By Dan Patterson

For The Salisbury Post

Do you remember the blockbuster movie several years ago with Tom Hanks, "The Green Mile"?

It centered on a gentle giant named John Coffey. He was a large man, strong and looked like a picture of health. Falsely condemned, he was portrayed in the movie as a dead man walking while on Death Row awaiting execution.

John Coffey and I are a lot alike. He received a death sentence for murder. Several months ago, I found out I had a death sentence for other reasons.

This is a story of a 53-year-old man who was almost a picture of health, who worked hard all his life — sometimes 18 hours a day. This is my story. I had been eating mostly the right foods and had been on medication for elevated cholesterol since 1991.

I had a small spot in the center of my chest that had been a little sore for about two years. It never hurt from exertion but usually hurt a little when I was stressed. My wife did not even know about it.

With a strong family history of heart disease, I talked my family doctor into doing a stress test. This is where the fun began. My stress test indicated only a minor irregularity. Feeling no sense of urgency, I waited until my next scheduled vacation to have a catheterization. During this procedure, only one artery blockage was noted with maybe a second blockage on the back side of my heart.

I was transported by ambulance to Charlotte's Presbyterian Hospital, where I was prepped for a procedure to place a stent or two in my coronary arteries.

Much to my surprise, during the second catheterization, doctors found four major blockages — two arteries were blocked more than 95 percent and two were blocked more than 50 percent. There I was on the table to have stents placed in my heart and was told that I needed heart bypass surgery.

Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) is what the professionals call "the operation." After a three-day wait in the Belk Heart Center, I had surgery without complications or further surprises. The three days of waiting for the surgery were almost as stressful as the surgery itself.

We were told that I would be on life support for 12 to 24 hours and would then be brought out of the cardiovascular recovery room (CVRU) to a room on the Belk Heart Center. The CVRU is a six-bed critical care unit. My family was able to see me just a few hours after my surgery and I remember them all telling me how good I looked. Later, after looking at a few photos my daughter had taken of me, I surely looked like a dead man walking.

The nurse specialist in the CVRU kept watch on me constantly, gave me a sponge bath and fed me Jell-O. Please don't take lightly how good that bath felt and how good the Jell-O tasted. Would you believe that within 12 hours of undergoing major heart surgery I was out of bed and sitting in a chair? Within 24 hours, I was standing and walking around. Unbelievable.

I also found out that the morphine did not like me. The hallucinations were almost unbearable.

After 12 days in the heart unit, I was able to come home. I can't say enough about the great team of doctors, nurses, assistants and even those who delivered my meals and cleaned my room. Everyone on that unit worked as a team to help make me well. My faith in God also sustained me.

Back to the dead man walking — there are literally thousands of men and women in this country who think that they are in a good state of health: they have no pain, are able to play basketball with the kids for an hour, or play a round of golf with little or no discomfort and visit the gym several times a week.

I just want to impress upon all of you that I was in that kind of shape. I thought I was eating the right foods and living an active lifestyle that kept my heart busy. With the strong family history that I had with heart disease and the everyday stressors of life, I was a dead man walking. Only the grace of God kept me from a major heart attack.

There are many people out there who are not so lucky. Their first sign is a major heart attack. We often are so busy with the things in our life — raising kids and keeping the business going — that we honestly lose sight of how easily our good health can be taken from us.

After spending a couple of weeks in Rowan Regional Medical Center's Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, I also have realized that frequently we wait to get in shape almost too late in life.

The longer you wait, the harder it gets. Please start now with an exercise program and a healthy diet. Identify the stressors in your life and develop a plan for managing them. Don't be a Dead Man Walking.

I'd like to give a special thanks to all my surgeons and the staff at the Presbyterian Cardiovascular Institute and Rowan Regional's Cardiac Rehab Program for giving me the inspiration to get well.