Near Death Experience and Fork in the Road
It's finally sunk in to my thick skull. I was very close to a massive heart attack perhaps days or weeks away. Giving up a high fat diet now is not gonna be a problem cheesburger.....death......sausage......death. Green, orange, yellow, and raw.....life. No activity, death, skating, life.

I guess as near death experiences go this one was my closest. Rolling a 1960 Chev Impala end over end in 1969 surviving with out a scrach was close. While scuba diving in the Red Sea I laid my camera system on the reef on top of a stone fish I pushed down on his tail the dorsal fin popped up where there is a deadly poison which there is no antidote. Less than an inch from death that's pretty close. If I was a cat there will be six more brushes with death I am not looking forward to that.
- posted by Jamie Cowen @ 4:45 AM 0 comments

 
Speeding Down Road to Health
Opening a heart feeding artery that was 99% clogged gives me a feeling that I am speeding! Clearly there is a physical reason for feeling like this but now four days after the procedure I can only compare how I feel to a drug experience. All my senses are heightened I wake up with tons of energy. Six hours after the procedure I was walking the halls of LDS Hospital two days later a mile around Liberty Park the next day I skated three. Today it is raining I expect to do 30 minutes on a stationary bike. This is real, not a drug, I've have a wonderful gift. All of that bad behavior that brought me to the Cardiology operating room will be easy to avoid.
- posted by Jamie Cowen @ 4:56 AM 0 comments

 
Road to Health Paved by Cardiologist
I am really lucky to have listened to the obvious signs in my body that something was wrong. My Doc keeps thanking me for coming in Thursday when I did. I thought I was being a Hypochondriac he did an EKG and admitted me to the hospital for an Angioplasty procedure right away.

Today the Angioplasty went really well and I hope to get back to my normal cardio fun on inline speed skates in a week. I am glad they won't be opening my chest and I should be able to start slowly training for my second St Paul Inline Marathon in August. I am really excited to see how much this helps because I knew some thing was wrong when I couldn't keep up with a bunch of friends training a couple weeks ago. I had one heart muscle feeding artery that was 99% blocked now with the stint the surgeon placed it is like new with no muscle damage. No more steaks and cheese burgers for me.

I'm about to sleep better tonight at LDS Hospital former home to the worlds first artificial heart recipient Barney Clark and the worlds best Cardiac unit.
- posted by Jamie Cowen @ 12:20 AM 0 comments

 
Road to Health Clogged with Fat
The road to health is one skate placed mindfully infront of the other over and over. When you have the fat clotted arteries like mine that road swings right through the Cardiac floor at LDS Hospital. Angioplasty is a fancy word for roto-rootering my heart muscle arteries. Wise people tell me I will feel instantly better after the procedure.
Hopefully that is all these fine medical geniusus will have to do. Open heart bypass surgery may be necessary.

Sioux City Iowa, back in 1978 I was one of three photographers who followed a man through a quadruple bypass surgery who back then was younger than I am now. It took three of us to rotate hand holding that big old RCA TK-76 color "Mini-Cam" through the very long operation. We shot a half hour segment of a news magazine's produced by KCAU television.I wish now I didn't have all of those images bouncing around in my brain.
- posted by Jamie Cowen @ 6:01 AM 0 comments