The doctor stuck his hand at me, and said, "Congratulations. This is amazing. How did you do it?".
I shook his hand and looked momentarily at his wide smile and the clear sincerity in his face, he really wanted to know how I did it and wasn't just being supportive. I knew then that I had never been closer to death in my entire life.
How I did what? As men age, their physician will be constantly feeding them numbers gleaned from blood and urine tests, index numbers based on your weight and height and explaining how these numbers impact your mortality. My Dr has been on my ass for the last two years to lower all the usual numbers and to get and keep moving. I did all that, but honestly didn't move too far off the infamous 'Dean & Evan' diet.
He gave me the usual regimen of tests yesterday. When he returned to the room he was smiling broadly and clearly happy with the results. BP: 110/68; LDL: 57; blood sugar, medium normal.
When your mom walks into your room when you're four years old and tells you that she has some bad news, that your dad died last night, I think it means that for the rest of your life you're very skeptical of good news. You're sort of always waiting for the other shoe to drop, to use a popular doom-inspired phrase. My grandfather had a physical and was told that his numbers were fantastic and he was going to live to be 100 by the doctor attending him. Problem was he died a month later of a heart attack.
I could not even look the doctor in the face while he continued to shake my hand, I instead looked at his hand clasped in mine. I looked at his thumb, and thought to myself 'This is bad'.
How did you do it?, he asked again.
I walked, I didn't eat ice cream or white bread or (many) fries. I forced myself to eat green vegetables. The numbers came good and made my doctor so happy. But, for me, I could not shake the feeling that now I was about to drop over dead in the parking lot or in my sleep.
It didn't take long. I was almost dead fifteen minutes later.
Buzzing home on Dylan's famed highway 61, which from there to here is a narrow strip of asphalt with a huge embankment on one side and Lake Pepin on the other. In good weather it's fairly safe, as long as no one does anything dumb. But there's essentially no shoulder on either side of the road and the embankment means that anything that hits it comes right back out, ricocheting off anything it touches.
View Larger Map
Usually, when I drive that stretch I think of a girl I once dated who died right there, nodded off at 5:00 AM and went head-first into the grill of a semi at 60mph. Karen, I always think her name is, but that's not it. She was hugely fun and a wonderful girlfriend to have when you're 22 because she had figured out early that an easy way into a guy's heart was either through his stomach or propping up the frail male ego. She was able to date both me and my good friend simultaneously, which in small town 80s Minnesota was taboo, as most men are at their height of their stupidity and the rules of high school romance were still staunchly adhered to. She made small work of us, always bad-mouthing the other guy when he was absent and making sure you knew you were astoundingly better at anything she'd experienced with you rather than "what's his name". She'd also just slip in "Hey--I left some clothes at Dave's house last night--can you give me a ride over on your bike to pick it up?". She'd run in, grab her underwear or whatever she'd forgotten, stuff them in her pocket, jump back on the bike, pat your thigh and say "Let's go." Fun girl. But I digress.
Back to dying. Not ten minutes from the hospital parking lot I rounded a bend on '61at perhaps 45-50mph and was confronted with an ugly scene. It had snowed that morning and it was cold--a cool breeze blowing off the lake made the surface very sketchy at best. One small truck laying mangled against the embankment, and a line of cars stopped in my lane. The small truck had tried to pass in the other lane and had become a really large pinball, looking at his truck later he'd smashed in every corner, spinning wildly in a narrow chute of a road. Cars had stopped to gawk, and people exited said cars, oblivious to the fact that they had just placed their lives in major peril by doing the dumbest thing possible. The Grim Reaper, if there is one, must have looked on at that scene and thought to himself, 'Woo-hoo! Easy day today!'..
After realizing what lay ahead of me I pushed down on the truck's brake lever. The truck instantly went light, anti-locks went off at full alert and it started to fishtail. The cars had done a wonderful job of blocking the entire lane, some pulling over to the meager shoulder just to make sure there was no means of escape for those coming behind them. I had about six seconds at this point before impacting the last car in front of me, which would set off an ugly chain reaction of death and injury. Oncoming lane was dry. I pulled into it, shoved the brake lever to the floor and thank whatever higher being you believe in, the truck began to slow. Trouble was there was a loaded semi barreling right at me. People scattered for their cars.
When my teenager began to drive, I pounded into his head a belief racing taught me, that when things get bad what you want more than anything, more than padding, more than a do-over, is time. Pilots suffering a mechanical in flight always want all the altitude they can possibly obtain. Same thing on the street and in racing, when it goes pear-shaped, you want time, time to manage, time to think. Doesn't need to be much. About four seconds before head on impact with the semi--he now all over the brakes, trailer hopping--I had the truck slowed down and pulled hard left onto the similarly meager shoulder, stopping right by the originally smashed small truck, its owner walking around dazed, picking up his groceries which he had just purchased at Wal Mart and presumably put in the box of his truck to keep them cold. My heart thumping at 200, my first post-near death experience thought was this: I looked at the scattered groceries and said to myself, 'Hey, that's the same kind of half-and-half I use.'
The semi passed us slowly moments later. The driver was glaring at me, and I put my hand up in a sheepish apology. When he was close enough to see me, he took one hand off the wheels of the 18 wheeler and flipped me off, still glaring. Realizing he was mighty siliverback and I was a chimp, I did not look away or return the gesture. After he passed I pulled into the other lane, and sped off, with a stream of hiway patrol cars meeting me just moments later.
I was happy, happy to have survived, but happy to have been right as well. I knew a dollop of good and unexpected news would not come without a price.
I drove on, sights becoming familiar as I neared home.
Maybe her name was Kathy.
I shook his hand and looked momentarily at his wide smile and the clear sincerity in his face, he really wanted to know how I did it and wasn't just being supportive. I knew then that I had never been closer to death in my entire life.
How I did what? As men age, their physician will be constantly feeding them numbers gleaned from blood and urine tests, index numbers based on your weight and height and explaining how these numbers impact your mortality. My Dr has been on my ass for the last two years to lower all the usual numbers and to get and keep moving. I did all that, but honestly didn't move too far off the infamous 'Dean & Evan' diet.
He gave me the usual regimen of tests yesterday. When he returned to the room he was smiling broadly and clearly happy with the results. BP: 110/68; LDL: 57; blood sugar, medium normal.
When your mom walks into your room when you're four years old and tells you that she has some bad news, that your dad died last night, I think it means that for the rest of your life you're very skeptical of good news. You're sort of always waiting for the other shoe to drop, to use a popular doom-inspired phrase. My grandfather had a physical and was told that his numbers were fantastic and he was going to live to be 100 by the doctor attending him. Problem was he died a month later of a heart attack.
I could not even look the doctor in the face while he continued to shake my hand, I instead looked at his hand clasped in mine. I looked at his thumb, and thought to myself 'This is bad'.
How did you do it?, he asked again.
I walked, I didn't eat ice cream or white bread or (many) fries. I forced myself to eat green vegetables. The numbers came good and made my doctor so happy. But, for me, I could not shake the feeling that now I was about to drop over dead in the parking lot or in my sleep.
It didn't take long. I was almost dead fifteen minutes later.
Buzzing home on Dylan's famed highway 61, which from there to here is a narrow strip of asphalt with a huge embankment on one side and Lake Pepin on the other. In good weather it's fairly safe, as long as no one does anything dumb. But there's essentially no shoulder on either side of the road and the embankment means that anything that hits it comes right back out, ricocheting off anything it touches.
View Larger Map
Usually, when I drive that stretch I think of a girl I once dated who died right there, nodded off at 5:00 AM and went head-first into the grill of a semi at 60mph. Karen, I always think her name is, but that's not it. She was hugely fun and a wonderful girlfriend to have when you're 22 because she had figured out early that an easy way into a guy's heart was either through his stomach or propping up the frail male ego. She was able to date both me and my good friend simultaneously, which in small town 80s Minnesota was taboo, as most men are at their height of their stupidity and the rules of high school romance were still staunchly adhered to. She made small work of us, always bad-mouthing the other guy when he was absent and making sure you knew you were astoundingly better at anything she'd experienced with you rather than "what's his name". She'd also just slip in "Hey--I left some clothes at Dave's house last night--can you give me a ride over on your bike to pick it up?". She'd run in, grab her underwear or whatever she'd forgotten, stuff them in her pocket, jump back on the bike, pat your thigh and say "Let's go." Fun girl. But I digress.
Back to dying. Not ten minutes from the hospital parking lot I rounded a bend on '61at perhaps 45-50mph and was confronted with an ugly scene. It had snowed that morning and it was cold--a cool breeze blowing off the lake made the surface very sketchy at best. One small truck laying mangled against the embankment, and a line of cars stopped in my lane. The small truck had tried to pass in the other lane and had become a really large pinball, looking at his truck later he'd smashed in every corner, spinning wildly in a narrow chute of a road. Cars had stopped to gawk, and people exited said cars, oblivious to the fact that they had just placed their lives in major peril by doing the dumbest thing possible. The Grim Reaper, if there is one, must have looked on at that scene and thought to himself, 'Woo-hoo! Easy day today!'..
After realizing what lay ahead of me I pushed down on the truck's brake lever. The truck instantly went light, anti-locks went off at full alert and it started to fishtail. The cars had done a wonderful job of blocking the entire lane, some pulling over to the meager shoulder just to make sure there was no means of escape for those coming behind them. I had about six seconds at this point before impacting the last car in front of me, which would set off an ugly chain reaction of death and injury. Oncoming lane was dry. I pulled into it, shoved the brake lever to the floor and thank whatever higher being you believe in, the truck began to slow. Trouble was there was a loaded semi barreling right at me. People scattered for their cars.
When my teenager began to drive, I pounded into his head a belief racing taught me, that when things get bad what you want more than anything, more than padding, more than a do-over, is time. Pilots suffering a mechanical in flight always want all the altitude they can possibly obtain. Same thing on the street and in racing, when it goes pear-shaped, you want time, time to manage, time to think. Doesn't need to be much. About four seconds before head on impact with the semi--he now all over the brakes, trailer hopping--I had the truck slowed down and pulled hard left onto the similarly meager shoulder, stopping right by the originally smashed small truck, its owner walking around dazed, picking up his groceries which he had just purchased at Wal Mart and presumably put in the box of his truck to keep them cold. My heart thumping at 200, my first post-near death experience thought was this: I looked at the scattered groceries and said to myself, 'Hey, that's the same kind of half-and-half I use.'
The semi passed us slowly moments later. The driver was glaring at me, and I put my hand up in a sheepish apology. When he was close enough to see me, he took one hand off the wheels of the 18 wheeler and flipped me off, still glaring. Realizing he was mighty siliverback and I was a chimp, I did not look away or return the gesture. After he passed I pulled into the other lane, and sped off, with a stream of hiway patrol cars meeting me just moments later.
I was happy, happy to have survived, but happy to have been right as well. I knew a dollop of good and unexpected news would not come without a price.
I drove on, sights becoming familiar as I neared home.
Maybe her name was Kathy.