God Is In Control-Do Not Be Afraid
By Dale Haralson, Attorney Tuscon, AZ
Two thousand years ago on a stormy Galilean sea the disciples were told not to be afraid, God is in control. I tend to forget that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
I was reminded of this truth a second time last summer. The first time was 20 years ago when I was diagnosed with metastatic throat cancer with less than a 5% chance of survival.
Last summer I was scheduled to begin a jury trial in Phoenix on July 15th against a major corporation for the death of a 15-year-old girl. My 38 years of trial practice told me it would take at least five weeks to try the case. Settlement negotiations had failed three weeks before. My client`s offer was four times that of the corporation offer and neither side would move.
I told the corporate defense counsel that his client had until Thursday afternoon, July 11th to accept the offer after which it would be withdrawn. I would be moving my files and trial staff to Phoenix the next day to prepare for trial and jury selection on Monday.
At about 10 a.m. on Thursday, my secretary told me the defense attorney was on the phone. When I answered he asked what I was doing. I just laughed. He then suggested that I take the rest of the day off. I responded, "Yeah, sure." He said, "I am serious." He finally convinced me that my last offer was accepted, no counteroffer and no negotiation. He said that he could not tell me what the reason was, but if I called him in eight months he might tell me why the offer was accepted.
Since I had planned to be in trial until the latter part of August, my wife, Betty, was planning to spend some time in Houston with our youngest daughter Wendy`s family to celebrate our granddaughter`s 1st birthday. I told Betty that I would catch up with my work and fly to Houston to have Jordan`s birthday celebration on Saturday the 3rd.
Friday morning, the 4th, Tim, Wendy, and I went to a nearby health club so I could get in my daily workout. I have had a cardio workout (maintaining a heart rate of 130 to 140 beats per minute) 5 or 6 days a week since I started running in 1975. In 1988 I began working with weights 4 days per week. Usually I did my cardio in the morning as soon as I got up and my weights at noon.
On this Friday morning I decided to do my weight workout and then 45 minutes on an elliptical cardio machine. After about 30 minutes of cardio I felt a little dizzy. I sat down for a few minutes thinking I had just pushed a little too far by doing the two workouts together. While sitting, I felt slight pressure under the sternum but it cleared after sitting for a few minutes.
Afterwards we returned to my daughter`s house where I took a nap in the afternoon. We went to Pappasito`s Mexican Food restaurant for dinner and returned home around 9 p.m. As usual, I was in bed by 10:30.
About 3 a.m. I awoke feeling slightly nauseous and sweaty. I then realized that the pressure under the sternum had returned, along with a slight difficulty in breathing.
About 4:30 a.m. I began to think of a malpractice case I tried in Prescott 18 months before. The emergency room physician had failed to diagnose a silent heart attack. He had sent a 74-year old man home with Zantac for indigestion. His symptoms were nausea, epigastric discomfort (upper region of the abdomen) and clamminess. He didn`t have chest pain, arm pain, shortness of breath or any of the "classic" symptoms. Neither did I. I thought it was probably just indigestion from that Mexican food.
Besides, 20 months before I had a complete cardiac workup by a cardiologist at Northwest Hospital in Tucson. I had been given a stress ECG (electrocardiogram), a nuclear stress ECG, and an echocardiogram. All interpretations were normal. I was told to come back in five years for another checkup.
As I lay in bed I went through all of the reasons that I could not possibly be having a heart attack. When Betty woke up at 7 a.m. she asked if I had slept well. I told her no and explained my concerns.
It was not a coincidence that Wendy and son-in-law Tim are both paramedics by profession. We called them downstairs and told them of my symptoms and concerns. They said I should be checked out immediately at Wendy`s paramedic station, which was only three blocks away.
Her friends arrived within minutes and connected me to a portable 12 lead ECG. The lead paramedic`s first comment was, "Sir, you have had a heart attack or you are just having one now." My reaction was a mixture of disbelief and affirmation that my suspicions were correct. According to their combined interpretation, I had already had the heart attack. Tim suggested Memorial Hermann Hospital. Wendy suggested that we hold hands while she led us in prayer.
It was a 45-minute ambulance ride to one of the best heart hospitals in the country. In route I reflected on the fact that 20 years before I had been diagnosed with "terminal" throat cancer and because of God`s healing power and prayer chains from coast to coast the doctors had been proven wrong. I prayed that regardless of the severity of the heart attack, God would find it in His will to not only heal me but prevent my heart from being damaged.
As soon as we arrived, the emergency room physician ran a confirming ECG and drew blood for a cardiac enzyme study. The enzymes had already peaked and were on the way down which meant the heart attack had occurred long enough before the tests that certain medications called thrombolytic agents could not be used.
They rushed me to the cardiology cath lab where an intervention cardiologist was waiting to perform an angiogram. I was in and out under the anesthesia, but I distinctly remember the razor-like incisions made in each groin. I was awake at one point when they showed me where the doctor had placed a double stent, a mesh-like tube to open the artery so blood could reach the heart. Knowing that an artery had been blocked, I could only wonder about the amount of damage to the heart from the lack of blood. I again prayed that the damage would be minimal.
Later I learned that the angiogram showed 100% blockage of the Left Anterior Descending Artery (LAD), the main artery supplying blood to the left ventricle, affectionately known in the medical literature as the "widow maker." If it is blocked for 30 minutes you are usually dead. The doctor told Betty that if I survived, I would probably be totally disabled and not be able to return to work.
While they were inserting the stents, my blood pressure dropped so low they had to assist my heart by inserting an Intra Aortic Balloon Pump (LABP). Because they almost lost me, they chose not to stent the circumflex artery which was 70% blocked.
Betty, my two daughters and I celebrated my 65th birthday on August 7th on the cardiology floor with cupcakes provided by a wonderful hospital staff. I stayed in the hospital for one week. I then began cardiac rehab in Houston for five days.
The beginning of the third week I was back in my office 6 to 8 hours per day, as well as rehab at the University of Arizona Medical Center. After one hour per day for six weeks, they told me to continue my normal workout schedule and my cardiologist told me I had no restrictions. Betty and I took Tim, Wendy and Tim`s daughters skiing over the Christmas holiday.
Consider these "coincidences": (1) If I had not represented Mrs. Dansky (whose husband died from a "silent" heart attack), I would not have understood a "silent" heart attack; (2) If my trial had not settled unexpectedly, I still would have been in Phoenix working; (3) If I had not been in Houston with my paramedic daughter and son-in-law, I would have just drunk Maalox for indigestion; and (4) If I had not been near one of the best heart hospitals in the country, I would have been far from help.
Eight months after my heart attack, I called the corporate defense lawyer and asked him why the case settled. He said that as his staff was on the way to the courthouse to mark the exhibits for trial he received a phone call from one of his superiors. He was told that the in-house lawyer in charge of the supervision of my case had been promoted unexpectedly and needed the next three months to prepare for his new position. He could not spend five weeks supervising my case, so he told defense counsel to accept the offer.
God is in control. As my older brother, Hal, told me, "God isn`t through with you yet."
