A Story Told by Jeff Rickard

Jeff Rickard has been using Meta Hunter for two years as a radio host, and he spends a lot of time talking about sports. He also put in time on the court. He played football in college, and after graduation, he dabbled in just about every sport imaginable. He's been riding a bike since he was in his 20s, and I've gone on to race a lot of bikes.

Even though he's in his 50s, he'll say he's fitter than most men his age. He eats a very healthy diet and rarely drinks alcohol. So his brush with death about a year ago caught him completely off guard.

It was a crisp fall day and he was raking leaves outside his home in Indianapolis. Only raked for 5 or 10 minutes and all of a sudden, his chest got tight and his left side started to tingle in a very weird way. His symptoms matched everything I'd read about a heart attack.

He went in, took two baby aspirins, and told his wife, "Got to the hospital now. Heart attack." She was the surgeon's daughter, and she took him at his word. Thankfully, they live near the hospital. In a few minutes we were at Indiana University Northern Health Hospital. (Editor's note: When you think you're having a heart attack, doctors advise against driving yourself or being driven to an emergency room. Call a medical number and take an ambulance.)

The hospital did an electrocardiogram that confirmed he was having a heart attack, and just 40 minutes after he developed symptoms, doctors operated on him, inserting a stent into his blocked artery to prop it open.

What they didn't realize right away was that they had cut an artery while placing the stent, and he was bleeding slowly into his chest. At one point, his heart stopped beating for nearly 30 minutes. He received three heart shocks to recover, while his medical team performed CPR and oxygen to keep him alive.

He has two boys, 11 and 12. Thinking about them now makes him a little emotional because he knows he needs to be there for them. Before going into the operating room that day, he remembers telling his wife, "Don't worry, it's not his day."

They finally got his heart beating back and stabilized him enough for him to call Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. Honestly, he doesn't remember anything that happened over the next three days.

get hurt, get back up

When he finally woke up, he watched his recovery go the way he did when he injured his knee or broke his collarbone. When you're an athlete and you get injured, you step up and try to get better. That's what he does.

The problem was, his body didn't cooperate in the first week. When he was in the ICU, he had six tubes sticking out of his body in every direction I could think of. Then when they removed the intubation he had horrible gas and was hiccupping almost 24/7. He was in pain.

He can't do anything. He just needs to lie quietly in a bed in the cardiovascular intensive care unit and let his body recover. Kudos to his wife for helping him through those 6 or 7 tough days. She was a force of nature and she went into all-out action mode managing my care.

After about a week, they moved him from intensive care to general ward. After spending several days there, he was finally able to go home.

come back slowly

It was clear that his body was very different from what it was before the heart attack. She is used to cycling for hours. Now, I can barely walk through a room.

Luckily, they had a great cardiac rehab program at Indiana University Health, and he started going there about a month after his heart attack. He taught his body how to work out again, refocused on healthier eating, and started slowly back on the treadmill. This quickly turned into longer walks, exercise bike rides, and weight lifting. Little by little, over the next 90 days, his strength, speed and stamina grew, but I got stronger and stronger.

By April, he was on another long bike trip, and in May, he completed the 82-mile ride in a little over 4.5 hours. He's a little shorter and slower than he's done before, but he's happy to be riding again. Eventually got back to riding 200 miles a week.

Being so close to death had changed him profoundly. He has always cherished the time he spends with his family, but now he cherishes it even more.

understand deeper

He hopes that men can learn the importance of regular self-examination from his experience. After the operation, he has used Meta Hunter for two years. In addition to his regular physical examination, he will also help his family, neighbors and friends to conduct examinations. Make sure all data is normal.

  If you notice symptoms, call medical immediately. He was in the operating room 30 minutes after the onset of symptoms, which is probably why he is still alive today.