For those of you wondering what happended to me at DemoCamp, well, Tuesday was supposed to be DemoCamp6 but it turned out to be BarCampER for me. I had a heart attack just before DemoCamp on Tuesday, May 30, 2006. This was completely unexpected! And scary! I’m only 32, I don’t use cocaine, I don’t have a strong family history of heart disease, I don’t smoke, I don’t use intravenous drugs, I eat pretty well, and I try to exercise.
I’m doing okay, they let me out of the Cardiac ICU on Friday June 2, 2006. I’ve been home under bed rest and recovery since Friday. Kristin has been juggling seeing patients and taking care of my sorry butt for the past week. Between running back and forth to the hospital, to having my mother and sister stay with her at the condo.
Here’s a quick timeline of what happened:
- 5:30pm – Arrived at MaRS to set up for DemoCamp6
- ~5:45pm – Headache, excessive sweating and discomfort start
- 6:00pm – Chest tightness and swollen jaw
- 6:15pm – Discussion with Jay, Joey, Sutha, Leila and Greg about how bad I felt and looked
- 6:20pm – Sutha walks me through the underground corridors at MaRS over to the Emergency Room at Toronto General Hospital
- 6:30pm – I see the triage nurse at TGH with a heart rate of 94bpm and blood pressure of 190/120 which is not good.
- 7:30pm – The pain subsides for a while
- 10:30pm – Chest pain starts again but it much less painful (on a scale of 1-10 this time the chest pain is only a 2.5 maybe a 3)
- 12:30am – blood work comes back from the lab, it shows troponin levels increasing to 14.80
- There was a lot of flurry of activity, that culminated with my going up to the Cath Lab for an angiogram and angioplasty at around 4:30am
- 4:30am – Cath showed culprit lesion in the OM1 of the circumflex coronary artery with a 95% occulsion. This was stented with a non-drug eluting stent.
- 6:45am – Arrival in the Coronary ICU on the second floor of Toronto General Hospital
I’ve been home since Friday and I’m doing okay. I get tired easily. I’m on a lot of meds including:
- Acetaminophen aka Tylenol for pain
- Atorvastatin aka Lipitor to lower my cholestoral
- Aspirin as a blood thinner
- Lopressor is a beta blocker to lower my blood pressure
- Plavix to prevent cloating around the stent
- Ramipril aka altace which is
a beta blockeran ace inhibitor to lower my heart rate
I’m good. I’m around. Call me if you’d like to stop by. I have about 8 weeks of recovery infront of me.
{ 41 comments }
Scary. Glad you're getting better. Take care..
Best wishes on your recovery, David. Taking the summer off is not a bad idea anyway. Hope you have a place (with wireless!) to sit outside.
Hope you get better. Us DemoCampers will surely miss you these next 8 weeks.
Hey Dave, take it easy dude !! Take time off and relax. DemoCampers, we'll miss you for sure !!
Dude! I was wondering what was up with your 'angioplasty' snippet in gtalk. That's nuts! Get well soon.
& Stuart
We're all pulling for you David and hope you make a full and speedy recovery. Can't wait to see you out and about soon.
Dave. Phew. Thank goodness you didn't wait to have it checked out.
Get well soon.
I can't believe this! Get well very soon. I am not sure about the 8 weeks of rest, aren't you going to go crazy? I suggest you start writing. Once you recover come run with me dude! Give my best to Kirstin and ask her to call or email if she needs anything as I know you won't!
-lb
Trackback from Canblog:
Holy Crap
David Crow a key instigator of the BarCamp and DemoCamp movement had a heart attack last week! I’ve never met David, but have attended some of these events and think he’s doing fantastic work and a performing a hell of…
Yikes. I’m glad to hear you got yourself into good hands right away. Too bad about the 8 weeks but then you’re an online veteran. Take good care of yourself.
Yikes! Best of luck in the rest and recovery…
That sucks man! Get better!
I think we’re all eagerly awaiting to see what 8 weeks of concentrated boredom from everyone’s favourite agitator brews…
glad to hear you’re doing well. take care of yourself.
cheers, mark
David, my friend! I missed all the drama at DemoCamp, so I was completely shocked when I learned about this. Really. I humbly offer my services to help in any way I can during your recovery. First off – you’re about to get a full dose of my various media addictions! I hope your DVD player plays DivX files. Take it easy, and get well.
Thank goodness you’re ok David! Demo~schmemo, just focus on getting better and come back healthy. Make the best of RecoveryCamp
– James
Holy s@#$ David! Scary I’m sure.
Thinking of you…glad to hear things are OK now, and I’m sure some recovery and relaxation will be nice. Take care!
Ack! Get well soon!
– Best wishes from a David Crow fangirl
gute Besserung as the Germans says!
for heavens sake, stop blogging! turn off the computer and enjoy your time off! see you in 8 weeks
Wow, it can be frightening to have this experience so young. I know because I went through almost exactly the same thing at age 30 (three years ago).
I did have family history, and rarely exercised, but I thought my diet was reasonable. Turns out I probably should have been on statins (for cholesterol) throughout my 20s.
Anyway, now I’m doing well, and I feel younger at 33 than I did at 30. Maybe because I’m always the youngest guy at the cardiologist.
Stress tests are a pain in the neck, but I love the beta blocker. Best wishes to you.
Wow. I guess this proves it’s actually more stressful to NOT have a job?
Ah…if we can’t make light of things now…well…Thank you for the blow by blow…I hope you are feeling better. Stents are amazing little things. Good for you for going straight to ER…thanks be to Sutha for getting you there.
Get well soon David.
Wow, David! I wasn't expecting to hear this! I'm glad you're on the road to recovery. Get well soon.
Dude! That’s grevious! Hope you make a full & speedy recovery.
Holy crap! What a shock! I guess MaRS is a good location for democamp for a lot of reasons. How fortunate that you were seen so quickly and that it didn’t take a bad turn (well, worse than it was, it sounds pretty bad).
Get well soon!
So sorry to hear about this David, I hope you get well soon, take care.
Oh, David, if only you’d given us a chance to use the defibrillators at MaRS on you, we could’ve had the mother of all demos: “And now, we’ll perform a ctril-alt-delete on our host…CLEAR!
But seriously, I’m glad to feel that you’re doing much better. We’ll visit soon, and I have presents from Wendy and me as well from Tucows.
Get well soon!
Goodness, David – that’s rough. I’m just glad you were in good hands and able to get some prompt help. Please rest, take care, and get back to full health soon – you’re far too important to the Toronto tech community for us to do without you for long.
Holy crap dude.
I miss ONE demoCamp and you have an heart attack?
But seriously, wow… good to hear you’re recovering. I’m going to miss you dropping in randomly with guests at our office in the next 8 weeks.
I’ll catch you on IM and bring you some tech ideas to stew on in bed.
David,
One of my student (Gabriel) just came running to my office wit the scary news! Very scary!
I am glad to hear that you are feeling better.
Just a month ago I saw you in the very same building but we were both busy with people and did not get a chance to talk .
Please take care of yourself,
Marie Jose
I’ve just wandered over from Joey’s place. Yes, strangers from the blogosphere are sending their best wishes. Good luck in your recovery.
I was shocked to hear the news from Sacha’s blog. At first, I almost didn’t believe it, but now I am just glad to hear that you are okay and in stable condition. MJ wishes you the best of luck in your recovery, as do I. Get well soon; BarCamp just won’t be the same without you!
David,
My goodness. I wish you a speedy recovery.
Take care,
Brian
hope you feel better soon David.
David,
Sorry to read of this but glad that you happened to be next door to the TGH, had someone to walk you over, and that you’re on the mend with plenty of TLC from family and friends.
I’ll echo Leila’s offer of someone to run/jog with should you be interested.
Holy crap dude! Glad to hear you’re ok… get lots of rest over the next little while—innovation commons can wait!
k.
Scary man… so glad to hear you’re doing okay and that you were surrounded by such wonderful people who made you go to the hospital. Get well soon and best wishes!
Gosh…I was wondering why there hadn’t been any blog posts from you recently. A heart attack !
Get very well soon ! I think it might be a good idea to stay away from the web for a few weeks/months and just relax completely.
Trackback from Alec Saunders .LOG:
Calling David Crow
I rang David Crow a few minutes ago, just to find out how we was doing. For those who don’t know David, he is a fixture of the Toronto developer scene and one of the primary Barcamp instigators here in Canada. Last week, while prepping for …
Trackback from False Positives:
TorCampDemoCamp 6 : The Demo Gods bite back
May’s Demo Camp, which would be DemoCamp 6, was back at MaRs, after last months Demo Camp 5 being at a UoT location (see More Geek Show and Tell in Toronto … trademark pending!).
Lots of new people coming out to check it out. In the prev…
Get well soon David!
Glad to hear you're doing better.
Man – this so shocked me!
So glad you are ok.
Regards, Martin.
Rest up and get well soon, David!
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