or be diagnosed with diabetes, heart attack survivors no longer live in denial that a chronic disease may statistically be in our future – it has already arrived.

We’ve seen the enemy and it is us.

We know that we have the ability to remain vigilant against the disease, to treat it with medication, and keep it at bay with lifestyle changes.  We just don’t always have the will.  It’s tough to make lifestyle changes half-way through life.

I find the motivation to maintain my exercise schedule, stay true to my diet, and release stress partly through my love of bicycling.  Riding my bike is a great way to relax my mind while keeping my heart strong.  Eating well makes it easier for me to perform on the bike and a higher level of fitness makes riding more enjoyable.  Bicycling is part of my recovery lifestyle.

The other part of my recovery lifestyle is a quest to find the answer to the one remaining question – why did I survive?

I am certainly one of a fortunate few who survived, but thanks to ever-improving technology, expert doctors, and pro-active trauma centers, those who seek prompt attention also have an excellent chance of survival.  Retelling my story has already saved one life that I know of – my brother’s – and is likely to save more than I’ll ever hear about.

Yes, it can happen to anyone – fit or not-fit-at-all, young or old, male or female.  Heart disease is the number one killer in America.  Its cause is the same as the other chronic diseases – stroke, diabetes, and obesity – now referred to as metabolic syndrome.

Eat right.  Exercise.  Reduce stress.  Know the warning signs.  Get a lipid profile to see if you’re at risk.  Think of the people who would be most impacted should you die prematurely.  Don’t let any of these chronic diseases shorten your life.

As for me, I’m going to keep riding my bike.  After rehab I was able to return to an ejection fraction of 50% with a lipid profile that would qualify me for preferred plus life insurance status (you know, if I didn’t have that one big X next to the heart attack question).

The path ahead of me is long, but I’m eager to race down it.  The only thing that ever stops me is the weather…

*Thanks to my daughter, Erin, my cardiologist, Dr. Arthur Nazarian, the ER doc, the ER triage team, the catheter lab crew, the ICU staff, and everyone in the cardiac care unit at St. Alexius Hospital in Hoffman Estates.  More thanks to my internist Dr. Robert Dick and the nursing staff at Alexian Brothers’ cardiac rehabilitation program in Schaumburg.

Picture of me sporting my new Twibbon!

I’m a bad heart attack survivor.

No, I haven’t fallen off the wagon and gone on a Little Debbie’s and Mountain Dew bender.  I’ve just been so preoccupied with my job and Congress’ attack on bicycling funding that I have missed writing about the first four days of American Heart Month.

If you’re not as engaged in all of this as you’d like to be, I’ll help get you up to speed with some very helpful links.

The first thing I did on Wednesday was “get myself a Twibbon”.  What’s a Twibbon, you ask?  It is a digital ribbon that can be placed over your Twitter and Facebook profile pictures to designate your commitment to heart disease awareness.  It’s in the picture above.  You can also visit me on Facebook and Twitter to see what it looks like there.  Official Twibbon information is here.

Beyond adding my Twibbon, I’ve read a little about what’s going on:

On Facebook, I like to follow the American Heart Association, AHA’s You’re the Cure, and Life Line Screening.  Dr. Steven Sinatra is also a great heart advocate as is Dr. Mark Hyman.  Fan them and find the links to all of their blogs, official websites, and Twitter feeds.

Another organization I would like to point out is Saving Tiny Hearts.  I’m just getting to know them myself and hope to write more about them soon.  In the meantime, fan them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and visit their website.

Stay in touch, stay engaged, and spread the heart disease awareness message not just this month, but every day of the year!

Courtesy of American Heart Association

American Heart Month kicks off today, February 1, 2012, with the State of Women’s Health webinar at 4:30pm CST.  You can join AHA CEO Nancy Brown and Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius by pre-registering at the included link.

Friday, February 3rd is Wear Red Day.  If creating awareness of heart disease is important to you, you can help draw attention to the disease that is the number one killer of ALL Americans by rocking the rouge, reveling in rojo, and radiating red all day long.

Wednesday, February 8th marks the 2 1/2 year anniversary of my own heart attack.  No normal, sane person should remember, let alone celebrate, a half-year anniversary of such a painful memory.  I’m not saying that I’m either normal or sane, but on that day I will also be celebrating my 46th birthday.

It is the 3rd birthday I am able to celebrate thanks to the people who saved my life on August 8, 2009.  To my daughter Erin, Dr. Nazarian, and the ER, Catheter Lab, ICU, and Cardiac Care staff at St. Alexius Hospital – Thank You!

American Heart Month encompasses more than just heart disease awareness, prevention, and recognizing the signs of a heart attack.  It is about drawing attention to all of the people who live with a heart condition or are their caretakers.  I will try to highlight one or two of those people in my blog this month.

Heart disease is very much preventable.  I realize that many of us either don’t feel that we are at risk or don’t want to imagine that we are.  I know – I was one of them.  You can read my “who would have thought that it could happen to me” story beginning here.

For the sake of your loved ones, consider setting up a basic lipid profile screening from the very discrete and convenient Life Line Screening.  Knowing your risk factors is the first step in preventing a heart attack or stroke.

If you find out that you are at risk, additional Life Line tests are available to direct you toward your next step in treatment.  Risk can be reduced through a change in diet and the addition of daily exercise.  The presence of inflammation requires a trip to your doctor.

Here’s to a great month!

One day you're riding your bike, the next you're pushing the snowblower!

As the snow fell upon the Chicago area this past Thursday, I resigned myself once again to a winter of merely daydreaming about bicycling.

Gone was the disbelief of mild winter riding and the confusion of all that witnessed the premature return of the recreational cyclist.  At least I have my Google Reader news bundle to keep me abreast of the latest cycling stories…

Read full article here…

I’m certain he wasn’t expecting to see a cyclist in the middle of the afternoon on an early January day.  But I was rather hard to miss as I sat tall atop the saddle of my bike.  Though my bike and I were mostly clad in black, we still appeared in stark contrast to the wide-open gray and tan landscape he was accustomed to.

Read full article…

Bars Across America courtesy of Amazon

If you’ve ever daydreamed about riding a bicycle from coast to coast across the United States, you may want to pick up a copy of John Greenfield’s Bars Across America before you saddle up.

This is no cautionary tale.  It’s not fraught with peril or disenchantment.  It’s actually a very entertaining, straightforward, and mostly humorous account of one man’s bicycling adventure from Astoria, Oregon to Boston, Mass.  At 159 pages, you’ll enjoy it so much, you’re likely to finish it in one sitting.

Read full review…

Read a review on H G Wells’ The Wheels of Chance.

Read a review on David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries.

Watch for a whole new blog site dedicated to articles about cycling that don’t quite make it onto the big sites, but are equally important to the recreational cyclist.

Paul Douglas Trail in Winter

I don’t think I’ve ever ridden my bike in January.

Once the temperature drops below forty or the first snowflakes hit the ground (whether they stick or not), my bikes are cleaned, lubed, spit-polished and hung on the wall like the fine pieces of art that they are.

I never expected a fifty degree day during the first week of the New Year.  I checked my cold weather cycling gear – the lack of which is really the primary reason for hanging up my cleats for the season – and discovered that a pair of tights, a wicking base layer, a long sleeve wool jersey, and a wind shell would be more than sufficient.  It’s really nothing less than I would wear on a chilly spring morning.

I loaded the Iseo into the minivan and headed to the Paul Douglas Trail in Hoffman Estates.  There, during the lunch hour on a Friday afternoon, I encountered a dozen or so people on two feet and another dozen on two wheels.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one in need of some outdoor exercise.

In my mind, I knew that it wasn’t an early spring day.  There was no hope that the bare trees would be sprouting buds or that the brown prairie grasses would be greening up anytime soon.  As I looked around at the all too familiar setting along my favorite workout loop, something didn’t feel quite right.

It felt like visiting a grade school during vacation.

I just couldn’t shake the thought that I wasn’t supposed to be there.  Not at this time of the year, anyway.  I had bid my farewells, wished the preserve and its occupants a pleasant holiday, and resigned myself to a different kind of life during the off-season.  Yet here I was, interrupting its well-deserved rest and rejuvenation, begging for one more day of personal enlightenment.

The forest preserve willingly obliged me.

While there were no crayons in my desk and nothing colorful to be found anywhere in the classroom, I still sensed the potential.  Even though the chalkboards had been wiped clean, they were still there to remind me of all the lessons I had already learned and hint at those that had yet to come.

Despite the chilling breeze cutting through my tights and tickling my face, I knew that it would only be a matter of time before this familiar place warmed me from head to toe.

In no time whatsoever my blood began to surge, carrying fresh oxygen to every cell in my body.  My skin warmed as carbon dioxide and other toxins escaped to the base layer.  Sure, I could have built up the same sweat lapping the track at the Y, but the sights and smells there just aren’t the same.

It had to be the Vitamin D that notched my serotonin past SAD and into “momentarily content”.

While I only had time to make a single seven-mile loop, I returned to the van with my spirits uplifted.  This feeling lasted the rest of the day and into the next.

It wasn’t just the exercise.  It wasn’t simply the physiological process of elevating the heart rate, exchanging oxygen, and activating endorphins.  It was the feeling of being back in the saddle and absorbing the outdoors into my soul.

It really is all about the bike and the places it takes you to – physically and emotionally.

Here’s to a few more gorgeous bike riding days before Old Man Winter returns with his original agenda.

I’m counting the days until the trail looks like this again;

Paul Douglas Trail in Spring

Keep riding and be safe!

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