Support Doug Wilder's Recovery Journey

US Wine Critic and Portrait Photographer, Doug Wilder.

Until now, I have kept this information restricted to family and a small group of people I consider to be close friends as I’m navigating a new future – a second chance.

On June 8th, I was supposed to attend a farewell picnic for a family member. Walking out the door found me breathing hard and feeling exhausted. I laid down instead, and the following week I went to work as usual until Friday afternoon when I felt fatigued and left early. I went to the place I was intending to spend the weekend in Santa Rosa and felt better after a quick nap. I got up around 4 AM on Saturday to check my blood pressure and was alarmed that the second ‘verification’ reading was 20 points higher than 3 minutes before. This was abnormal. I called 911, and an ambulance was here in three minutes. I was able to walk outside and lay on the gurney and was loaded into the ambulance. That is the last memory I had (except the feeling my favorite pants were being cut off me) before waking up in ICU with lines in my groin, arms, and neck. I had suffered a heart attack requiring two defibrillator shocks in the ambulance along with a 100-pound female EMT doing full-body pushups on my chest. The drive to the hospital was only 8 minutes, and I was in the Cath lab four minutes later, where I received my third and final shock. I spent 4 days in ICU hallucinating that I was the subject of some evil experiment as I could only look over my toes and about 45 degrees to each side, seeing shadowy apparitions of people silently gliding by. The only grasp I had on reality was playing Joni Mitchell songs over and over in my head. Music does indeed create a safe, familiar place. I was moved to a ward for three days before transferring to PT rehab for 12 days and returned to a private home in Santa Rosa on the 2nd of July, where I am continuing to rest and receive extended cardiac rehab.

If the above wasn’t enough of an ordeal to get through, I’m now faced with the near-term financial mountain. I was unaware that my former health plan had canceled my coverage despite having my premiums on auto-pay. This meant that I don’t have prescription coverage until open enrollment in October, taking effect on January 1. Not working for six weeks, topped by living expenses, deductibles, and uncovered medication costs, has quickly zeroed out my emergency funds. My prescriptions are running about $700 a month through the end of the year. I’m also waiting for short-term disability to begin, which will likely not pay anything until the middle of August at the earliest. I’ve also needed to put my wine review publications on indefinite hiatus as the doc wants me off alcohol for a period. I must say that having no choice in the matter does offer an interesting perspective on how it feels after going cold turkey. Additionally, I’ve needed to back off my portrait photography appointments.

The last 12 months have presented heartbreaks beyond this. As some may know, I lost my only son last August to an accidental OD of Fentanyl when self-medicating after an appendectomy. Then, two weeks after my heart attack, I lost my only sister to a sudden onset of treatment-resistant Guillain-Barre Syndrome that took her in under a week. I could only view her memorial by video.

The doctors all shake their heads that I’m alive as the average survival rate for EMS-administered defibrillation in the field is 8%. The rapid ambulance response and the state-of-the-art Cath lab procedures I received were what saved my life. I’m feeling stronger after having a second stent and am anxious to return to my work sometime in the next 6 weeks.

I hadn’t originally intended to start a GoFundMe to help with some of my expenses as I’m generally self-sufficient about what I spend. This is simply a request for a small bridge to get through the next two months.