[In conveying this article to me, Motomynd commented, "Think of it as a public service provided from a personal perspective. I was a pall bearer at a funeral last year of a man much younger than me who died of an allergic reaction very similar to the one that almost killed me. I was very fit, he smoked. I was fortunate, he wasn't. His heart blew up, mine didn't. That's all it takes to make the difference between being here and being gone."]
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Walk across
Golden Gate Bridge? |
Your thoughts on “the rail” and
all the things that might be linked with it brought back a rush of memories. The question
I would add to your musings is, Are you taking any new medications? It is also
a question I would urge anyone else with similar symptoms to ponder. While your
situation could simply be reacting to the deep thinking you are doing about the
dramatic change coming to your life–retirement, and the unexpected stress it
may bring with it–there may be more to the story.
From age 25 to 37 I made my living
by photographing, writing about, and competing in adventure sports such as
mountain biking, white-water kayaking and canoeing, rock climbing, trail
running, snowmobiling, and downhill and cross-country skiing. One June morning halfway through my 37th year, I was out for a pre-dawn run with one of
my Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, and as the sun rose over a hill in my suburban
neighborhood I was suddenly overcome with symptoms similar to what you
describe: unsteadiness, a bit of disorientation, and a sudden bizarre,
unexplainable fear of the eight-foot drop to the small creek that flowed beside
the road. Despite having run that exact route hundreds of times before, I had to
slow to a walk to get myself together. The 200 yards along that small drop felt
like I was on a tightrope.
An hour later I felt fine and
since we had no web back then to research such things, I dismissed it as a
one-off, as the Brits say, and got on with my life. Two days later, on a
beautiful Friday morning, I was making the three-hour drive from my home to
participate in a 50-mile mountain bike race in West
Virginia when I crossed a favorite bridge over the James River on Interstate 81. I had canoed and kayaked
that section of river many times and I always loved looking at it and rekindling
those memories as I crossed high above at 70 miles per hour. This time, however,
as I looked downstream I felt my pulse climb and a sense of dread and dizziness
descend.
In retrospect this should have
been a clue to stop and think about what was different in my life, but a
mountain bike race and a national ranking were at stake, so I drove on. The
race actually went well. I won my age group decisively, placed very high
overall, and except for one moment of unexplained fear on a steep downhill,
felt my old self. Then I drove over the same bridge on the way home and had
what could only be described as a panic attack: racing pulse, sweating palms,
the works.
The rest of the week passed
uneventfully as I firmed up plans to head west the following Monday to do a
spate of national mountain biking assignments. The only speed bumps were a
wedding to photograph for friends and a bit of a cold or allergy, for which I
had gone to the doctor a week earlier and was taking some sort of new
medication.
Wrapping up my work week, I was
driving to the office on Friday when my pulse roared to a level I had never
felt. It was going so fast I couldn’t begin to count it–and I was used to
doing such in calculating how hard to run or pedal and how much rest to take in
between. In a wicked bit of irony, I drove right past our local hospital just
before the road rose up to meet me and twisted like a scene from one of those
black-and-white Godzilla movies from the 1950s or 60s. Finally having realized that something
wasn’t right, I pulled into a parking lot on the right, turned off the
ignition, tried one last time to count my pulse, and, for all practical
purposes, died.
To make an already too-long story
at least a bit shorter, let me simply say that instead of heading west to go
mountain biking the next week, I went north to specialists at the University of Virginia. And for the next several
months I made trips between there and other cutting-edge medical facilities
instead of trips to great biking and climbing venues.
The problem? An allergic reaction
to a new allergy medication.
The result? Some bleeding in the
brain, a “miracle” survivor’s story to tell, some lingering occasional bouts of
vertigo, and suddenly having to give up a dream career and take on the horrors
of doing studio photography to pay the bills.
A footnote: Within six months the
panic attacks from driving over bridges went away. After a few years they
became so distant I would laugh as I recalled them. Nearly five years later I
drove north on I-81, hauling a van-load of gear for a commercial photo session
in Massachusetts.
I crossed the spot over the James River without incident and thoroughly enjoyed
driving the huge spans across the wide Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Later I crossed the mighty Hudson River near West Point,
all without incident.
That night some friends and I joked
about it over drinks. “Thank goodness that is behind me,” I said, “since I’m
driving to Alaska
and back in a few months. I can only imagine the bridges out that way.”
Three days later, with our photo
assignment done and all wonderful in the world, I loaded the van and headed
back to Virginia.
Then, as I approached those same bridges over the Hudson
River, I was suddenly gripped by a panic attack so violent I
wondered if my heart was going to stop again. Slowing to barely thirty miles
per hour I somehow stayed in my lane and made the crossing, but I still don’t
know how. Later that day I suffered through almost identical symptoms crossing
the Susquehanna.
In the years since I have learned
frankly way too much about the long-term impact of injuries to one’s brain and
heart, about the affects of caffeine, alcohol, sugar, and stress, and about how once
a “trigger” is planted deep in the brain, you never know when it will fire.
Your “trigger” may have been set at the Golden Gate
Bridge, even though it didn’t fire until
years later at the hotel in Atlanta.
It may never fire again, or it may the next time you get in an elevator to the
third floor of a modest office building. I would suggest you give especially careful
thought to your state of mind and balance before braving an escalator, no
matter how small.
The moral? Don’t live in fear, because
your world will shrink faster than you can begin to imagine, but don’t confront
too many fears head-on without professional help because you may blow up your
heart in the process. Most importantly, if you do have a sudden unexplainable
symptom you have never experienced before, stop and ask yourself: “What new medication
am I taking?”
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