He said no to heart meds in his 20s. A quintuple bypass came years later.
By Albert Stumm, 糖心Vlog News
A short time after a University of Toronto basketball player collapsed on the court because of a heart problem, Aaron Holm felt his heart flutter during volleyball practice.
Holm, the team captain, went for a checkup. The cardiologist had him wear a heart monitor for a few days. It detected a type of irregular heartbeat. He began taking a medication that was supposed to keep his heart rate in a normal rhythm.
But during his next volleyball match, Holm passed out.
Tests at the hospital showed that his body didn’t tolerate the medication very well. He was given a different medication.
The tests also found he had abnormally high cholesterol – more than three times the normal level for a healthy young man.
“You've got to take medication for the rest of your life,” the doctor told him, “or you'll be dead before you're 40.”
Headstrong and feeling burned by the last prescription, Holm refused to take any medication.
Instead, he tried to exercise his way out of the problem.
Over the next 25 years, Holm went to the doctor only twice. Both times, tests showed an extremely elevated cholesterol level. Both times, he continued to refuse to take medication to control it.
Why would I? Holm thought. Throughout his 30s, he ran several marathons and biked regularly without any health issues. He had two children with his wife, Saira, started and sold two companies, and moved to Seattle to start another. He was in his prime.
But by his mid-40s, his health had deteriorated. While running or biking, he would quickly run out of breath. His mouth would go dry, and he would smell something awful. It was like sucking on a muffler.
“It just felt like my heart bonked, like I just couldn't get enough oxygen,” Holm said.
Every time he felt his heart “bonked,” he would walk for a while. He felt like his heart would reset, and he would start running again.
Holm blamed it on aging and thought he only needed to exercise harder. He continued this cycle of exercise, “bonk,” rest, exercise, etc. He never sought medical care, nor did he talk about his issues with anyone.
Until he almost drowned.
One early morning, Holm went to swim alone in Lake Sammamish just east of Seattle. He was at least a quarter mile from shore when the terribly familiar feeling returned. He struggled to breathe. He could barely keep his head above water.
“I’m going to die,” he thought.
Holm managed to collect himself and turn on his back to float. With eyes closed, he meditated to try to “reset” his heart. After several terrifying minutes, he calmed his heartbeat enough to slowly make his way back to shore.
It was time to talk to Saira.
“Look, I think I’ve got a problem,” he told her.
He found a cardiologist, who sent him for a stress test. Holm nearly passed out on the treadmill. Other tests determined that he had blockages in several cardiac arteries. He was told he needed stents inserted to open the clogged passages and restore a more normal blood flow.
Weeks later, as the procedure was about to begin, a doctor got a closer look inside Holm’s cardiac arteries. Several were 100% blocked. Instead of stents, he needed open-heart surgery to bypass the clogged arteries.
Holm began to cry. His wife calmed him by saying, “If there’s really a possibility that you’re going to die, we should just make a pact to continue our commitment to each other beyond death.”
The surgery took six hours because Holm needed five bypasses.
Recovery was grueling. It took days to sit up, and weeks to walk down the hall of his home unassisted. He slept in a hospital bed at home.
At least by then, he was willing to take medication to get his cholesterol under control. Eventually, it did.
About five months after the surgery, Holm was out for a walk with Saira, going up a hill. His heart rate started to increase. The sensation was familiar. Except, this time, there was no “bonk.”
“It all just started to work,” he said. “And it was the first time that it had worked in what seemed like years.”
There was still a long road ahead. Holm slipped into depression as he looked back on how he put his life at risk by denying himself treatment.
During cardiac rehabilitation, he met people who could relate to what he was going through. Finally, he felt he could speak openly about his experience.
Eventually, Holm returned to exercising, though not as intensely as before. He slowly started to feel better. “It wasn’t that I returned to feeling like myself again, more that I felt like someone new,” he said.
His experience prompted Holm to start a Puget Sound chapter of Mended Hearts, a nonprofit support network for heart patients. He then founded the PatientCircle Research Institute, a nonprofit that offers coaching services for people facing life-threatening surgeries. Its goals are to get patients to follow through with rehabilitation and reduce the likelihood of depression.
“When you speak with other people who have had heart surgery, we're very isolated and withdrawn,” Holm said. “And when we connect with each other, all kinds of wonderful things happen.”
Stories From the Heart chronicles the inspiring journeys of heart disease and stroke survivors, caregivers and advocates.