Jocelyn here...
So some of you have probably heard, but others perhaps have not and I'm sure there are plenty of rumors floating around. The WODFather himself, my dad Brian, has had a rough couple of days (to put it mildly) and David and I are not in Los Angeles watching the CrossFit Games, as planned. I'm posting this so that I can answer most of the questions you might have and to save myself from having to repeat the story a hundred times when I am back at the gym next week.
After experiencing some tingly numbness in his right arm and finger tips on tuesday, he was sent for an Echocardiogram on Wednesday suspecting a possible bacterial infection surrounding his heart. What they found instead was a large, benign tumor inside his heart in the left atrium called an atrial myxoma. The loose structure (roughly like a head of cauliflower) and gelatinous texture ("like a ball of snot" - directly from the surgeon) meant that my dad was at imminent risk of pieces of the tumor breaking off and travelling anywhere in his body, causing an embolysm or a massive stroke. In fact the numbness in his finger tips and red blotchy spots under his finger nails (called splinter hemorages) meant that he was already suffering tiny "strokes" in the small capillaries of his extremeties. After the diagnosis he was immediately admitted to the hospital and scheduled for emergency open heart surgery. He was told to walk slowly and mostly rest, for increasing his heart rate at all only increased the chance that a piece of the tumor would dislodge. Just one day earlier he'd been toughing his way through a kettlebell workout.
David and I made it as far as Calgary, and while waiting to board our plane to LA, received the call from my parents to tell us this shocking and horrible news. We had our bags off loaded and got ourselves back to Saskatoon on the next flight Wed evening.
The surgery was yesterday afternoon and it was a surprisingly fast ordeal (only about 3.5 hours). There were no complications and his heart restarted on the first try when he was taken off the heart/lung bypass machine. When it was over he spent the night in the ICU. The surgeon was blown away by the size of the tumor, calling it the biggest one he'd ever removed, and said it had been blocking approximately 50% of the blood flow through his left atrium. Given the size, the loose texture, and the tiny anchor holding it to the atrial wall, it is un-freaking-believable that he never had a massive stroke. "You are a lucky, lucky guy", "you dodged a bullet", and "we should probably remove those horseshoes from your butt", were phrases tossed out frequently by the many specialists handling his case.
The other common theme throughout the last couple of days was that every specialist commented on what great shape my dad is in, how healthy he is, and what a strong heart he has. An angiogram on Thursday reveleaed a perfectly clean cardio-vascular system and with no diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol he didn't fit the profile of the typical patient in the cardiac ward. When staring off into the abyss of his own mortality, he wasn't filled with feelings of regret for not taking better care of his health and there were no resolutions that when this is over "things would be different". Instead, he had already done all the hard work by CrossFitting 5x a week for years and eating a largely paleo diet. He had already set himself up to have the best possible chance of surviving a rare and lifethreatening condition like this. He was prepared for the unknown and unknowable and gave new meaning to the phrase "strong people are harder to kill".
As of today, he was transferred out of the ICU to the cardiac observation ward (ahead of schedule). He's off all his tubes and machines, is awake and coherent, and has even been up out of bed a couple of times. Although he has a rough and painful 2-4 weeks ahead of him, he is expected to make a full recovery. Needless to say this week has been an emotional rollercoaster, but the story so far ends on a positive note.
Thank you everyone for all your thoughts and well wishes. It's very comforting to have so many awesome people in our corner!
Love and thrusters,
Jocelyn