As I See It

Life in a Slower Lane

By Paul S. Koch, M.D. Editor Emeritus

"If you don't slow down you're going to have a heart attack!"

Hardly a week went by without someone telling me that. I realized that with my schedule I might have one some day, but I assumed it would be when I was 75, not 55.

So, when I woke up one morning with chest pain radiating to my shoulder and back, I jumped into the shower thinking, "If I didn't know better I'd think I was having a heart attack." Later, short of breath and barely able to stand I was admitted to the hospital barely 10 minutes before my heart slowed to a crawl and I temporarily faded away.

Happily, I had only minor damage, and thanks to a dozen pills a day I expect to have a long and happy life.

I was still in the CCU when my wife asked me what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

"How do you want to spend your evenings? Do you want to spend them alone in your office preparing yet another lecture?"
"No."

"Do you want to spend several weeks a year at conventions, getting up at five o'clock for breakfast meetings and falling into bed at midnight after dinner meetings and nightcaps?"
"No."
"Do you want to be the president of a national society in a few weeks?"
"No."
"Do you want to retire?"
"No."
"Do you want to work as hard as you've been working?"
"No."

I don't want to do this or I don't want to do that. Negatives. Where are the positives? What did I want really to do from now on?

I Did What I Wanted

Instead of evenings alone preparing lectures, I wanted to spend that time on the couch, cuddled with my wife watching television. Instead of weekends away at meetings, I wanted to spend that time dropping more anchors in more harbors and watching more sunsets.

So I did what I wanted. I skipped the major conventions, cancelled most of my personal appearances, quit many boards and stayed home. I enjoyed my yard. I went sailing, even when the weather was crummy.

Many ophthalmologists get into a rut. Work becomes routine, or worse, life itself. It's easy to say it's time to get out of that rut and enjoy life before it's too late, but a lot of us can't. Sometimes it takes a kick in the keester to really get you thinking about it.

If you took a week off because of the flu, the world wouldn't end. Everyone would adjust. Why not refuse to kill yourself? When you can't do any more, just say so and turn the extra patients over to someone else.

A New Outlook

I cut back my office schedule by a third. What did I want to do with all this free time? A lot of things, as it turned out.

One rainy day, the first idea came to me: I don't know how to build a wooden boat. I don't know how to bend the wood, attach the garboard to the keel or fasten the shear plank to the stem.

So here I am, typing this in a crowded bunkhouse after a grueling 12-hour day attaching deck planks and building hatch covers with my son at the Wooden Boat School in Maine. If not for my heart attack, we wouldn't be here taking this course.

Everybody has dreams, but a lot of us choose to get stuck doing the same thing every day. If we don't act on our dreams when we can, then when will we?

The work will still be there tomorrow if we go fishin' today. OM