Professor has swift recovery
Summertime heart attack doesn't hinder physics instructor.
Young Shin Park
Issue date: 9/9/08 Section: News
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"It was definitely serious by the time the paramedics got there," Bolon said. "It was getting worse and worse ... a blood clot inexplicably formed and got lodged in an artery going into my heart, causing it to be completely blocked."
A heart attack sounds like one of the most dramatic events that could occur in a person's life. Indeed, it could be fatal. Fortunately, this was not the case with Bolon, assistant professor of the physics department.
Seemingly, it wasn't even a huge event in his life. "I haven't changed too much. My diet has changed a little bit, but that doesn't matter, not too much," Bolon said.
High blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes are major risk factors for heart attacks as well as stroke. In Bolon's case, however, the cause was more hereditary than anything; his mother has also had some heart problems.
"Part of the problem was I wasn't getting any exercise for a while," he said. He was recovering from a back injury that he sustained while playing racquetball, so he could not exercise for a few months.
"It was just because of an injury. So it wasn't like I was always lazy," he joked.
Only a week and a half after his heart attack, Bolon came back to Hamline to teach summer class.
"I was definitely ready to start," he said. "It was ten days afterwards, but I was tired of sitting around the house. It was nice getting back to the teaching room this summer."
Not long after that, he said his heart's pumping ability came back to "normal range" and his condition has been improved much quicker than anyone expected. Since then, he has been on a strict "self-imposed" diet.
He has started his seventh year of teaching at Hamline. This year, Bolon has a two-course release that allows him to work on some of his own research.
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