Doing the Impossible (or at least the improbable) - Surgery to Sky in 6 months
March, 2024
Three months ago, I had open-heart surgery. Three months from now, I will do a half-marathon up 5500 feet to the top of Mt. Ashland. I will just have turned 55 and will be ecstatic to achieve the impossible (or at least the improbable).
Why was I having surgery? A little more than a year ago, I had atrial fibrillation that seemed to come out of nowhere. It started a few weeks after I had covid and appeared related to that. I waited three months to see a cardiologist (small town) and then had a cardioversion (big shock) to reverse the afib.
Afterwards, I asked my cardiologist about a long-standing abnormal level of liver enzyme, GGT, that I’ve had since being tested 14 years ago for life insurance (I was denied). I wondered if there could be a connection. She did a few tests and said she didn’t know. If I wanted to know, she said, she would send me to a GI doc who could do more tests. I agreed.
After waiting four months to see the GI doc, we embarked on what turned out to be a full compliment of liver tests (so many tests, so few answers). Early into these tests was an ultrasound of the liver that came back saying that I had stage 4 fibrosis, otherwise known as cirrhosis.
What??
If you don’t know me, I am a practitioner of acupuncture and Chinese medicine, wellness consultant and coach to creative professionals who want to avoid burnout. I thought of myself, and appeared to others, as being extremely healthy. But I had liver cirrhosis of unknown origin. It wasn’t from alcohol, it wasn’t an autoimmune condition … it was a mystery. Here I was, summer of ’23, just after a close friend had passed away from cancer, with a life-threatening diagnosis of my own.
Luckily, I had the ear of a super smart and accomplished hepatologist (liver doctor), who I was informally seeing because my insurance wouldn’t cover her (out of network). After I pushed to get a liver biopsy, the results showed that liver tissue showed “outflow obstruction.” There was a problem with the blood leaving the liver, causing liver cells to die and be replaced with scar tissue (fibrosis). Dr. Lai, at UCSF, thought the problem was my heart. Her guess was constrictive pericarditis (hardening of the sac surrounding the heart causing heart problems).
Long story short, she was right. Her idea reminded me that I had acute pericarditis (inflammation of the pericardium, most likely viral) while travelling abroad in 1990. It turns out that the healing process from this episode began a process of calcification of my pericardium which eventually restricted blood flow just enough to back up into the liver but not enought to cause any symptoms that I was aware of.
After waiting another month for a cardiologist at OHSU in Portland, we finally confirmed that diagnosis and within weeks I was lying on a table with my chest open, my blood being oxygenated through a machine for a couple of hours while my surgeon, Dr. Tibayan at OHSU in Portland, methodically removed as much of my pericardium as he could.
The results were perfect. The blood that was backing up instantly started flowing normally again. This has been confirmed by an echocardiagram just last week. We’ll have a look at the liver in a month. The hope is that my liver may not have been all the way to cirrhosis and because the liver can regenerate itself, some of the damage can be reversed, saving me from a liver transplant… or death.
All of that to say, I am quickly on the mend and eager to share what I feel has prepared me for open-heart surgery - a huge ordeal - and is helping me recover and get back to full power. It’s the same set of practices that I encourage my clients and patients to engage in: meditation, yoga, exercise, nutrition, hormesis (small amounts of high stress on the body), and inquiry into the nature of mind and body… all in the service of nervous system regulation.
The reason I am going to do the Mt. Ashland Hill Climb, this half-marathon that climbs a mile into the sky, is because as I prepared for surgery with guided meditations, the “safe place” that I was asked to imagine was always Mt. Ashland, as I spend a lot of time up there during the winter as a volunteer ski patroller. It only makes sense that my full recovery will be marked by summiting that mountain from the town that I currently live in.
I hope you will follow me on this journey of recovery and healing. I will be leading regular meditations on the app, Insight Timer (link below). If you want to understand more detail on my road to surgery, that link will be below as well.
Feel free to reach out with your own stories of real or virtual mountains that you are climbing in your life.
Insight Timer: https://insighttimer.com/jeremyrothenberg
Jeremy’s condition and journey to surgery: https://tinyurl.com/JRHeartLiver
Addendum: I decided that this effort should benefit more than just me… or even inspire you. Maybe it could help people in need. So I have created a GoFundMe for the Ashland Community Food Bank, our local organization that helps those with food insecurity. Please consider a donation:
GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/heart-surgery-to-mile-high-half-marathon-in-6-mo