And the Beat Goes On
HARLAN – It was Sunday, March 16. 2016.
Life is a Highway was blaring on the radio, the Rascal Flatts’ version, as Logan Maxwell made the turn from Highway 59 onto Interstate 80 heading east and back to Iowa State University in Ames.
“It is one of my favorite songs,” he said. “Normally I drove on the back highways so that I could speed, of course, but on this day I decided to drive on the interstate for no reason.”
A 2014 graduate of Harlan Community High School and then a sophomore at ISU, Maxwell had just made a quick trip home to Harlan for the weekend. A history major with political science minor, Maxwell was active in politics and was having a busy semester with classes as well. He was excited about his future and the prospects of becoming a teacher and coach upon graduation.
Admittedly, he hadn’t felt quite right that weekend…a little off. A full head, some blurry vision and sinus issues, he chalked it all up to allergies but made an appointment with his primary care physician just to be seen while home. Other than his blood pressure being a little high, which wasn’t abnormal for him, everything checked out okay.
There was no stress and little to worry about. Life actually was exciting and good as he left Harlan en route back to school.
But about 15 miles east of Avoca on I-80, that all changed.
Logan started feeling more pressure in his head, accompanied by shortness of breath and his left arm went numb….the kind of numb he can’t really explain, but is sure heart patients can relate to. “I am trained in first aid, CPR, am a lifeguard and have some common sense,” he said. “I knew it was my heart.
“I did not want to alarm my parents, so I called them and told them to meet me at Avoca.”
Logan and his parents, Mark and Kris, stopped at the local Shopko and took his blood pressure – 160/100 with a pulse around 120, and they immediately went to the emergency room at Myrtue Medical Center in Harlan.
“They ran an EKG, blood panel, urine panel and a drug test – never have I ever done any of the sort – everything came back clean,” Logan said. “The only symptoms left were the anxiety from the massive amount of adrenaline that was going through my system.”
He followed up with a cardiologist the next day, who did an echocardiogram, and it was normal as well.
The diagnosis? Allergies, but watch the blood pressure. Good news, but he was still left a little uneasy. This had been a scary episode, but life went on.
Little did Logan know that it would take four years, multiple similar health episodes and seven doctors later before he could finally get some definitive answers about what was going on with his health.