After completing a typical five day cross-country motorcycle solo journey, my blood pressure spiked and I felt flushed. Though I was just feeling a bit tired after the trip, for some reason, I decided to ignore my usual “I will be okay” attitude and go to emergency. Something seemed off. After six hours in the ER doing various tests it seems my heart may have a problem. I was not leaving the hospital. More tests and special meds soon led me to an angioplasty operation within a few days.
Things were moving fast. No time to think. Just do.
I rarely share personal stuff on any social media, but this one I thought, could be an exception… I did not know what reaction I would get. I am just a news interviewer and channel guy. Who would care?
Thank you all for reacting or commenting with your best wishes and prayers. I used to wonder if this sort of outpouring of community support really worked and I can tell you it does. While playing the waiting game in the hospital bed, I was able to read every comment. I was truly surprised about the comments from so many people even from a few that I thought may have seen me as a competitor.
Fast-track to the first procedure to repair my heart with angioplasty – removing the blockages with stints. They place some devices through my wrist vein and fix the problem. If it worked, I would have been expected to get out of the hospital within a day or so.
Thirty minutes into the procedure I heard the Doc say “we’re done here”. I was thinking to myself – wow that was fast and easy! I was not under anaesthesia. The reality was that the procedure could not fix the problem and it was much worse than expected.
I appreciated this brilliant doctor who held back no punches. His reputation was that if he could not do it, no one could! He went on to say “At least now we know it’s impossible to repair with angioplasty, so you need bypass surgery, and sooner the better! The great news is that you are in the best place for this and everything will be fine”.
As they were moving me back through the underground maze of tunnels between Mount Sinai Hospital and Toronto General, it got me thinking how bad could this really be?
After more tests and meds over the next few days, enter my Superdoc …
He had heard of my story and one of the first things he said is that this should not stop me from getting back on my bike! He had me at “bike”.
He explained the situation in terms I could understand. The beavers did a great job at damming up the big arteries (80 to 100 blocked). But the termites have also dug into the smaller arteries and that is not really fixable. Unfortunately I have both. The good news is that my heart seems strong enough as it withstood all the attacks by the “beavers and termites”.
He could not really say what he will find but said we can fix this. After some more exchanges “live to ride another day so let’s do this was my attitude”. I felt 100% confident that he would figure this out and he did! The attitude of the doctor makes all the difference.
An expected 4-hour operation that took 6 hours drove my loved ones nuts. I simply woke up in the ICU with lots of tubes and machines everywhere, oblivious to anything except I felt totally beaten up!
Now it was recovery time.
Many have been asking me what are the symptoms of a heart attack?
I cannot really answer this, but apparently, 50% of the symptoms one could experience from a heart attack is DEATH! Fortunately I did not get this symptom.
Always be listening to yourself, it will give you clues. Tune in to your insides and tune out the noise. There are many resources on the Internet to learn about popular symptoms, but keep in mind that it may be quite different for you, as it was for me.
What did I personally learn from all this?
My life is the sum total of all of the people I ever met and what I did with them.
Being in the channel industry for over 3 decades has allowed me to meet thousands of amazing people, each with their own story. I am grateful to have met everyone and as I read through the comments, I remembered some fun times.
Today, I am still excited to be able to bring the stories of the leading tech and channel players to the community. I truly love what I do. It’s important that the channel community knows who are building the technologies that they sell and why it matters.
When I am back in the saddle, I intend to double down on this mission in bigger and better ways! I always believe that the World runs on technology and the channel are the modern-day pioneers. I am happy to continue being a part of this community – we will be talking soon.
I am not going to talk about my daughter, family and friends as I am not sure I want to start crying – my incisions still hurt a lot. I will just say that without them I am nothing. My team was extraordinary during my absence. I just love my team! As kids growing up in the IT industry, we only ever saw opportunities with a few hurdles along the way. One thing for sure is that we lived the journey, not just the destination. It was and still is an adventure as we tackle our final mission in the channel with our Cybersecurity Defense Ecosystem.
As I let my imagination run wild with so much downtime, I saw how Artificial Intelligence can help make doctors, nurses and researchers superhuman by at least 10X. I met some amazing people at these two amazing hospitals and I can tell you that without them, humanity is lost.
I appreciated the work that each did. I will never forget their support or for something as simple as bringing me an extra snack at night. Moving forward I will be seeking out and connecting the AI gods with the medical community in any way I can. With all of the fear of AI – medical trumps everything! Better meds, better decision-making data, faster diagnostics, better communications, better collaboration, better procedures, customised medicines, better monitoring and the list continues… I was thinking a lot about how the IT industry would be better leveraged in the medical ecosystem. If you have something that can fuel this flame, please reach out!
Now, I just need some time to recuperate and get back up to speed. I am excited to enter this next chapter of my life.
🙏 🙏 🙏 Thank you!
