Hello, cyclists and non-cyclists,

On Saturday 20 June 2009, while on a cycling loop of ~65 miles, I had a mild heart attack. That was a ridiculously hot humid day. I even remarked early on in the Poe Springs loop ride we were on, "Wow...breathing the air is like sucking on a sponge."  A blockage ~1/3 down the circumflex artery on the back left of the heart.  I had some moments of breathlessness while climbing stairs in the UF Physics bldg on the previous Thursday. I attributed those events to the raging sinus infection I had at the time.  I got antibiotics for the infection that afternoon.  But, on Saturday, probably while standing to sprint up Underwood Hill, the increase in blood pressure and heart rate, likely caused a piece of plaque to break off somewhere and jam in my artery. So, while riding on what may have been the hottest most humid day of that summer, with a sinus infection, while on antibiotics, after sprinting up a hill...yes, I won that one...I noticed that I really had run out of gas and felt really crappy for the next ~10 miles of that ride. I made it over the top of Chestnut Hill, I was not the last one over, but I really had run out of gas.  I lead the group south on 241 for my last pull.  When I sat up, I realized that the increasing back & shoulder pain I had also included a numb little finger in my right arm and a growing pressure in my left chest region.  I sat up and immediately was dropped by the group...about 5 miles from the finish and about 10 miles from home.  I rode onto to Millhopper Road, just west of the I75 overpass. I knew I could not climb it, but I knew I could get cell phone service. It was about 1030 am when I got off my bike and made the 911 call.

I was transported to N. Florida. Dr. Tim Wessel fixed me and I was in recovery before 100 pm.  Fast, efficient.  I got to see the blockage blown to bits on a big screen TV. I now have a stent in the artery, forevermore. Based on the cardiac protein release, the damage to my heart was pretty minimal, about a 2.5 on a scale of 10...where 10 is dead.  Follow-up testing show "no measurable damage." But, there is. I am not the same athlete I was before.

Time passed. I still had sinus issues. I had nearly constant infections. While on an antibiotic for another sinus infection, on New Year's Eve 2011, I had some wild tooth pain in the left side of my jaw. It alternated between an upper left molar and the matching lower left molar. I saw more doctors and dentists. I had oral surgery for a root canal to fix the upper left molar. While my tooth got better my left sinus, always the cause of my infections, also started to get better. Then about a month later, I noticed new pain, a bump very high on my left gum.  It was a residual infection where the tooth roots had been. Back to the oral surgeon, she punched that pocket of infection open, drained it, directly injected an antibiotic.  That tooth is now well on it way to being fully healed. My sinuses get better and better. I have not had an infection since that New Year's Eve...the longest I have ever gone infection free. Bottom line: that tooth was directly under the left sinus which was the source of my problems for most of 10 years.

Final bottom line: Based on follow-up with my sinus doc, my oral surgeon, and my GP, it is reasonable that that little pocket of infection in my left molar, was likely there for months to years. My oral surgeon said the roots of that tooth were "petrified." She snapped one of them in front of me, it smelled like decay and death. It is reasonable to conclude that was the pocket of infection that flared my sinuses, and spread bacteria in my body...and a lining is a lining, whether sinus or arterial...so was contributory to, or maybe even the direct cause of, my heart attack, as the antibiotics did their job, killing bacteria that sloughed off, releasing some plaque which jammed in my artery. I'll never know...but that scenario works for me.