Edmond man motivated to live each day to fullest
EDMOND — James Pratt wakes up every morning like it could be his last.
That was the prognosis his doctor gave him after a heart attack in March 2017 nearly ended his life.
He’s kept that thought with him as he goes on his daily run, racking up miles of laps in the pool or pedaling through the Arcadia forests on his mountain bike.
And that’s what got him to agree to sign up for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon on Sunday.
“My doctor told me it could be too late for you,” Pratt said. “He told me to be right with God, because I might not make it to tomorrow.
“That’s when I got serious.”
Despite being active most of his life, riding motorcycles, fishing and flying planes, Pratt’s weight started to slip. At 6-feet tall, he weighed 240 pounds.
To make matters worse, heart disease runs in his family and claimed his dad’s life at age 76. Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the United States, claiming more than 366,800 lives per year.
Pratt started to try and walk every day, he was training to do the 2017 5K as part of the Memorial Marathon events last year.
“I thought I was being healthy,” Pratt said. “But I wasn’t doing enough.”
On March 18, 2017, Pratt suffered a major cardiac event.
Lying in bed while his wife Kay called 911, Pratt said he thought it was the end.
“I just knew the paramedics aren’t going to make it here in time,”
he says before breaking down in tears. “I wasn’t scared of dying, I was scared to leave my wife. She’s my high school sweetheart, and I’m just crazy about her.”
The paramedics arrived in time and stabilized Pratt. He was rushed to the Oklahoma City Heart Hospital where doctors did emergency heart catheterization surgery and installed a heart stent.
He visited his cardiologist who delivered the most somber news yet.
The doctor told Pratt his heart was very sick and that he might not have much time left. He then said he knew Pratt was working out, but he needed to do more.
“I was scared,” Pratt said. “Every morning I woke up and I was scared that if I didn’t work out that day I would be dead tomorrow.
“It’s not a very fun way to live. But I was motivated every day.”
For the past year, Pratt has gotten up at 5 a.m. nearly every morning to go for a walk, swim or bike ride. Anything the 58-year-old can do to keep moving and prolong that death sentence.
He was slow at first, not able to run for more than a few hundred yards at a time and barely making it from one end of the pool to the other.
But he got out every day and every day he was able to run, swim or bike just a little bit more.
“When he puts his mind to something he becomes obsessive,” his wife Kay Pratt said. “Every single day he would tell me that if he did not get up and go do something he felt like he was going to die.”
Rain, snow, 100-degree days, it did not matter. He made a home for himself at the Mitch Park YMCA and has shed nearly 50 pounds in the process.
On Sunday, a little more than a year since suffering a heart attack that nearly claimed his life, Pratt will line up outside the Oklahoma City Memorial with thousands of others to participate in his first marathon.
Pratt has history with the bombing as well.
He worked downtown in April 1995, but wasn’t working the day the blast claimed the lives of 168 people.
He was working as a computer consultant at the time. He volunteered his services to the Red Cross afterward to set up a computer system that helped keep track donations sent in for victims of the bombing and the distribution of those funds.
He’s excited to try and take on the marathon. He’s run several half-marathons this year already and thinks he’s ready to step up to the full thing.
The risks are still there for Pratt. His heart disease isn’t going away.
But he’s not going to stop.
“I’m not scared every day," Pratt said. "I’m just going every day.”