Riding toward recovery: A cardiac episode and the road back to life

 At 72, Pottsville resident Howard Lacey stayed busy — cycling long distances, leading ministry work and planning his next trip with his wife, Deanna Lacey. He had retired from his primary career but spent his days meeting people, supporting his community and helping care for family. Just a year earlier, he’d completed a 100-mile cycling tour. “I don’t like to act my age,” he says.

So, when he could no longer get through his usual hour of cardio and had to stop after just 10 minutes, he knew something was off. He told his wife he didn’t feel right.

He headed to the emergency room, where testing led doctors to believe it was a routine heart rhythm issue that could be corrected with a simple procedure. But while he waited for an echocardiogram, he suddenly started going downhill. One moment, there was one cardiologist in his room — the next, the room was full of them.

“They said, ‘We don’t have time. We have to shock him now,’” Ms. Lacey recalls.

There wasn’t enough time to fully sedate him. The doctors and nurses moved quickly, and he remembers the pain as the team worked to stabilize him. What they discovered was far more serious than expected: undiagnosed atrial flutter had pushed Mr. Lacey’s heart into failure.

He went into cardiogenic shock, and his body soon began to shut down. In those first critical hours, the focus was simple: Keep him alive.

A life in motion, paused

After several days in the cardiac ICU at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, with machines supporting his heart, Mr. Lacey’s kidneys stopped working.

A team of specialists stepped in, all working in sync — cardiology stabilizing his heart, nephrology monitoring his kidneys.

Because of how unstable he was, his nephrologists started Mr. Lacey on continuous renal replacement therapy — a form of dialysis used for the most critically ill patients. As his condition improved, he transitioned to standard hemodialysis, a treatment that uses a machine to filter waste from the blood several times a week.

For someone who’d always lived an active lifestyle, the idea of being tied to a clinic several days a week felt like losing the life he loved.

That’s why the doctors didn’t want to just sustain Mr. Lacey. They wanted to help him get back to living his way.

Turning toward recovery

Another option soon came into focus. Maria Camila Bermudez, MD, a nephrologist, leads Geisinger’s home dialysis education program. Through this program, patients learn about all available dialysis options so they can choose what works best for their lives. She introduced the idea of peritoneal dialysis (PD), a form of dialysis done at home.

“It gives him flexibility to live his life without having to give up on his work or vacations,” Dr. Bermudez says.

For the first time since arriving at the hospital, Mr. Lacey felt a sense of control.

The timing mattered. A recent Medicare change made him eligible for PD. The team coordinated with surgeons to place a PD catheter before he even left the hospital, avoiding a typical weeks-long delay. And within a short time, he and his wife were trained to manage dialysis at home.

“It gave him the best chance for his kidneys to heal,” Ms. Lacey says.

Dr. Bermudez saw that impact early on. "He started home therapy and did amazing,” she says.

Back to living life, on his terms

By the end of May 2025, just a few months after leaving the hospital, Mr. Lacey no longer needed dialysis. His kidneys had recovered. Even his care team was surprised.

“Our nurse said she’d never had a patient whose kidneys healed,” Ms. Lacey says.

Today, his heart is stable. He checks in with cardiology once a year and nephrology every few months. His stamina isn’t quite what it used to be — but he’s working on it. He’s back at the gym and back to moving.

The Laceys are already planning a multi-week journey through Europe, too. “We’re going to resume our adventures,” Mr. Lacey says.

The past year changed more than his health. It changed how the couple shows up for each other and others.

“I have tremendously more empathy from this experience,” Ms. Lacey says. “Overall, I’m a better friend now moving forward from this.”

She also carries a message she hopes others take seriously before a crisis ever happens: Have the hard conversations early.

“When your loved one has a durable power of attorney, it’s an act of love,” she says. “If my worst fears had happened, I wouldn’t be the one making that end-of-life difficult decision — I would have just been confirming his wishes.”

For Mr. Lacey, it came down to being prepared and having the right care in place.

“In a situation like that,” he says, “the right care and the right decisions make all the difference.”

Next steps:

Read and watch more stories
Learn about nephrology care at Geisinger
Learn about heart care at Geisinger