Tomas Schafer, Boise, ID – 61 at time of event (2008)
He’s six-foot tall, strong and fit, and weighed 200 lbs before he began exercising one Monday afternoon in February this year. Tomas can’t really tell you what happened. In fact this ex-sports-journalist told me can’t even remember the 2008 Super Bowl. “We had guests over to watch it together and, apparently, it was an exciting game!” He also lost Christmas, New Years and all of January. He does, however, have love; his fiancée Marilee can attest to that. And he has God guiding him forward through this troubling time.
Very much the same as Tim Russert, Tomas had a plaque buildup rupture in one of the arteries feeding his heart, which then caused a cardiac arrest. It nearly killed him. In fact the doctors weren’t sure why it didn’t, calling him a “miracle man. “I don’t know why either, but I’m going to find out,” Tomas told me.
Marilee was busy in the art room when Tomas started his exercise that wintry afternoon, and she heard a strange sound. It may have been a gurgle, or a gasp. She saw that Tomas had fallen down, and was unresponsive. She called 9-1-1 and started doing chest compressions immediately. Within five minutes or so the EMTs had arrived. They shocked him back into rhythm and took him to the hospital.
Tomas spent nearly a week in the Cardiac Care Unit, and underwent therapeutic hypothermia to preserve his brain cells. Unfortunately, his vital organs (kidney and liver) began to fail, and the family was given little hope of his survival. Eventually he stabilized, and was sent to the cardiac recovery ward where, “It seemed like a barrage of events and people and things needing to be done. I was confused and yet things needed to be done.” Tomas was suffering memory loss, and yet he was being asked to consent to some invasive tests, and an implantable defibrillator. “I needed some time to think about that,” he said, “but the doctors didn’t want to waste any time.” Tomas didn’t appreciate their brusque manner. “[the doctor] was very professional, ‘OK, here’s the problem, this is the solution. Let’s do it.’ End of story, but at that time I wanted to sort things out. And it just takes a lot longer than under normal circumstances.” Tomas told me with just a trace of rancor. “Mentally, I just wasn’t there. I was somewhere, maybe in the Twilight Zone. That’s not a bad place, I’ve been there many times!”
The decisions didn’t stop there, however, as he also had to undergo bypass surgery a month later. The angiogram had revealed substantial blockages. So, Tomas had another trip to the operating room, and endured the drug-bathed recovery again. Understandably, Tomas recalls all these hospital events in a haze, indifferent to time or day. “I had to contend with the everyday routine; the nurses coming in and asking a bunch of questions. A lot of [the questions] I thought were kind of stupid. But it was to determine whether I had brain damage.” With a sigh he continued, “All that prodding and poking, taking blood and giving medications...”
One light-hearted moment is clear in Tomas’ mind. He remembers being prepared for the bypass surgery when a face topped by a multicolored hat looked down at him. “Are you the gas-passer?” Tomas asked, reminded of the popular TV show and movie called M*A*S*H. “Yes, I am. And, Hawkeye’s around here somewhere,” the anesthetist answered.
After all this hospital attendance Tomas had lost 38lbs and was a weak as a kitten, including a lame right leg, an unfortunate result of a complication during his heart catheterization, where the catheter nicked his femoral nerve. He remembers saying, “It’s my leg, it’s my leg,” to every nurse that asked him about the chest pain.
Lying in bed alone, Tomas had a revelation about his cardiac arrest. He said to God, “OK, you’re the giver of life, and I was clinically dead. So, now I’m back, what’s your plan and purpose for me?”
-Jeremy Whitehead