My Acid Reflux Turned Into a Cardiac Event

My Mid-Life Crisis Taught Me Four Lessons That Can Help You

Image supplied author (Pictured: me leaning up against a graffiti wall in an alley in NYC)

During a weekend visit with my parents in North Carolina, I thought I was having acid reflux. It turns out I was having a cardiac event. That’s the nice name they gave my heart attack! After a heart catheterization, I had one stent placed in my left anterior descending artery (LAD).

My father was in his third week of recovery from his second open heart surgery, and my wife and I wanted to take our kids to see him and their grandmother before their schools started in Tennessee. 

My wife and daughter would sleep in my old room, and my son and I planned on sleeping on an air mattress in the living room. Mom asked me to bring in a queen-size air mattress from their car, which wore me out! I chalked it up to my being out of shape.

I felt pressure build up in my chest several times throughout the weekend and a little discomfort in my neck. After drinking some soda and burping, I felt better each time. I thought I was having acid reflux. The morning we were headed home, my mom’s intuition saved my life. She told me,

“I know you think you are having acid reflux, but why don’t we head over to the emergency room in Asheville to make sure?”

I said okay, and my wife and I rode with her to the same hospital where I was born 40 years before this experience. The blood work and the checking of my vitals confirmed that I was having a cardiac event. The doctor found a blockage and successfully inserted a stent in my LAD.

Once they knew I was going to be okay, my relatives gave me a hard time by accusing me of trying to take the attention away from my dad and putting it on myself! After three weeks of rest, with the love and support of my family and friends, I eased back into my job.

That cardiac experience took place in late June, and by that November, my supervisor and my supervisor’s manager started having serious conversations with me regarding my tenure with that company. The consensus seemed that I had taken my department as far as possible.

They felt it was time for me to move on. I tendered my resignation the following January. These were two significant events that happened within five months of each other!

Exhausted from dealing with my coronary artery disease, I had the realization that I would not continue doing what I had hoped to be doing for the rest of my life with this great company. I was devastated.

My wife named what followed as “the dark years.” I did a couple of jobs that I enjoyed, but they weren’t the jobs I wanted to do until I retired. I realized that some of my hopes and dreams would never come to fruition. 

I also recognized that I was in the middle or even the backside of my life, having lived more years than I had left.

Some have labeled this gloom-and-doom mindset as a mid-life crisis. This idea did not begin until 1957 when Canadian Elliott Jaques read one of his papers to the British Psycho-Analytical Society. 

It declared that the catalyst for this event was when people came to grips with their mortality and that their lives were half over. This crisis can also lead to feelings of depression and regret. 

I had been in my current vocation for 18 years and dreamed of remaining there until I retired. (My specific job and company are not crucial to this story.)

I also wanted to earn a national and international platform to train and help others within this same vocation. I falsely felt like I would not be able to do that working with any other company than the one who had asked me to leave so they didn’t have to fire me.

I was frantically trying to find myself. I could identify with singer/songwriter Larry Cordle’s song. I was — Lost as a Ball in High Weeds.

While there were only three dark years following my crisis, the seven after that were just not as bright as I’d hoped they would be. Ten years after I resigned from my dream job, I got my mojo back when I started working a job I enjoyed for a company I loved.

Here are the lessons I learned that may help you if you ever find yourself in a mid-life crisis.

What is causing your midlife crisis?

Examine your life to determine where your feelings are coming from. My crisis came from a misplaced identity. I wrapped up all of my significance in doing my current job. When it was gone, my significance disappeared, and my identity was destroyed.

Identifying why you are having a rough time allows you a starting place to begin your work toward healing. Years later, a counselor helped me correctly identify why I struggled with leaving that job. My manager strongly suggested that I resign and do it so it didn’t cause a big stink.

My counselor helped me tie my bosses, wanting me to keep the news of why I was resigning on the down low, with the two times I was sexually molested as a child. My abusers also told me not to tell anybody. That was digging deep into my dirty laundry.

My anguish and depression were not from me thinking that I was a failure at my job but from unresolved pain that I’d had in my past. We can do our jobs well, or we can do our jobs poorly. We are so much more than our jobs, and to tie our significance strictly to our jobs is unhealthy.

I allow myself to fail. I allow myself to break. I’m not afraid of my flaws. — Lady Gaga

There will be some things that you will never do.

You may believe in God, divine will, fate, karma, or kismet, but there are some things that you are not destined to do. There could be several reasons for this. Some things are unsuitable for you, or you may not be gifted to perform certain things.

If I had wanted to stay in the same profession as the job I resigned from, it was clear that I would have to move my family to another city or state. I was unwilling to do that, so I’d have to choose another career.

Regardless of your circumstances, you understand you are where you are due to your choices. You can be okay with that, yet never stop trying to improve yourself.

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. — Maya Angelou

Never stop dreaming.

I changed careers and didn’t uproot my family. I changed my original work goals. That didn’t make me less of a person (Remember, I was not my job.) I still have big goals for myself. The ones I have now are even bigger than the ones I had before.

I moved my extremely outlandish dreams and goals to my bucket list. If/when I accomplish them, excellent! If I don’t, that’s okay, too!

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. — Christopher Reeve

Invest the time you have left in others.

You are not dead yet. My priorities changed as I survived my crisis. When I was only thinking about myself, I was miserable. Now, I work to keep my focus on everyone else's concerns. How can I impact those around me with the time I have left?

Happiness is the result of an emotional reboot as our values, our expectations and even our brains shift our goals away from chasing status and achievement and toward building connections and community with others — values that not only increase our own contentment but also benefit those around us. — Jonathan Rauch

The more time I spend thinking about other people, the less time I think about myself. I realize how fortunate I am when I see what other people are going through compared to my minor issues. 

Our small town also has a local watering hole (bar). My wife and I host a trivia show there once a week. We look forward to being there each week and spending time with the people in our community.

We know most of the “regulars” by name and are learning about their lives. We don’t do the trivia shows for the money. We do it to encourage these wonderful people and attempt to provide a fun experience for them while they are there.

I can attest that when I focus on helping others, I have much less time to worry about myself—and I am much happier! What lessons can you teach me about what you’ve learned if you’ve survived a midlife crisis? I’d be happy for you to share them with me.

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Disgustingly Simple is for individuals who want to learn how to live better lives and learn from Michael Hollifield's abundance of silly sagas, sobering stories, self-help illustrations, and life lessons. He shares from the heart of a simpleton!

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