Teacher’s message comes from the heart

PALMER — If golf legend Arnold Palmer has his Arnold’s Army of followers, Darlene Zehm has her infantry.

Zehm, a second-grade teacher at Swanson Elementary School, will be joined by dozens of her current and former students and their families April 30 at his year’s Heart Run, the state’s largest 5K and 3K race. But it will be a run that almost couldn’t happen.

Three years and 200 pounds ago, Zehm couldn’t get out of bed without pain. She struggled to climb stairs. Her knees and feet ached all the time.

Then came the heart attack.

“It was Dec. 21, 2007, the day after my students went home for Christmas vacation,” Zehm said. “I have nine parrots at home and I was cutting up vegetables and washing them for the birds. Then I just felt a real tightness, like a snake — an anaconda — was grabbing me. I kept going, thinking it would pass. At that time, I was heavy enough that it was hard to get out of bed, my feet hurt and my knees were hurting.”

But the pain didn’t pass, it spread — up into her neck and down her left arm, and Zehm realized she was having a heart attack.

“I got tears in my eyes because the pain was so bad and I was worried about the birds, so I called 911,” she said. “I said, ‘I am morbidly obese, I’m having these bad chest pains, it’s going down my arm. I’m trying to feed my birds and I’m afraid I’m having a heart attack.’”

By the time emergency responders arrived, the attack had passed, but she spent a couple of days in the hospital for observation. That the episode didn’t damage her heart was lucky, she said, and a big wake-up call.

“Honestly, I felt let down,” she said about her emotions following the attack. “My heart let me down. Then I felt afraid. Obesity runs in my family, and diabetes and heart disease usually get us.”

Zehm said she knew she needed to make major lifestyle changes.

“When they go up through your leg (with a surgical instrument) to look at your heart, they couldn’t even do it at this hospital because the table wouldn’t hold me,” she said. “I had to wait and a friend took me into Anchorage because they had a table that would hold my weight.”

A longtime teacher — Zehm’s in her 33rd year as an educator and has been at Swanson since 1982 — she began going to Larson Chiropractic in Wasilla to work with physical therapist Sherri Sandefur.

“I looked at Sherri and asked her if she’d help me lose the weight,” Zehm said. “I started going there every day. They would open up for me at 6:45 a.m. and I would work out there until about 7:30, then I would take off to school.”

Changes to her diet and adding exercise to her routine were key, Zehm said, adding she still wants to drop about another 30 pounds. And she credits Sandefur for helping to focus her motivation.

“I told Sherri one time that she put the verbs back into my life, the action,” she said.

Something else she’s noticed is that the physical changes come faster than a lifetime of mental roadblocks. When people are overweight, they feel self-conscious, Zehm said.

“I am still very self-conscious and people wonder why,” she said. “I always thought that when you’re heavy, you’re invisible, that people kind of look through you. Now, I’m feeling people are looking at me and noticing me more. It’s not (comfortable) for me yet.”

Then there are the little changes that many who don’t have weight issues take for granted, like fitting into a normal-sized chair or being able to keep up with her second-graders.

“Sometimes I notice I’m crossing my legs when I couldn’t before, or I’m sitting in a chair that would be tight on me and now there’s room,” she said. “I remember one of my girls giving me a hug and saying, ‘Ms. Zehm, I can touch my hands around you.’ I got all choked up.”

Zehm said she enjoys the television show “The Biggest Loser,” and sometimes thinks about holding up a pair of her old pants to get a photo of the difference. She’s also found new life and a new bucket list of activities. Part of her weight loss program included a game she would play with her students. First it was 100 things she could do after losing 100 pounds. Then it became 200 things for 200 pounds.

The list includes adventures like “riding on a motorcycle, which one of my dads is going to do, and jumping from an airplane,” Zehm said. “That one I’m going to do this summer.”

And another one will come April 30 when Zehm and her infantry will take to the University of Alaska Anchorage campus for the annual Heart Run.

“It’s the Heart Run and I’m a mended heart,” she said. She wanted to invite her students “because they were so supportive of me and I wanted to do a race with them.”

She also is pleased that she can be a positive example for health for her second-graders and other students at the school.

“We teach them about treating others the same no matter what their size, what their color, what their shape, and that we all have feelings,” she said.

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.