DENVER — An hour before show time, when I was to analyze the Broncos’ upset loss to Nathaniel Hackett and the New York Jets, I was getting sick in one of the more private bathrooms down a hallway or two from the 9NEWS TV studios.
It was the second time in the last 15 minutes I had, you know, gotten sick. As the involuntary spasm was accompanied by a mild case of dizziness, I started to think about the possibility of losing it, mid-chat, live on the Broncos Tonight show.
Scotty: We’ll take a break and be back, right after this.
My level of pain, as my nurses and doctors would later repeatedly ask, had increased from a moderate 4 or 5 on a scale of 10 all morning, day and evening, to about a 7.5 or 8. Thank goodness, as it turned out.
I looked up at the clock. It was 9:50 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8. The show would start at 10:35 p.m. Reluctantly, I called my boss, 9NEWS executive sports producer Brian Olson. Already, Brian had called in Orlando Franklin to replace regular analyst Chad Brown, who worked that day as a radio color analyst for an NFL game in a different city and couldn’t get back in time. I said hello to Big O, who is one of my favorite former Broncos, but didn’t engage in further conversation.
Please forgive me, Orlando. I was most likely in the early stages of having a heart attack.
I went back to another news department area, where no one was working on a Sunday night, and laid down. It didn’t help. Then came the two trips to the restroom followed by the phone call to the boss.
Brian, I said, I hate to do this to you, but I don’t think I can do the show.
He was making final video and sound edits for Broncos Tonight, but he stopped what he was doing and walked back to where I was sitting in a lounge area just outside said restroom. He felt my wrist and forehead. He said I was clammy. I wasn’t feeling well.
“Well, Mike, I’ll give you two options,’’ Brian said. “I can either drive you to the hospital or I can call an ambulance. Your choice.”
While the paramedics were on the way, my wife, who knew I had some overnight heartburn, called my cell to check in, but I was too uncomfortable to talk. I quickly told her I was in pain and couldn’t talk, and hung up. Big mistake. She immediately called two more times, I declined her calls without picking up. She had my son, Blake, a paramedic in the Denver area, call me. Picked up, told him I couldn’t talk and hung up. Way to keep your composure, Klis.
When Blake immediately called again, Brian took my phone and explained the ambulance was on the way. When the paramedics arrived, the first thing they did was give me six baby aspirin to chew. Really? OK. Then they administered an EKG while I was sitting in the chair of the 9NEWS lounge room. The test revealed an abnormal enough reading to put me on a rollaway stretcher in preparation for the short ride to Denver Health.
As I was getting rolled out the front doors of the 9NEWS lobby, Quentin Sickafoose, our 9NEWS sports digital producer and do-everything guy, just happened to be walking by and did one more thing, holding the front lobby doors open as I was wheeled through.
Thanks, Q. He seemed a bit surprised by the proceedings.
I asked Brian if he could fetch my computer I left on my desk. I had been tracking a Broncos’ ownership story. I was given some sort of pain killer as I was in the ambulance. Brian had rushed back for my computer, came back and stuffed it under my stretcher. During the ride, I called Broncos’ public relations chief Patrick Smyth and informed him of my situation but that I had my laptop in case a story popped. Maybe it was the painkiller taking effect. Or maybe it was experience telling me when a team loses to the Jets – two weeks after losing 70-20 in Miami – changes may be coming. Smyth told me something like don’t worry about getting beat on a story for a few days. Focus on your health.
Sure, sure. But just in case, here’s my wife’s cell number.
When I got to Denver Health, I couldn’t believe it. There must have been 15 medical personnel waiting outside the emergency room doors. They were so attentive and concerned, no matter they have patients like me wheeled in a few times a day.
“I’m not worthy,’’ I told them in all seriousness.
Within 20 minutes of lying on an emergency room table, my wife Becky and two sons Blake and Johnny had arrived. I remember looking up at the clock, and it was 10:23. The show was about to go on without me.
“We’re all replaceable,’’ I said.
Boys, I said, give yourself an extra 3% of my will for being here. For some reason, I was overflowing with gallows humor.
And then came the reason. While lying on the emergency room table, I started experiencing sustained, excruciating chest pain. Smack dab in my heart. The chest pain went up to a 12. My heart felt like it was in a vice with someone slowly turning the handles to squeeze the jaws. I tried not to yell, but AAAAHH!
My son Johnny was telling me to tough it out, like I used to tell him and his youth basketball teammates I coached. I was grunting, cussing, profusely sweating. My wife and boys started praying. I was sweating so much that my wife and Blake took off my dress pants. My white T-shirt and dress shirt were soaked through.
Becky and Blake wanted the hospital staff to do something. Call in the cardiologist, whatever.
Turns out, I was having a heart attack.
The tests showed this. Right there on the emergency room table. No better place to have one. The medical folks said they were mixing up a batch of morphine, and it takes a minute. The on-call cardiologist was called in.
Once the morphine did its trick, I was wheeled to a surgical room for a procedure. The doc told me I had 95% blockage in what they call the widow-maker artery. He didn’t use the term widow-maker, but someone else did. They prepped my wrist to slide the wire-like doohickey carrying a small balloon through an artery and up to my heart.
I watched on a monitor as the cardiologist maneuvered in the stent. He had a friendly manner. When he was done, I felt like nothing had happened. I felt good enough to get up and do 10 jumping jacks. The whole procedure seemed like it took 20 minutes.
Thank goodness for modern surgical techniques. And for my sports boss, Brian.
They kept me in the hospital that night and one more to monitor my heart and any effects from all the heart-related medicine I was taking. Another cardiologist came in and said I had a mild to moderate heart attack. I’ll be darned.
Friends, family and acquaintances have since asked if I was scared. No, because the whole time I thought I had a bad case of heartburn that just wouldn’t go away.
Starting about midnight between Saturday night and Sunday morning as I was trying to sleep, the pain in my chest was roughly a 5 on a scale of 10. I woke up every two hours with the discomfort. Go away, already, I thought. I endured it all day – there was pain when I walked, but not when I sat down in my press box chair.
My plan was to do my work at the stadium, then do the Broncos Tonight show, go home and sleep it off.
It was mentioned to me later by nurses that many people under similar circumstances do this and don’t wake up. So I guess I was lucky the pain escalated to about a 7.5 or 8 during the next-level sickness episodes around 9:30.
But the next day, Monday, my daughter Kaitlyn’s birthday, as I sat up in my hospital bed, I got a little ticked off at myself. I was 64 years old, too young to have a heart attack, especially when I have been a regular exerciser all my life. The day before my heart attack, I had run 18 sprints between 55 and 75 yards in length, over a 15-minute period at a nearby track as part of my self-imposed interval routine.
No records were set, but looking back, I did feel unusually sore after the session.
For the Broncos’ game Sunday against the Jets, I had been feeling off all day, but nothing I couldn’t handle. My wife and I went out the previous night, Saturday, Oct. 7, at a popular place in downtown Golden. I had two craft beers and a few bites of a fried chicken appetizer. We sat in a lounge area and talked to a couple guys who recognized me from TV. One knew more about football and the Broncos than I did. He didn’t think Russell Wilson was a very good quarterback. This was when Russ had nine touchdown passes against just two interceptions and two, 300-yard passing games after four weeks. I’ve thought of this guy as Wilson was benched at season’s end.
The heartburn started around midnight. I figured it was from the fried appetizer. I started setting up at my Empower Field at Mile High press box seat around 10:20 a.m. for the 2:25 p.m. game. I went down to the field and visited with Jets receivers coach Zach Azzanni and quarterback Trevor Siemian, two former Broncos, on the visiting sideline. I don’t remember feeling sick or in pain during our visit.
But once I got back to the press box, the discomfort in my chest was there. I'd had a bad case of heartburn twice before in my life. The first time was the day prior to the Colorado Buffaloes’ Blockbuster Bowl loss to Alabama in December 1991. It was the game where CU coach Bill McCartney changed his offense from run-oriented option to a heavy passing attack in order to finish off his recruitment of Koy Detmer – leaving Tommy Frazier to get scooped up by Nebraska.
The second time was a year ago or so. Both times, the heartburn eventually subsided and went away.
For the Broncos’ game against the Jets, the heartburn never went away. After the game, I attended head coach Sean Payton’s press conference. I interviewed a couple players in the locker room and quarterback Russell Wilson at the podium, fast-walking between the interview room and locker room, back to the interview room and locker room. I went back to the press box and wrote a game story.
I drove to the 9NEWS studios, sat down at a desk and talked briefly with my sports colleagues, said hello to Orlando, then escaped to a back room.
“Knowing what I know now,’’ I said later with my back on the emergency room table, “I should have got checked out earlier.”
That drew a laugh from the medical attendants.
Turns out there was 90% blockage according to the official medical report, not 95%. I stayed two nights in the hospital. Got a nice fruit basket from the Broncos. Each nurse on duty had their own personality and bedside manner, of course, but I liked them all. They all seemed to care. I was humbled. I tried not to care about the Broncos’ ownership story. You know, because of the heart attack and re-setting priorities.
But I felt more stress trying to ignore it. Greg Penner, the Broncos’ CEO and owner, had replaced his father-in-law Rob Walton as controlling owner, which meant Penner had the largest stake in the franchise. Greg and Carrie Penner’s four children also received a portion of Rob Walton’s equity in the team. I submitted. A few minutes later, my blood pressure reading was normal.
It was a short week for the Broncos, playing Thursday night at Kansas City. I did not attend the game but watched on TV from my living room and wrote a game story. Nor did I attend my uncle Bob’s celebration of life that I was to emcee in my hometown of Oswego, Ill. My cousin Aaron set up a Zoom so I could perform my duty from the comforts of my home office.
I was back in action Monday for Payton’s Zoom press conference and Wednesday for practice and press conferences at Broncos’ headquarters.
Payton expressed genuine concern for me in the minutes prior to our weekly one-on-one interview for the Broncos Huddle show. That was nice.
I spoke with Dr. Payal Kohli, our 9NEWS health expert who also happens to be a cardiologist. She gave me all kinds of do’s and don’ts. What I remember most was her saying because of the blood-thinner type medicine I would be taking, no beer. Maybe one or two glasses of wine a week. For at least the next six months. Ugh.
> Video below: Cardiologist discusses 9NEWS Broncos reporter's heart attack experience
My good buddy Duncan thought the heart attack was stress-related. There were several occasions when our hang-out gatherings were interrupted by phone calls and breaking stories.
Dr. Amy Mertens, my cardiologist at Denver Health, said there were several factors that could have led to the heart episode but she thought the primary one was genetics. And indeed, my dad had multiple heart episodes and procedures starting when he was 52. He made it to 83 before cancer struck.
I attended once-a-week cardio rehab sessions at Denver Health. Three months since the heart attack, I am again regularly exercising, although I still have the heebie-jeebies about interval training.
My diet is better. But after a couple weeks, I got tired of chicken and salmon and salads and started to slip. I take a bunch of pills every day, which again, ticks me off. But in most every way I feel better than I did before the heart attack. The nurses and doctors said this is because I have more blood flow going through the heart.
I didn’t keep my heart episode a secret – I was rolled out of a TV station, after all – but I didn’t go public because as a journalist you’re conditioned to report, not become, the story. But enough people I respect thought I should consider sharing my story to raise awareness for anyone experiencing heart-related issues.
If even just one person read this story and it helped him or her, it would be worth it. My advice to anyone reading this is to take what you might think is heartburn or chest discomfort a little more seriously than I did. If it persists for a couple hours, get it checked out. An EKG will reveal the truth.
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