Shortly after being wheeled back into my hospital room after the angiogram, the cardiologist entered the room. “You have three major arteries showing blockages between 75 and 90 percent and several other severe blockages along branches off of these arteries. There are two treatment options: angioplasty with 5+ stents or coronary arterial bypass grafting.”
My name is Michael Summer. I’m 39 years old and tomorrow I will be undergoing quadruple bypass surgery. I lead a pretty normal life. I have an amazing wife and two incredible children, ages six and eight. This normal life has sure gotten pretty damn complicated in the last month. But to tell the whole story we need to go further back than a month.
I grew up in Taylorville, a small town in Central Illinois, and was blessed with a loving family that was always able to put clothes on my back and food in my stomach. I was a big kid, often towering over my peers, and loved sports. I played soccer, baseball and was on the track team through high school, but my true passion was football. I started playing in seventh grade because some friends signed up and I fell in love. I played through high school and was fortunate enough to play four years at Washington University in St. Louis.
After graduation I moved to Chicago. My stint in competitive athletics was over and I became a much more sedentary person. I would go to the gym occasionally but for the most part I didn’t exercise. My diet was pretty typically American, eating out likely half of the time, eating too much fatty foods and not enough vegetables, and drinking too much alcohol (after all I was in my mid 20s)
I met my wife in 2005 at age 26 and we quickly fell in love. We shared many of the same passions, especially food and drink, and together we’ve been fortunate to get to experience many of the best restaurants in the world. We also both love to cook, so we did plenty of that at home.
At the end of 2015 I weighed 265 pounds and was generally in the worst shape of my life. Inspired by my wife, who had completed her first triathlon in August, and spurred on by the rest of my family I started to get my shit together. We changed our eating and exercising habits. We tried to eat as many meals at home as possible and when we would go out, we made more sensible decisions. Pizza was now a once in a while indulgence rather than a regular rotational meal. Alcohol intake was dropped.
For almost my entire life I have abhorred the idea of running. It was boring and often served as punishment in many of my team sport endeavors. When I started running in January of 2016 something was different. I really started enjoying it. I loved being outside in the cold winter air in the morning all by myself. It was peaceful and I was determined to get myself into a better place physically. It wasn’t easy but I gradually became a runner. In April 2016 I completed my first ever running race, the Race to Wrigley 5K. In November my wife and I did our first half marathon together. I was in the best shape I had been in since my football days at Wash U and, having lost nearly 40 pounds, I was the lightest I had been since I was 17 years old.
This winter I started incorporating more weight training into my exercise regimen. It caused a flare-up in my shoulders, which are pretty shot from my days of football. So in April when I was out for a run and started experiencing a pretty severe squeezing pain in my chest and shoulders, I had to stop the run. I attributed it to my pre-existing shoulder pain. Even after ending the weight training the pain while running persisted through the spring and summer to the point where I was basically unable to run. In July at the urging of my wife I scheduled an appointment with my physician.
In August I went in for my physical and explained to my doctor what was happening. He administered an EKG in the office and everything looked normal. Confident there wasn’t much to worry about, but cautious, he referred me for a stress test just to check. I went in for the stress test a week later. Upon completion of the test the staff cardiologist came in and told me that my heart walls weren’t contracting properly when I was at peak heart rate. She wanted to admit me and administer an angiogram to check for blockages. Given how well I performed on the test, my age, and my other vitals, she explained there seemed like a very small chance there were any blockages but they just wanted to rule it out. Well I guess I won the lottery.
So that’s where we are. Tomorrow I have the surgery and the surgeon tells me I have only a 1-2 percent chance of death. Let’s hope I don’t win the lottery again! I’m starting this blog as I start the next phase of my life. It’s going to be a little bit of everything. I plan on putting up my recovery process and progress. There will be lots of recipes as my wife and I learn how best to overhaul our diet even more. Once I’m back at it, I’ll post on my running, cycling and swimming adventures. I hope it can serve as a guide for others out there. Wish me luck!