#61 Despite leading a healthy lifestyle, John Spilman required a triple bypass due to severe blockages. He describes warning signs like fatigue and shortness of breath that led to lifesaving surgery. John's recovery included challenges like Afib, but through cardiac rehab and determination, he completed a half Ironman just a year later. His experience emphasizes being your own health advocate and finding support in the heart patient community. John's inspiring journey offers hope to others facing major health obstacles.

More about John Spilman: I've been in endurance sports for over 25 years, participating in over 35 marathons, 15 half Ironman triathlons, and 6 full Ironmans. My routine involved early workouts, a full day of work in corporate strategy, and family time.

In July 2023, I learned I had severe blockages requiring a triple bypass. Despite being a vegan and monitoring my health, my heart struggled with >90% blocked arteries. Signs of fatigue and shortness of breath led to necessary tests and surgery.

The surgery was successful, and I quickly started recovery. I faced challenges like AFIB but continued to push forward. Cardiac rehab and personal workouts helped me regain strength. By July, nearly a year after surgery, I completed a 70.3 half Ironman.

My experience taught me the importance of being your own advocate and focusing on recovery. Listen to your body and keep moving forward every day.

You can find John on Instagram @spilman65 or LinkedIn

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**I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. Be sure to check in with your care team about all the next right steps for you and your heart.**

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Email: Boots@theheartchamberpodcast.com

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Boots Knighton

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Open Heart Surgery with Boots

Welcome to open heart surgery with Boots, a podcast for heart patients by me, a heart patient. Join me as I take you on a journey through the intricacies of the human heart, revealing the triumphs and challenges of those who undergo the life changing event of heart surgery. We're not just exploring medical procedures, we're delving into the human experience. Be sure you hit subscribe and also leave a review. That means the world to me and I read every single one. Also, if you have a story to share or wanna hear something that I haven't covered on this program, you can send me an email which is linked in the show notes, but without further delay. Let's get to this week's episode. I am so thrilled to bring a new heart buddy of mine on today, John Spillman.

I became acquainted with John. He has been a listener of the podcast for a while now and we just started exchanging messages and cheering each other on on social media. And I am so glad that he has been vulnerable on social media sharing his story, because it has given me hope as I continue to wade through my heart challenges. And I want to encourage listeners today to find John because this guy's story is amazing. He's been in endurance sports for over 25 years, participating in over 35 marathons. I'm just like amazed at that. He's also done 15 half Ironman triathlons and six full Ironmans. My goodness.

His routine has involved early workouts, a full day of work in the corporate strategy, and then on top of that, he's a family man now. Last July 2023, he learned he had severe blockages requiring a triple bypass. That despite being a vegan and monitoring his health, his heart struggled with 90% blocked arteries. His signs were fatigue and shortness of breath, and that led to the necessary tests and surgery. Here's the incredible the surgery was successful and he has started his recovery. And he is well into it now and is already back to kicking butt at life. But during that early stage of recovery, he did face challenges like Afib. Guess what? He continued to push forward through cardiac rehab and personal workouts.

He was able to regain his strength. And then just this July, nearly a year after his surgery, he completed a 70.3 half ironman. His experience has taught him the importance of being his own best advocate and focusing on recovery. He says, listen to your body and keep moving forward every day. Amen. John Spillman, I want to welcome you to open heart surgery with boots. That is quite. That is quite the mountain you have climbed and I am so thrilled you are here.

Bravo.

Yeah. Thank you very much. It's just, it's an honor to be here again. You have inspired me. When I first started my journey a little bit more than a year ago, but I'm real excited to be where I'm at today. It wasn't easy. Every day was a challenge. But again, as I try to tell everybody I run into is that, you know, you have to take ownership of your own health.

You have to be an advocate for getting the right test done. If you feel something's wrong, you have to, you know, continue to move forward. And to me, I love endurance activities, endurance events. So getting back to the starting line, being able to complete the half Ironman a couple weeks ago was, was really something that I just feel incredibly blessed to be back at this point in time and to be able to share that with others as well. So thank you for having me on.

Yes. So that tells us you are like, the future has never been so bright for you. And you've got the triple challenge triathlon in August, late August. Did I say that right?

Yeah, it's at the Chicago triathlon. So instead of just kind of signing up for the super sprint, the sprint or the Olympic, I decided why not do the triple challenge? So on the triple challenge, you get to do all three. So you do the super sprint on Saturday, then on Sunday you go off first wave, 06:00 a.m. hitting the Lake Michigan, do the Olympic distance triathlon, and then you come back in the last wave of the sprint. So you get to do three races. So you might as well, you're spending enough money on these races, you might as well get all three in. And then the Chicago marathon is what I have scheduled for October to return to do that. I've done that one, I think, eleven or twelve times.

But this will be special to be able to finish this one again, having been through the triple bypass and trying to recover all my strength from that.

Right. Incredible. So the August triathlon, that will be 13 months after. That's 13 months post op, correct. That is incredible.

I was going to say I was at my 7th month cardiology checkup from my major checkup in November, and I mentioned to the, the physician's assistant who was working with me there, and I said, well, I did, you know, how are things are going? So she asked me and I said, well, they're going pretty well. I did a half Ironman, you know, a week and a half two weeks ago, and she kind of stopped in her notes and kind of looked at me and she's like, you did what? Go. Yeah, I did a half ironman. She's like, I've been, you know, working here many years, and I have never heard of anybody completing an Ironman distance triathlon a year post surgery. So that that kind of made me feel good.

Yes. Let's just take a moment to celebrate that. I mean, it's. All of our paths are so unique in our heart journeys, and it's sometimes, you know, they can say comparison can be a thief of joy, and I think it also can be a path for hope. Right? So, like, I would love all my listeners and myself to be able to compete in triathlons. And I'm, you know, I'm not gonna say it. I know I can't do that right now with my heart, but you give me hope and let me know as long as I keep doing the next right thing and to be my own best advocate, that is such an important lesson.

No, I totally agree. And again, I don't expect people to, you know, to do what I'm doing, but I do expect people, when they've been through these procedures, is, again, take ownership of your health and you can't. And again, as we all know, that first couple months you're caudal, you're seeing nurses, doctors, everybody's coming in, you know, your family, everybody's concerned about you. But after a couple months, you're kind of on your own, which is unfortunate. There's definitely support you can get through different various ways through the hospital and through, you know, relatives, etcetera. But what has really helped me, boots, is that since telling my story on both a couple different social media platforms, I've connected not only with you, but I've connected with just numerous other patients who are either on the same kind of timeframe that I am or ones that have just started. And, you know, just the other day, one of the individuals I follow, he, for his birthday present, I think next week he's going to be allowed to start jogging again. And so, you know, I'm always sending him kudos on just getting out of bed and getting the walking done.

A couple other individuals are. They're big into weightlifting, and so that's something that I actually need to do more of. And so I'm complimenting their. On their weightlift. They're like, John, how do you do more than like a mile on the treadmill? So we have great conversations, and it's, again, it's. It's that type of community, which is kind of a weird community, you know, the zipper club community, as we, we all are with our open heart surgery scars and our wounds. But those individuals that I am able to have conversations, messages, that inspires me. And then when I'm out, you know, when I was down in Indiana doing this half Ironman, and it's.

It's getting tough. It was hot, humid conditions. I'm still nowhere near the, the fitness I used to be, but it was those individuals I knew that we're going to check to see if I was going to finish this that gave me that inspiration to keep on moving on that day. So it's a special community that we're part of. None that we chose to be part of. But what, you know, the cards that God had dealt us. And I think being able to be a proponent, to be able to bring awareness, can only be helpful for others. So that's why I continue to do it.

Thank you for doing it.

No, thank you.

So let's go back to the. Let's go back to the start of your symptoms, and if you could briefly take us through your journey.

Yeah. So, again, I've been doing these endurance events a long time, and I've been very fortunate to be pretty competitive in my age group. So, again, the surgery was a year ago, but if you go back even a year before then, I started to notice just my workouts not being as good as I did in the past. Things were just slowing down a little bit. And my beautiful wife, who's a nurse herself, she's like, you know, John, you're getting older. You've been doing these things. You have a lot of stress in your life. Just kind of like.

Except you're probably going to slow down a little bit. But it was when I started getting the. Just lack of getting good breasts in, just started to get fatigued. It was like every afternoon just having to close my eyes and take a nap. I had a lot of headaches, too, that were popping up, but I never had any symptoms like you had. You know, there wasn't, you know, the elephant on the chest, there wasn't the numbness in the arm, nothing like that. So in, I guess it had been 2022 in that spring, I came down with COVID which we've all come down with COVID several times. It was right before a half Iron man down in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

So I didn't realize they had Covid when I was down there, but I had it. I completed the race. Probably not Smarteenen, but when I got back, you know, I took the test and was when I figured out, found out I was positive. I then had a race, a real iconic race, escape from Alcatraz. So I went out to San Francisco and did that race a couple weeks later after I was able to get the symptoms done. So as we started planning and doing training that summer leading up to Ironman, Arizona in the November timeframe of 2022, things just started to continue to go. Feeling not great again, more lethargic where my recovery pace used to be a nine minute per mile pace, I would stop after a quarter of a mile and I just couldn't get a breath. But what we thought all along in working with my pammy doctor is that you probably have long Covid because that is known to have problems with the respiratory.

She says, keep on training, we'll figure it out. So went on training, went down to Ironman, Arizona with my family, ended up doing the 2.4 miles swim, did the 112 miles bike, and then halfway on the run, I just had nothing left of me and I pulled myself off the course. I didn't want to be, you know, so far away from Chicago where I live. Being out in Arizona to end up in a hospital, I wanted just to get off the course and then get back to my family. When I came back to Chicago, recovered and went back to my doctor who is an advocate hospital system here in Chicago, and she's a sports doctor as well as my family doctor. She's like, something's wrong. It's not probably Covid. Let's start just throwing every test we can at you.

So they started throwing tests at me. We did one exercise test. Again, looking at the pulmonary, that doctor, Doctor Phil Schiba, he said your pulmonary is probably a little compromised by what I'm seeing. But let me show you your Ekgdem. So he pointed out that on my EKG, during the high intensity of the exercise, he saw a depression in my ST segment. And he said that is not good. He says, now you recovered, so im not going to admit you to the hospital right now, but you need to see a cardiologist. So I ended up getting an appointment with doctor AJ Batty at the advocate system.

Again, he looked at me, hes like, youre fine, youre probably fine, its nothing. But lets run our own test. So it was that cardiac stress test with nuclear that they saw what they thought were going to be some blockages. So they called me and again, nothing. All these things dont happen like in a few days. As you know, tests take your schedule to week and another week. And then, so were talking well, in the June timeframe, when they say, we want you in the cath lab, and theyre like, John, we think you have two or three blockages, but were going to go into the cath lab, we will probably put a couple stents in, and then you'll be good to go. I'm like, okay, that sounds great.

I didn't even let my wife take me to the hospital. I just took an Uber there, and I'm like, you can pick me up later. I'm fine. I'll be good. And in boots. As I was getting prepped for that surgery in the cath lab, I'm looking around at me, I'm like, why am I here? There's a lot of sick people around me that need to be in my position because it's hard to get into hospitals to get these types of procedures done. And I'm thinking to myself, man, I'm going to really spend a lot of money on healthcare, even though having good health insurance. So they took me back into the cats room.

Everything started, and within 20 minutes, even being in the twilight drug they have you on, I could hear them say that, no, this doesn't look good. No, these are. No, no. Okay, let's just stop right now. So they stopped the procedure about 20 minutes in, and the doctor came up to the head of the table and he said, you know, mister Spelman, where your blockages are at, we do not like to put stents. We can, but we really do not want to put them in these areas. He said, let's talk once you get to recovery. So I went back into recovery room.

He showed me all the imaging, explained where the blockage were at. They were right near other branches, which caused additional problems. And he said, I really think you need to talk to our surgical team. So the surgical team came down. We went through all the images. They're like, yep, you probably need a triple bypass, open heart surgery. When do you want to schedule it? And so I literally scheduled it, you know, before I walked out or before I was taken out of the recovery one, before my wife picked me up. So we scheduled that to July 11 of 2023.

Again, they. They thought all along that because the health I was in, again, I was eating vegan vegetarian for last seven years. I washed my weight, I. Not a smoker, you know, very social, if any, drinking. I took care of myself, that the. The surgery itself wasn't going to be a problem. They're like, yeah, it's not going to be fun, you know, having again your sternum cracked open is not fun. However, you should just sail through everything and then you'll be, you know, out of the hospital real quick.

But they did. They did point out one thing, and this is pointed out by the surgical team as well as my doctor, Doctor Sarah Brown, is that it's the emotional side of going through a major open heart surgery that can come back to get you. And she said, really, you got to focus on that, your mind, and how you treat people and how you're reacting to people. Because I think that was probably the tougher part to get through. Is that the physical part of it? I'm used to pushing myself. It wasn't fun, but I got through it. But it was that just roller coaster ride of emotions that you go through. As you've mentioned on, and you've had other patients and physicians talk about in your podcast when your heart stops.

I still think there is something to that. I know you're hooked up to the ventilator and your blood's being oxygenated, but your heart stops. It's an interesting thing to do. The other thing I'll say about the surgery is that early in the nineties, I was a medical device rep, so I used to scrub end with surgeons back in the day when they allowed it. I've probably seen over 510 thousand surgeries, and I've been in cardiothoracic surgery cases where I'm just paying attention to what they're using in my product. But to be wheeled into that operating room and having all those people and all that equipment around, and knowing that you're the one that's going to be on the table, that was an eye opener. So, that was a very humbling side to just kind of give your basically saying, okay, I'm here, I know it's in your hands to, uh, to make sure I get through on the other side. So, that was interesting to go through that process.

But again, as you mentioned, I was able to get recovered fairly quick. Um, I did have the AfIb issue. I think it was night two. And the, um. In the recovery or in the. The step down unit, when they woke me up in the middle of the night, I was sleeping through it. They couldn't believe I was sleeping through it. But they're like, Mister Spelman, you're an Afib.

What's get you settled? And then eventually, a month after the open heart triple CABG, I had to go back in for the atrial ablation. And thank God that atrial ablation worked the first time. So I was real happy with Doctor Biradi, the cardiac interventionalist who did that at the hospital, form a advocate. The one thing I would say is that ironically, the health system I went to was advocate. But being an advocate for yourself while you're in the hospital, before the hospital, after the hospital is really important. I'm very lucky to have a knowledge of medical devices. I'm in the pharmaceutical industry. My wife's an operating room nurse.

So we knew the questions to ask while we were going through the whole ordeal. But a lot of people don't know that. They don't know what to ask. They don't know what to say. So having others be advocates for the people that don't know the questions asked is really important because I love the medical industry, but they're going to tell you what they want to tell you and you have to really push them to get it to deep down. And the other thing that I remember boots, you immediately like, go back in your, your medical notes, there's so much information. And I was already going in because the advocate has a great, has a great app and a good portal to go through. So I read everything about it and if I didn't understand something, I asked them questions about it and made it make sure that they, they explain things to me and my wife.

So that was incredible. But again, you know, I went through cardiac rehab very short. I was already doing workouts more intense than they were going to give me there. So eventually, after a few weeks, they, they allowed me to stop going. But it's been a, so you kind of mentioned at the start, it's been an incredible journey. I'm still, am I back 100% to where I used to be, you know, prior to all the, the conditions and symptoms? No, I'm not there, but I've got a full, you know, release from the cardiologist. I work with a coach, Amanda Wendorf, who's been along this journey with me as well. And we're just trying to get back to where I can not only participate in these activities that I love to do, but also compete at a high level.

And you know, what if I don't get back to the competing level but I can just participate, that's a huge win. Just to get back to the time where I can jump in the water with other triathletes, you know, go on the bike and then commiserate with each other on the run because it's so hot and humid, whatever, and just get to the finish line. And to have that community is, is real important for me. So it's been a. It's been a. It's been a journey, like they say. But I think it's been a blessing as well, because it's really kind of change how I look at life and how I go throughout, you know, every day has changed now based upon the experiences that I've had.

You're a force of nature. I think that might be the title of this episode. I have questions because that's just how I am. Say more about your heart being stopped and the emotional, spiritual, mental aspects of that, because you said it was a rollercoaster. Can you just briefly, like, touch on that a little bit more for us?

Yeah, I mean, they. The. Again, the healthcare professionals kind of warned me it was the. Kind of the psychological, the emotional that'll probably be the toughest for a lot of people. And it was just strange that, you know, the. I can recall so many vivid dreams that I had never had before, and just the. The overall more connection with your body. Like the night that I went into total Afib at home where I had to go back to the hospital, I could literally feel every.

Every beat in every. You know, because Afib, it's like a superball jumping around in your chest. It's all over the place, but it really had a feeling that, you know, that more connection with the body. But I feel like post having the surgery and post having the heart stop, just have a different outlook on life. Sometimes. I think it's a good, positive outlook, but sometimes you have to kind of pull yourself up, and maybe instead of going down that dark path, you go down the other path. So I do think that I'm a changed individual since that. You can ask my wife whether that's good or bad, you know, again, I try to do the best for my family.

I'm very blessed. I have five children. I have six grandchildren. I've got a beautiful, wonderful goldendoodle who sometimes is my, you know, the partner in crying with me on long walks and things like that. But I do think the whole process of being on that, the bypass machine and just having your heart stopped and having it touched and having it manipulated, it can't not affect you, right? I mean, the. The zipper that I have on my chest, does it feel perfect yet? No, it still hurts. There's times that it's really uncomfortable in talking with others, and my caregivers, they're like, well, it could be uncomfortable for years. And I'm like, oh, great.

You know, not even to mention, you know, as you and I know that, you know, the cardiologists, the surgical team, the nurses, doctors, I saw none of them had went through what I went through. So I started asking questions. They're like, well, we really don't know the answer to the question, which led me to googling and social media, which brought me to you, which is great, but there's still questions I have. There's questions on, in regards to the exercise and endurance sports and things like that. The one guest you had on cardiac Cody, with his cycling, he gave me such inspiration, knowing that he could get back and be at the level that he's at. It's just amazing. So I think everybody that goes through these types of procedures, you can't not be changed by what has happened. And whether that's because the heart stop, whether that's because of, you know, just the things that you've had to endure and go through, it cannot have an impact on you.

And hopefully it's got an impact for, for good and you're gonna do some, you know, better things in your, your life and not going down the other path. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people that go through these procedures, and they. My cardiologists say they just, they go back to their normal legs. They're like, you know, what you're doing is you're like an anomaly. Like, people don't do that because people are comfortable. They don't want to change. Luckily, I didn't have to change much. I just had to keep on doing what I was doing.

But those that don't want to change, unfortunately, they're going to be statistic, they're going to be having medical problems for a long time, and they're probably not going to survive. And that's the sobering part of it, which, again, why I try to put the word out on listening to your body, you don't have to be an incredible athlete to know something's wrong. You're all in tune with your bodies, and if something isn't right, something's probably wrong. Get that checked out. Keep on pushing the healthcare system to find out. You know, don't take no for an answer. And then once they check it out, get the, get the care needed, and then again, follow instructions. But eventually, you're going to be on your own.

You're going to have to realize, okay, when I wake up in the morning, am I going to put on the shoes to go for a walk or I'm going to just sit at home and not do anything? And luckily for me, I took the ability to realize I needed to get out of the house, go for that walk, get those steps in, you know, right as soon as I got home and even as we all were in our different units in the hospital, just doing laps around, you know, the nurses stations. And I used to call my floor that. I was at an advocate. I was like, I was on Hotel California, you know, you can check in anytime you want, but you just can't leave. That was my hotel California. Eventually I was able to break out of there eventually.

So I actually recorded my first walks on Strava. I mean, I still use Strava, but it was, it's pretty neat to go back and look at my first walks around the hospital. And I thought I was so fast.

I remember you telling me that your heart scene recording, same thing, so fast.

Air quotes.

Yeah, I probably look at my recording because my wife did it. The first steps in the cvicu, again, it's humbling. It's humbling to see those walks, but it was also humbling to see all your people that are there caring for you and loved you and wanted you to succeed. But yeah, those first few steps were like, I remember when they took me, when I was on the other floor, they took me to the stairs. And I remember because at that point, I think I had the chest tube still in and there everybody's carrying everything. And we did just one flight of stairs. And I was like, that is, I don't know if we're gonna be able to do that again. I mean, it was that bad.

And that was going from those first steps, that first flight of stairs, and then a year later, to be able to do what I did is, again, I wasn't fast. It was definitely one of my slowest, probably the slowest time. But I think it was one of the most rewarding experiences to be able to get to that finish line that day with the year that I had prior.

Wow. Wow. It's a privilege to be able to use our bodies. Yeah, it really is a privilege. It's a privilege to be able to get up and walk around, to push our hearts. And that's something that's not lost on me on a daily basis.

Exactly.

The themes I'm hearing in your story, John, are you, you went in with health, I know you had blocked arteries, but you still went in with an incredible amount of health behind you, like good eating habits. But I'm also hearing that you have a powerful community, powerful connections, you have a positive mindset, you have purpose in your day. Like, all of these are really what can almost guarantee success after what you went through. And we think of health as almost like a, you know, this or that or black and white or just like only your blood, like your values and your blood tests. But it's so much more than that. And the unifying theme across all the people have had the privilege of interviewing on this podcast. The people who are doing the best have the biggest communities, and they have the biggest sense of purpose.

Yeah.

So diets, one thing, not drinking very much, not smoking, like all those are really critical. Right. But there's these other things that can't be put in a pill bottle.

No, exactly. But I think that's knowing that I'm, again, blessed to have all those attributes and we're able to call on those as needed. It makes it more important for me to search out that individual who maybe because we all kind of tag our instagram and our social media with either a zipper club or open heart surgery survivors. So I'm subscribed to all those. And as I see them come true, I'm always, you know, trying to provide encouragement to those because unfortunately, the way the world is is that there's, that's never going to end. There's going to be more people each and every day they're going to be posting stories about that, hey, I just survived, you know, some type of a major surgery. And again, I don't know that they have the support that I have. And so.

Bye. You know, John Spellman, just reaching out to them liking something or telling them, great job for, you know, for walking around the block or for doing whatever they're doing, hopefully will provide them that encouragement to keep moving forward because it can be lonely out there as well. And that's probably going back to the earlier question about how you change. But, you know, none of my family had what occurred to me. A little bit of a side note is I do have a son who went through three open heart surgeries and eventually will have a transplant. So we've been through a lot with, and he, he and I have, I think, a special bond now. We have a special, you know, zipper club scar going down our chest. But he and I really have leaned on each other and have gotten to know each other better for what I've went through and what he'll eventually have to go through and most likely needing a transplant down the ways.

But again, you need that support system to be able to make it through, make it through life, and especially when you're put in situations where, you know, I had no idea that I would be having open heart surgery. When I started out the year, unfortunately, genetics caught up with me. I had an uncle and a grandfather who had passed away of some major coronary disease when they were in their sixties. But by having me do that, all my siblings got checked out right away. Thank God they're all clean, all their arteries. I have one brother who's had a little afib issue, but he's on the road for that. But again, it's, you know, I was probably, you know, given the blocked arteries because I think God probably figured out I could handle it and I could make something more of it.

Incredible. Well, we're going to have to leave it there, but I will put how you can find John on Instagram in the show notes and I'll add a little bit more of his story. Do reach out if you have anything you'd like to share with either me or John, you can always reach me boots@theheartchamberpodcast.com. or you can find me on Instagram and LinkedIn. It has been such an honor, John Spillman, to spend a little nugget of my day with you. Thank you for your generosity in sharing your story and your willingness to be vulnerable.

Thank you boots. I appreciate all you do.

Hey heart buddies, thank you for sharing a few beats of your day with me today. Please be sure to follow or subscribe to this podcast wherever you are listening. Also, be sure to share with a friend who will value what we discussed. Additionally, I love your feedback. It is so encouraging when I hear from you listeners and it helps me continue to put out good content that I know you want to hear. So be sure to drop me an email@bootsheheartchamberpodcast.com. again, I am your host, Bootsnighton and thanks for listening. Be sure to tune in next Tuesday for another episode on open heart surgery with boots.