Tom is back to 80% physical capacity (told this is his max) and 90% mentally healthy. It remains challenging to suppress or annihilate the emotional trauma. He was down to 20% capacity physically, emotionally, and mentally immediately after the incident.…
Tom’s Heart submitted an entry to the Champion the Challenges 2025 CarePlan Challenge for the Heart and Stroke AI Sidekick mobile application—the only direct-to-patient cardiac recovery digital platform powered with clinical, evidence-based knowledge. Features include: AI-powered assistant, integration with fitness…
Tom engaged with the American Heart Association, Sidekick Platform, and Champion the Challenges to create a heart and stroke application called “Tom’s Heart & Stroke AI Sidekick”—utilizing AHA public and private data including videos, infographics, audio, articles, care plans, and…
Tom traveled to the Catskills, India, and Park City/Utah to commune with close friends established at work. Enduring relationships make life worth living. He reflected on where he met most of his closest friends: 8 from work, 1 from education,…
Tom completed the Everest Base Camp trek: 130 kilometers (80 miles) round trip, with 2,865 meters elevation gain, reaching 5,545 meters (18,192 feet). The 12-day trek was strenuous but exhilarating—proof of how far he’d come in his recovery. He hiked…
Tom turned 60, celebrating with an extended, multiple-city, multi-day, month-long celebration. He completed “60 at 60″—60 miles of mountain biking over three days in NWA during his birthday week. In June, his best friend from age 14 held a 60th…
Life-Changing Perspective: Tom’s friend Ale’s words from the Catskills visit echoed: “Maybe this was a good thing.” His compassionate candor was the truth. Tom would never wish what happened to him upon anyone, but living through a death-defying experience changed him,…
Tom traveled extensively: scuba diving trips, motorcycle riding through California, Croatia, and Vermont, helping his sons move into college, and engaging in mountain biking trips. He was less engaged with work but maintaining his career. The focus was more on…
Inspired by an LSD experience, Tom sent personal thank-you cards to 40 mentors, coaches, and life advisors who positively influenced his life. This gesture led to rekindling friendships, advising on startups, collaborating on pay-it-forward endeavors, and motivation to write books.…
Embracing a “New Normal”; Getting back to ‘normal’—a new normal. This viewpoint made Tom happy, joyful, and optimistic. There is a time of play, a time to be born (again), a time to sow, and a time to reengage. Tom…
Tom and Natali traveled to Bora Bora, Whistler for skiing, and Croatia for diving and motorcycling. Each trip was a test of physical and mental recovery. Nightmares, visions, and distress continued but were abating. There was lots of anger, indignation,…
Major Mountain Biking Milestone; After about 8 months, Tom’s mountain biking improved dramatically. He was riding more challenging trails and regaining confidence. The daily walks, meditation, breathing exercises, and psychiatric medication were working. Life included: walking, fishing with trepidation, meditating, breathing,…
Breaking Through Mental Barriers – “Whatever It Takes”; Tom resolved to start mountain biking beyond the 1.7-mile Tweeter Bird green trail circle. The mantra for the first year of recovery: “This shit has to stop.” It was imperative to saturate…
Tom spent time at his friend Ale’s house in the Catskills but was nervous the entire time—he wasn’t within 50 miles of a major hospital. He looked for hospital signs incessantly when traveling. This visit was crucial to recovery as…
Did Tom’s intellect get impaired during the 8 minutes of cardiac arrest? Was his balance affected by loss of blood flow to the brain? He questioned his cognitive ability, memory, physical stamina, and coordination through playing card games, darts, chess,…
Friend and coworker Bikash Behera gifted Tom an Art of Living workshop. The weekend was insightful, powerful, soothing, impactful, and transformative. It was an amalgamation of meditation, therapy, transcendent being, breathwork, and hypnosis—another pivotal moment in subconscious recovery. Tom adopted…
Tom immediately found a psychologist and psychiatrist in Arkansas. Despite AR’s reputation for mediocre healthcare, he found the best physicians who took time to listen. Started on Prozac, then switched to Pristiq (an SNRI that provided the serotonin and norepinephrine…
Two weeks before the heart attack, Tom had committed to renting a home in Bella Vista, Arkansas for a year. With both sons in college, he was looking for a change—the mountain biking drew him to the area. The move…
During a stopover in Nashville visiting a college roommate, Tom had another panic attack during dinner. At 11 PM, convinced he was having a heart attack, Natali drove him to the hospital—ironically, one where she had worked. From 11 PM…
Tom’s friend “Haymaker” at Duke insisted on an exploratory cardiac catheterization to review the stent procedure and echo-cardiograms. Bob, an interventional cardiologist, explored Tom’s heart for over two hours and concluded his arteries were unobstructed. This was a pivotal moment—empirical…
