Entrepreneur Eddy van Heel has been living with death on his heels for decades. After a covidcoma, he sold the shares of his company, Prescan. Now he is a lord of the castle and a wine grower in France.
At dusk in the evening, Eddy van Heel (b. 1972) stands on the steps of his château in Prayssac. He facetimes with his four-year-old son, who is in the Netherlands. Just the day before, the entrepreneur waved off his friends from Almelo, with whom he grew up. They came to see his new French home, in the Lot department. This was celebrated with wine and food and trips to his vineyards and the town of Rocamadour.
CV Eddy van Heel
- Born December 14, 1972, Enschede
- Education 1985-1991 Canisius secondary school, in Almelo
- 1991-1993 Officer training and college nursing.
- 1993-1997 Hogeschool Enschede
- 1997-1999 Post-hbo: management and innovation
- Career 1991-1995 Defense Department
- 1997-1999 Regional manager NTN Home Care.
- 1999-2003 Director ECT Trading Company, Enschede
- 2003-2024 Founder and director of Prescan
- 2005-2022 Director of Prostate Center Europe, Gronau
- 2011-2019 Co-founder-owner Perfect Health
- 2024 Co-owner Chateau Camp del Saltre
Eddy van Heel is married to Lotje and has four children: Florent, Bear Bo, Pip and Fox.
With one of his childhood friends, he lit a candle in the local church there. Van Heel: “For my late father, who, like me, was also military. In that church I remembered how he always sang along at the top of his voice during the service. We were Protestant. Really loudly he sang. I only found out later that in the Catholic Church they sing much softer.’
Do you sing at the top of your voice yourself?
‘No, as a young lad I didn’t fancy that. My father did that. But I did do some singing with my friends this weekend. The lady who cooked for us thought I should do more with my voice. But my vocal cords are pretty affected after weeks with a breathing tube in my throat. So singing seems to me only left for the bathroom.’
He pours a glass of red malbec wine from his vineyard and serves cheeses he forgot to present during the men’s weekend. He does forget more since he was in a coma for a month in 2022 due to covid. ‘My short-term memory sometimes fails me,’ Van Heel says. ‘Did I cancel the dentist? Did I take my prednisone? Now that I mention it … I still have to do that. Sighing, “Well, anyway, I’m glad I’m still here.
Eddy van Heel became known as the founder and owner of Prescan, clinics for preventive health screening, also known as an “apk inspection of your body. The entrepreneur from Twente recently sold his remaining equity interest in Prescan to investment company Reggeborgh after 22 years.
‘It doesn’t have to be Italian design for me. I just want to feel at home’
The reason for starting Prescan with his uncle Jan Zantinge was that within a few months, two people died in their neighborhood who could have been alive if they had been examined in time. The idea arose to set up a personal check-up in the private sector.
His Chateau Camp del Saltre sits on an elegant 18th-century estate in a valley. Van Heel: “It was totally neglected when my Uncle Jan bought it with two friends in 2002. When one of the partners stepped out two years ago and Van Heel joined them, a major renovation had just begun. Nine apartments had already been realized in the bakery and the coach house; now it was the castle’s turn to be refurbished. Then everything was decorated by feel. ‘We chose the kitchen at Ikea and created a long bar next to it. Uncle Jan looked online for nice furniture. On the walls are cheerful paintings.’
An Ikea kitchen in a castle?
He chuckles, “Yes, Ikea makes fine kitchens. It doesn’t have to be Italian design for me. I want to feel at home and not mind a stain on the couch.’
That sounds like a cozy mancave. Is it a commercial project for you or are you keeping it for yourself?
‘I really experience it as my place, even though we rent it out a good part of the year. It’s a great place for weddings, as well as culinary evenings and wine tastings. But it’s also a fine location for people just looking for a week of peace and quiet. You can’t hear anything here.
Was owning a castle a boy’s dream?
‘No, it came my way after my covidcoma. My occupational therapist recommended I seek out a low-stimulation environment to improve my short-term memory. Through my uncle I ended up here. It is so wonderful, after years of hard work, to find peace in this place among endless vineyards. And I have never seen such beautiful starry skies in my life.
Are you staying here permanently?
‘Not that, no. I have four children, aged 4, 8, 10 and 19, and almost all of them still go to school in Holland. They like coming here too, but when it comes to vacations my wife, Lotje, likes Ibiza a little more than the French countryside.’
Kidney transplant
Before starting Prescan, Van Heel worked for four years in the Department of Defense. In doing so, he followed in his father’s footsteps, but at some point he abandoned the desire to become a professional soldier. ‘It started to bother me that the stripes on someone’s shoulder determined his authority and not his leadership qualities. Even though I certainly learned discipline there.’
The native of Twente chose the “soft sector” and worked as a nurse. At 30, he started Prescan, not knowing that this concept would also save his own life several times. Prescan began in Germany because a healthcare buyer there paired him with a hospital with similar ideas about prevention in healthcare.
In eight years, the company grew to 130 employees. “Life saver,” newspapers headlined. Yet the initiative was not widely applauded. Prevention would only increase costs for health care, because something is always found in such investigations. ‘I found that criticism difficult. My idea came from positive thinking. Later, on the contrary, we started sharing our findings with academic centers.’
The entrepreneur himself became a good example of the benefits of preventive testing when he had a check-up around age 30. ‘I had been fainting regularly for years and my urine often looked dark brown, actually since I had had Pfeiffer’s disease in my youth. The urologist in regular care couldn’t find anything. When I had a check-up with us, the internist was able to tell me within half an hour that I only had 25 percent kidney function left.’
Berger’s disease, was the diagnosis. ‘It’s an acquired condition, probably caused by the phlebotomy. My kidney function hollowed out. When I became increasingly ill in 2005 and was on the verge of dialysis, my friend Remco Sikkema offered his kidney for transplant.’ Moved, he continued, “There is no better gift. Remco had surgery on April 4, 2006, and after four hours his kidney, the size of a fist, was brought to me.’ He points to his groin. ‘That’s where his kidney has been sitting between my pelvis for eighteen years now. With ups and downs, because he also shows rejection symptoms at times. So far we have been able to remedy these with medication, but the question is how long this will be possible.’
Every year, Van Heel and Sikkema hold a kidney weekend around April 4. “The first time, right before my transplant, we went to New York. When people asked where we were from and we said Holland, they’d yell, “Oh, Queen’s Day.” “Well,” we’d yell, “we celebrate kidney day.“‘
Stetson cap
Van Heel shows off his vineyard. He wears a green wool sweater with a moss-green plaid vest over it. The brown Stetson cap is characteristic of him both in Prayssac and in his hometown of Hengelo. His clothing style has become less lavish because of everything he has experienced. He has traded in the brightly colored plaid three-piece suits with tie that he wore during his time as ceo for a style à la Olivier B. Bommel. The tie is gone; the plaid is now in more muted green.
Last year, he and uncle Jan Zantinge bought their neighbor’s vineyards. Van Heel: “That family has been making malbec and chardonnay for generations. They are aging and were looking for a party to take over the winery. Jan and I were keen on that, also because the vineyards used to belong to the castle.’
You became a winemaker without any knowledge of winemaking?
‘They will continue to support us for the foreseeable future. My brother-in-law decided to move here with his wife to develop the craft of winemaking in collaboration with a very experienced oenologist.’
Van Heel invested in pressing machines, coolers and new wooden barrels because he was eager to innovate. ‘Here in Cahors, wonderful wines are made. I find it honorable to keep it that way and perhaps improve it even further.’
He looks at the bottles in the store and thinks the labels are stuck too high on the bottle. He tastes the wine like a connoisseur: he waltzes, sniffs and lets the tannins descend on his tongue. With visible pleasure, the newly minted winemaker is in place here.
Nine lives
A cat has nine lives, Van Heel is not far off. In 2018, he agrees with a friend to do a body scan. Not on his initiative. The friend finds it rather scary. Hence, Van Heel goes along and has also immediately discussed a place. On the day of the appointment, the friend cancels. ‘I was extremely busy and thought: shall I turn left to the clinic or right to my work? But I thought it would be dickish not to show up.’
After the body scan, it turns out that he has a malignant small cell renal cell carcinoma on one of his two non-functioning kidneys (they were never taken out, the donor kidney came in a different place). Noting that if there are metastases, his chance of survival after five years is very slim. ‘I knew there was an increased risk of tumor due to the rejection medication, which is carcinogenic and strongly suppresses the immune system. Fortunately, I caught it in time and there were no metastases. And voilà, six years later I’m still alive.
And then you get covid in January 2022.
‘Yes, eleven days after the positive test I was hospitalized because things were going the wrong way. I was short of breath. After two days I was discharged, but things didn’t improve. At night I lay outside to get more air. I was listening to Thom Yorke’s new album, by Radiohead.’
‘My wife, Lotje, said, “This is not going well, you have to go to the hospital. I returned to the hospital in Enschede. That night a man died next to me, next to whom I had also been lying earlier. Due to oxygen deprivation, I was no longer well. I let Lotje know what things still needed to be taken care of. A bill, the mortgage, and so on.’
He pauses to admit tears. ‘The last time I saw my wife and my oldest son, Florent, I could hardly breathe and was drenched in sweat. I told Florent that when I would no longer be there, he had to promise to keep faith with himself. I kissed Lotje. When they were gone I choked on a bite of custard and there was a good chance I would choke. At that the intensivist said, “Mr. van Heel, we’re going to put you under now.”‘
In the weeks that followed, all sorts of things happened: a pneumothorax, inflammation of the heart muscle, a resistant bacteria that left him with a fever of over 41 degrees and the failure of multiple organs. ‘I was bloated like a michelin man and SO white. I was on the verge of death. In my coma I had the strangest hallucinations. That’s how I saw my own funeral. I was hanging from a hook in the mortuary of the hospital with all kinds of wires around me and through a peephole in the wall I saw Lotje veiled and my brother, both coming back crying from my funeral. Where before I thought I was alive, that image made me feel so desperate. So I was dead and would have to hang here for the next few years. Then I heard myself say: I’m fucking Eddy van Heel, I’m getting out of here. And then bit through all the threads around me. Turned out I had bitten through my breathing tube in real life on the ICU.’
Van Heel is convinced that his military training helped ensure that he survived his covidcoma. ‘I learned there that if you think you can’t do any more, at least 50 percent more can be done. I suspect I subconsciously experienced that that way.’
‘I do worse when I’m busy. I guess I’m the old Eddy, but with flaws’
What was your condition when you awoke?
‘To my family I was unrecognizable. I had lost 17 pounds, had a huge one-month beard, hollow eyes. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t walk, couldn’t move anything. The first pass I made was eight weeks later, at the rehabilitation center.’
How long did it take before you saw something of the old Eddy again?
‘I cried like a little child with happiness when I was able to get back into the shower for the first time after six weeks of washcloths, sitting on a postal chair. I am a real bather. That you can become so happy from such a hot shower …’
You could no longer remain ceo of Prescan.
‘My goal was to just come back as a director, but it soon became clear that that was no longer possible. In the beginning, I really thought I had Alzheimer’s. Driving in my car, I had to call my wife: where I had to go. “Picking up your daughter from school.” Then I did fall into a hole. I had always been socially significant, I had a mission, I was a connector, and suddenly I was useless. I was looking at a phone that stopped ringing.’
How did you gain new insights?
“I went into trauma therapy to process my coma, and an occupational therapist helped me process the goodbye to the life I had led. He said, “The chances of you coming back are very slim, so you need to start working on new goals.” Lotje also helped by saying she loved me and that we have what we need, and that’s each other.
And now?
He chuckles. ‘I drink tea and talk to my wife. I take my daughter to horseback riding and keep watching her do it. And then I wave at her like I used to when she was on the carousel. That feels pretty good. With kids ages 4, 8 and 10, I can fill my day, but other than that, I don’t plan much. I do worse when I’m busy. I’m the old Eddy, but with flaws.
And do you like it?
‘I have become, I think, a better version of myself. Calmer, still a pleaser, but also someone who has discovered that there is more to life than Prescan. As an entrepreneur, you’re always planning ahead. I’m finally learning to live in the now and have to accept that I won’t be the same physically. My kidneys will get worse rather than better, my lungs are stable but not as good, my heart is under control. I can go around whining, but I just have to be incredibly happy to be alive. I like to look at it that way.’
Later that afternoon, Van Heel goes to an old oak tree in the middle of his vineyard. His favorite spot. On a folding chair with a book by Ilja Gort about wine. ‘I am amused by how Gort talks about the French. And I wonder how he makes choices as a winemaker.’ The birds are chirping, the sun is shining and shade is falling across the valley. Then he says, ‘Every day I live is pure profit.’
Source: FD
Photography: Oof Verschuren
