Okay, I’ll come clean: that headline is not really medically accurate in any way, and yet, somehow that’s exactly what happened to me. Or at least that’s what it felt like. What technically happened is that a few weeks ago I was one of the unlucky 30-per-million people every year who decide to dramatically rend their aortas – the big main hose taking blood from the heart to feed all of your body’s equipment – in a process called an aortal dissection.
Of the many and wildly varied things I learned from this whole mess, one of them is that there don’t seem to be many first-hand accounts of aortal dissections online. So I’m going to tell you all about mine. Because I also learned that this peculiar relationship we have – between me and you, yes, you– is very important to me, and I want you to know the truth about as much as you can stand to hear. So, get ready to roll your eyes at my over-dramatizing and grimace at the sheer biological grossness of it all, because I’m not going to hold back.
What Happened
It was a pretty normal Monday night, before it became very abnormal. The kiddo was on his VR headset, hanging out with some friends in some virtual whatever and making noises that sounded like Tuvan throat singing, but that was normal. My wife was at a friend’s house, and I was wrapping up work, and just did un-shocking stuff like have a lovely phone call with a friend and walked the dogs, which included a bit of running, because we have a new puppy who is, of course, a loon. Again, normal stuff!
I was down in my basement lair, wrapping up work stuff and putting my computer to sleep, grabbing my iPad to do some member birthday drawings and about to head upstairs. Right as I put my system to sleep, I felt this strange bursting sensation in my chest. It rapidly changed from a peculiar burst to what I can only describe as a sphere of pain, fuzzy on the borders but rapidly expanding inside my chest.
The pain sphere, which I imagined as a deep red thing, blurry on the edges, sort of like how we often illustrate stars when they become red giants. This glowing, pulsating sphere of pain then dropped, rapidly and determinedly, into my abdomen. At that moment my jaw began to hurt.
Something was very wrong.
Somehow I made it upstairs, which wasn’t easy, because the pain was so intense that it was difficult to focus on things and, you know, walk. My body wasn’t working quite like it normally does, and in my mind I saw my body’s dashboard lighting up like the Vegas strip, every light coming on and the check engine light not just on, but blinking rapidly, demanding attention. My mind was all warning lights and needles firmly nestled in the red part of the gauge and buzzers and klaxons announcing that things were going very, very awry.
Like an idiot, I found myself Googling “chest pain abdominal pain and jaw pain meaning” and a lot of similar combinations to try and figure out what was going wrong, like I might be able to do something about it myself. I texted “I’m having a medical thing” to my wife, and based on how I normally treat medical things (specifically, I ignore them with the sort of idiotic unearned confidence of a true dipshit), she knew that this was A Big Deal.
I was also terrified, financially, of doing something like taking an ambulance, because, well, you know how America works. Here, people in medical peril actually consider waiting for a ride instead of taking an ambulance–unlike the rest of the world, where ambulance is the default first, best choice.
My wife, Sally, who was on her way back home, was thankfully less stupid than me, and insisted I call 911 and get an ambulance to the house, stat.
[Ed note: I have a really good friend who is an ER doctor and as soon as he saw the scar he was like “Thank God for Sally” because the type of aortic issue that Jason had doesn’t give you very much time – MH]
At this point, I was feeling deeply weird. The abdominal pain was intense, and it was getting difficult to focus on things, visually. My eyes felt like they were no longer under full control of my brain, and my limbs seemed to be enjoying some independence as well. Moving was difficult. My brain seemed to have entered some sort of Safe Mode, where I was processing actions one by one and only capable of doing things slowly, methodically. It was very strange.
Sally arrived home and found me on our son’s bed, (he was upstairs, still being a goofball in some virtual space, and that’s good – I did not want him to see me like this) confused and in a lot of pain. I was on the phone with 911, and they told me to chew an aspirin, in case this was a heart attack, which it, spoiler alert, wasn’t.
Help Arrives
Soon the paramedics arrived, dodging the Changli parked on the walkway in front of my house, carrying with them some genuinely impressive hardware that, were I in a different state, I’d have wanted to scrutinize until someone firmly reminded me that, hey, we have real work to do. But I wasn’t in anywhere near that state.
The paramedics were incredibly capable and competent, doing tests and taking what I think was a chest X-ray in a remarkably small unit, assessing what the hell was going on with me. I’m not certain if they decided then that what was happening was an Aortic Dissection, but whatever they figured was going on, they decided that I needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible, so I was loaded onto a stretcher, commemorated in this photo:
I’m amazed how, well, normal I look in this picture. I’m making a “jeez, what a lot of fuss” face there, but the truth is inside, I was barely hanging on. I felt like I was controlling my body from a distance, via remote control, having been ejected from my usual driver’s seat because the cabin was filling with smoke.
Also, RIP my Volkswagen Beetle shirt, which I think was about to be cut off me. I miss that shirt.
From this point on, things start to get really strange.
I remember being in the ambulance, and I recall thinking about how fascinating these vehicles are, but I couldn’t really focus on any details because my vision was behaving very oddly. My field of vision was getting dark at the edges, and it was hard to actually look at things. My ability to focus as I normally did was gone, and the pain was quite intense. I felt like I was on some sort of square platform, which makes no sense, and then, somehow, I think I was then in the emergency room, on another square platform, which still makes no sense, and I was writhing around, getting more and more confused, feeling more disconnected feeling from my body.
I don’t want to be too dramatic here, but at this moment I really felt like systems were shutting down. I felt like my body had thrown a rod, and the engine was still turning even though one of the pistons was poking through a hole in the block. Oil was leaking everywhere, every warning light is on, and now things are starting to really break.
Was this what dying feels like?
Let’s Talk Aortic Dissections
Let’s pause here for a moment to explain exactly what was going on inside my chest, this Aortic Dissection. This isn’t a heart attack, as it doesn’t really directly affect the heart: it’s affecting the big hose that carries blood from the heart to all the organs and other important bits. The word “dissection” here is a bit confusing because we normally associate it with the careful disassembly of a funny-smelling preserved frog or something like that but what it really refers to is what is going on inside the aorta.
What’s going on inside is a lot like what happens to that lousy German fuel line that’s rubber on the inside and braided fabric on the outside; the inner liner of the aorta separates, and that makes a gap between the inner part of the aorta and the outer, uh, skin, and then blood flows in there, where it’s not supposed to go, and eventually that causes swellings of blood that rupture and burst and then there’s a whole mess of blood not going where it needs to go and everything goes to shit. Here’s a video that shows the whole process:
In my case, I was told the aorta tear went all the way down to my kidneys, so the whole length of the aorta was dissected/torn. That’s why I felt the pain drop into my abdomen, I think. But let’s get back to my exciting evening!
Pants Shitting And Other Excitement
As I writhed on that table, my chest and abdominal pain continued, and, horrifyingly, my bowels decided that they were done holding anything inside, so as I squirmed there on the table, I shit myself. Lavishly. It just sort of happened, my intestines letting go and a remarkably generous amount of waste filled my poor pants, in such quantity and with such force that you’d think it was the finale for a Broadway show called Pantshitter! It was awful and embarrassing, and whatever dignity I had left was ejected into those pants along with all that rich, creamery feces.
Incredibly, it gets worse. There was a very cross EMT or perhaps nurse or doctor or someone there with me, who was yelling at me or about me, and she removed my waste-filled pants, an act that I’m certain that person was not paid nearly enough to do.
Once my pants were off, I instinctively moved my hands to cover my junk, because, you know, I have over 50 years of life experience that has trained me to not show my junk in public, but as I did so the nonplussed EMT or whomever yelled at me “TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF YOUR PENIS!”
I was confused. What? Then I heard it again: “HANDS OFF YOUR PENIS!”
I’m getting yelled at for having my hands on my junk? What is this, Trader Joe’s? No! Does this person think I’m going to have one last wank before dying on that table? It was bizarre, but I was in no position to argue, so I abandoned modesty and moved my hands.
The edges of my vision were a strange pattern of blackness, an unexpectedly pixellated sort of darkness, and what remained in the middle was getting increasingly fuzzy. I was laying there, mostly naked, having just shat myself with the ruthless abandon of an animal, and something was still going very wrong inside my chest and abdomen. If there’s any moment that sums up what an aortic dissection is like, this is perhaps it.
The Cooling Down And Surgery
After this point, there’s not much I remember, as I was anesthetized in preparation for surgery, which included cooling my body temperature down to something in the 70s, a process I’m very happy to not have been awake for (it’s known as hypothermic circulatory arrest, and lets the heart stop pumping without cellular damage). I was told this process took longer than usual, something I like to attribute to either my warm heart or hot, humid sexuality, perhaps a combination of both. Or, it could be some metabolic weirdness caused by my near-constant intake of Diet Cokes.
I went into a three-hour-long surgery where a Gore-Tex and Dacron sleeve was used to replace the damaged part of my aorta – thankfully my valves were okay, which I’m told is good because the artificial ones just aren’t as good as the OEM ones.
After surgery came a full week in the ICU, where I was barely awake and an absolute octopus of tubes and wires. As I gradually was able to be more alert and active, I remember drinking some cold apple juice and every sense I had going into overload with the achingly intense pleasure of it all, the sweetness, the coolness, the wetness, the everything. If there’s more of this in life, then I want to live, dammit! Being in ICU gives you an ability to appreciate little things more than countless self-help books about mindfulness or whatever.
I also had intense hiccups for days straight, and they were so persistent and violent they made breathing incredibly laborious. The doctors thought the tubes draining fluid from my body were irritating my diaphragm, and let me tell you, those hiccups were terrible. For several nights I had to work to take each breath, and that’s no fun. Hiccups aren’t the innocent, good-time brother of the burp they like to let on to be. They can be evil, breath-stealing monsters if they choose to be.
Post-Heart Explosion Thoughts
If I took any one thing away from this whole experience, which may have included a near-death component, it’s that people are wonderful. Not all people, I suppose, but the people who seem to be in my life, the ones who reached out, the ones who set up that GoFundMe to help with the medical expenses, the ones who sent recovery stuff, like potent yet gentle packs of ass-wipes, the ones who texted and called and made me feel cared about and loved, even though for most of these people we’d only interacted online, and only talked about cars.
If more proof was needed that car people are, somehow, the kindest and most welcoming and supportive group of people joined by a common interest, then I think we settled that here. I’m humbled by the vast amount of kindness shown to me, a karmic debt I likely can never repay. It’s beautiful and something I’m never going to forget. It’s also a wonderful motivation for me to heal, so I can get back to writing ridiculous things about cars and deep, important works about taillights, the most significant of human endeavors.
The suddenness and unexpectedness of this whole nightmare isn’t lost on me. Everything could have just ended, right then and there, with no warning, no hints, no nothing. And there’s so much more I want to do in life! Life, for all its difficulties, most of which I feel like I’ve created for myself, is such a rich and dazzling and wonderful thing, complicated and beautiful and chaotic and rewarding and so full of messy, confusing love, in so many ways, reaching out to so many things, people and animals and concepts and, yes, cars, ridiculous wonderful cars that we write about here, that peculiar wheeled thing that has brought so many of us together in the first place.
It all has value and merit and is all capable of inspiring feelings of joy, and I love this absurd business of living, interacting with all the people I do every day, all of whom I think I love more than I even realize, and I am not remotely ready to give it up.
I’m not exactly an observant Jew, really, but one thing I’ve always liked about Judiasm is the strangely pragmatic approach to the afterlife. Judiac eschatology as I grew up understanding it was that after you die, you rot in the ground. It’s hardly a romantic or inspiring notion, but it sure does make this life we know we have more important.
This is it! This is all we get! There’s no point in planning for some afterlife because who the hell knows if there’s anything there? And that’s okay, because what we have here has so much potential, is such a rich and wildly varied array of experiences, and it’s worth cherishing. I’m so happy I get to keep going, experiencing this life.
My meds are kicking in and making it tricky to string together thoughts, but I think you get the idea. Aortic dissections, in case I wasn’t clear, suck, deeply and powerfully, and I hope no one reading these words gets within miles of one. I hope my likely inadequate description gives enough of an idea to sate your curiosity, and that is as close as you ever get to having your heart’s main hose explode.
Thank you for sharing, Jason, and I’m thrilled you’re on the road to recovery!
I almost bought it via an out-of-the-blue massive pulmonary embolism about 15 years ago (::flex:: I did mange to drive myself to the ER ::/flex::) and just wanted to share that there was some real mental healing that needed to happen too.
Not just for me, but also for my partner and, especially, our kids. We were all caught a bit off guard by how the trauma caught up with each of us. Hopefully, you will all have smooth sailing, but if things seem . . . off . . . I would encourage finding someone to talk it over with.
My version of the story has Jason’s last pre-911 act being a slow, fumbling change into the Beetle shirt, to impress the paramedics — and just in time for the money shot.
Take care and time getting well, you crazy lover of life!
Thanks for sharing this amazing intimate piece with us. Take care Torch, we all love you and wish you a speedy recovery!
Wonderful news that you are in full recovery. I never thought a article in automotive website would bring a tear to my eye. I look forward to learning more about turn signals and other Jason subjects
This just made my Christmas day 100x better, Jason.
You might have some idea how much we miss you, by now. But don’t rush your recovery – we’ll still be here when you’re ready to return!
I’m very glad you’re still with us, Jason! Blessings of the season to you, Sally, Otto, and all your loved ones
“And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!“ – Charles Dickens
Torch, thank you for making us all part of your extended family. Wishing you a speedy and gentle recovery, and wishing you, Sally and Otto peace.
The various posts about this debacle have really laid bare how important you are to me, Jason. It’s kinda crazy, but you’ve been my favourite author for ten years… a quarter of my life. Thank you for living. Please keep doing so
May you have a full recovery and enjoy many years of health. I love your articles and wish you well in every sense
FYI everyone ambulance rides can be more than the treatment. In PA We have independent ambulance companies that have to fundraise. They sell yearly memberships that offer half off any transportation needs. I bought one for my elderly mother for Christmas one year and renewed it every year. Her last few years included many trips to the hospital and back. One trip paid for the membership and in this case she saved tens of thousands of dollars. She has passed but she often mentioned how grateful she was for this gift. It certainly beat knick knacks and coffee mugs.
It also helps insure that ambulance is there when you need it.
Really happy that you are better Jason, an yes,I certainly hope this is the closest I get to the shit-show of a hose failure you went through. I live in a communist northern Scandinavian country so I have only ever seen free ambulances, how expensive is a ambulance ride? Do you pay by the mile or something like a taxi?
Charges are hugely variable and make no sense here.
Welcome back, Jason! May you heal swiftly and auccessfully.
OMG Jason, what an ordeal for you and your family! Hey, you and STAB have something in common now! But you’re “just” a SOAB, I guess. Thank you so much for the update – I couldn’t have asked for a better Festivus present. It was a sobering but humorous reminder to all of us to pay attention to our bodies and to not be dumbasses and search online when we should be dialing 911 (yeah, I’ve done the same thing myself…). It’s a shame that our medical system engenders that kind of behavior, but no amount of money is worth your life – just make the call! OK, now you need to get some more rest, mister – no writing for a while!
Jason, thanks for letting us know how you are doing.
It is a great Christmas message to remind us how significantly limited our time might be.
We are all grateful that you had such great help and made it through such an ordeal.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Anyone with some miles on them knows that things creep up on us when we least expect it.
My best wishes to you and your family. We all look forward to you being back in the driver’s seat.
It’s a Christamas miracle!
*DeleteDeleteDeleteDeleteDelete…*
It’s a Chinese and a Movie miracle!
Whether it was Jesus or YHVH or Great Chtulhu or just plain luck and modern medicine keeping you alive, I’m glad we’ll have your brand of crazy around for many years to come.
Goddamn.
That’s a hell of a piece of writing, although pretty much the kind of thing we’ve come to expect from you, Jason. You managed to get humor, terror, medical info, Tuvan throat singing, and the more important stuff all there in a tight and efficient package. And while still on the mend from an event that many don’t survive. This is how we know you’re truly ok, and we really, really appreciate that. It’s the best Christmas present we could get from the site.
If there is a God, he obviously values your spreading the word on tail lights.
Medical tech is amazing these days, follow the service recommendations.
I’m glad the ECU is working correctly, the rest will follow.
I have read your stuff for years. We’ve never met though we have been at Monterey Car Week events at the same time so it’s a strange one way relationship that social media and the internet builds. I am great full for you and your family getting through this ordeal.
The article was hilarious, touching, and terrifying. Hope you have a speedy recovery.
From one Jew to another, thank you for this lovely Xmas present; both the article and your healing! Be safe and stay well.
From another Jew to another MOTT. Only Jason could have us laughing our gallow humor butts off while being amazed at the car engine metaphor while feeling so sorry and sad he had this happen. Jason get well in your own time. And you are 100% correct that this is what we get and we need to live it daily. Peace and Love and a special Mi Shebeirach this shabbat
Your reflection that car people are the kindest most welcoming people is only partially accurate. It’s true that we are all car people here, but not all communities of gear heads are the same, and most would not have shown the outpouring of love and generosity as occurred here. That is because, beyond being car people, we are all David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky people, more specifically. The nature of this community comes from the amazing people who started it and not just the weirdos you attracted but the example that you set–that cars are about human connection and meaningful existence, that all car people are our people, that there is no right or wrong way to be a car person. It is no accident that you and David have generated such an amazing community around you, but because of who you are. We are grateful that you did, and grateful that you are healthy. We love you, Torch. Thanks for being you, and also not being dead.
I’ve usually taken a more Philo Beddoe approach to life than Philo Sophical, but your recap has given me pause to reflect on the fragile, fleeting, and often contrary nature of existence. For all its confounding properties, it’s our only certainty. The struggle to endure, to experience, to live, and, perhaps, leave a mark lies at the heart what it means to be human. Cave paintings, pyramids, music, literature, and, yes, automobile journalism, are all part of our desperate need to find, celebrate, and convey meaning. I am most glad we can anticipate more of your contributions to the collective record of humanity, soon. I know you’ll make the most of the opportunity, for as Seals and Croft sang, “we may never pass this way again.” So leave some graffiti.
That’s beautiful, as are pretty much all the comments today.
That is indeed a deep and beautiful take/distillation.
Jason, I’m really glad you are OK. You went all the way in on a path that I just brushed and got really scared, not only for what could have happened, but also for how easy it was to ignore.
Once I ignored a very sharp pain in the back of my head after sex. Happened every time after the deed was done, and it felt like A Big Deal. But it went away in seconds, so I let it be, figjring it to be a pulled muscle.
I mentioned casually to my doc, after two weeks of it happening with less and less intensity, and he sent me straight to the ER. I got admitted and it was something called “Reversible Cerebral Vasoconstriction Syndrome (RCVS). They did an angiography, where they insert a tube from the groin up to the brain, going through our friend aorta – lots of fun was had by everyone that day.
Turns out, I have some minor aortic dissection as well, and need to watch it periodically to make sure it doesn’t pull a Jason (sorry!). Point being, you can have this crap too right now and don’t even know it. If you have hypertension, be even more aware. Do preventive maintenance!
After all said and done, the main thing, well, reversed (the hint was in the name). But I have another fun detail: Now I have “POST COITAL HEADACHE“, just like that, bold and in capitals, on my permanent medical file. If you are reading this comment just because of this shiny phrase, you know how walking around with that particular document feels like. Luckily I have no shame, but still… Pay attention to the weird error codes you body throws at you. Ignoring them on cars is a bad idea, imagine on our fragile meat robots!
Oh that’s actually a good one, I’m going to remember that. I wonder if your doc wrote an article called “coincidental diagnosis of aortic dissection after persistent post coital headache” or something like that. I’d be tempted if I was him.
I searched for it and saw a case of a dude that had pain in the right leg after sex, and it was aortic dissection. And now I have unlocked another fear… Maybe I should only have sex in the vicinity of an hospital now?
Start banging freaky doctors & nurses!
Now there’s a hecking solution for you! Big brain time right here
Better yet, inside the hospital.
My late wife would get a pre coital headache. (just kidding)
Glad you are still with us, and God bless.
Yeah, the first time I told her (when I wasn’t thinking it was serious) she said it was weird that the excuse came after the service was provided 🙂
Typical racer behavior. Post race excuses.
Hey, 1m31s is a perfect good elapsed time!
That’s a really unfortunate condition 🙁
Do you have it engraved on a little bracelet so your doctor doesn’t get too frisky during checkups?
This. In my 5 years of working at an ER I’ve seen exactly one aortic dissection. Almost everything went ideally in that case, the lady called the ambulance soon after symptoms started, they got to her fast, the ambulance called me up and mentioned conincidentally noticing a minor symptom (difference in blood pressure between right and left arm) that immediately made my brain click and remember something I had heard in university years before, so I had the CT and a cardiologist standing at the ready when the ambulance arrived. We stabilized her, got her onto a helicopter to the nearest vascular surgery and yet, despite all out efforts and things going about as fast as one could expect in a rural-ish area, the patient ultimately did not survive.
To add some more information as to the ways in which an aortic dissection is bad news: one of the things that commonly happen is that the torn interior layer of said blood vessel starts kind of flapping about in the blood stream and ends up getting stuck in front of a vessel leaving the aorta. This serverely restricts or even stops blood flow to whatever organ that branch should be supplying, so in addition to the risk of either your aorta rupturing and all your blood going to bad places or blood clots forming and causing all sorts of problems, you also might end up with severe organ damage and/or a major stroke if the membrane happens to occlude the blood flow to your thinky bits (technical term).
Anyhow, the real message here is that I am very happy to hear from you and that things appear to be improving steadily. I shall drink to your name and hope your recovery will be fast and without complications and you will have many, many more years being a delightful weirdo.
Oh also, pain in the (left) jaw is an occasional but relatively less-known symptom of heart-related troubles. More typically in heart attacks, but I can see the same kind of referred pain happening in an aortic dissection close to the heart.
Keep it in mind, people, it might some day save somebodys life. Grandpa complaining of heartburn and a tooth ache? Maybe it’s nothing, but it might just be something.
That’s kind of worrying for me because I had dental surgery on the left a few years ago and they didn’t do a great job so I actually often have random pain in my left jaw.
I mean, as long as it’s isolated and there is a better explanation for it, we’re quite probably in “maybe it’s nothing” territory.
I’m talking more new lower left jaw pain *and* heartburn, chest pain, trouble breathing, nausea etc etc that’s when one should consider being a bit suspicious it might be something
It could get even more complicated than “just” a torn aorta? Yikes!
Christ, those additional complications you mentioned are terrifying
Another symptom I have seen once, and heard from an instructor once: your sudden chest pain patient looks up at you from sitting and says, without any drama or whiff of malingering: “I am going to die.”
Oh yeah, that’s never a good time. When they’re shouting “I’m gonna die” they’re just being melodramatic, but when they state it matter-of-factly then shit is about to hit the fan. A “sense of impending doom” is a recognized symptom for things like strokes or heart attacks.
That being said, it is also a symptom of panic/anxiety disorders, so keep that in mind before waking up the cardiologist.
And speaking of SHTF (and related to Jason’s story) – when your heart attack patient wants to take a shit, be very very suspicious. Sometimes they just need to use the bathroom. Sometimes the urge is part of the panic reaction. Sometimes the added intraabdominal pressure is too much for an already struggling heart and they try to do an Elvis right then and there.
That’s terrifying and I’m very glad you survived this. A few years ago a friend was doing a push up ruptured his aorta and died in the ambulance so Baruch ha Shem you made it.