When A Close Call Reemphasizes The Importance Of Appreciating Loved Ones

In my DPM Blog last month, I wrote about how lucky I was to have a terrific relationship with my family and encouraged all readers to look to 2015 to “(dedicate) yourself to reinvigorating the relationships in your life that are most meaningful.”

The day I turned in my blog to Podiatry Today, my father was admitted to the hospital with shortness of breath and a heart rate of 32 bpm.

My father suffers from a genetic condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an enlargement of the heart wall causing decreased heart chamber space. It is a condition that claims the lives of young athletes with sudden death during exertion. My father was diagnosed about 10 years ago and has had comfortable treatment with oral medications. 

While traveling to our home in Mexico, the day after Christmas, he started to experience shortness of breath and after we arrived, he immediately went to the ER where he knew the doctors well. An electrocardiogram was normal but he got on a plane the next day back to Chicago to see his doctors. An echocardiogram was normal and a change of medication dosing seemed to do the trick so he returned to Mexico with the rest of the family and was able to enjoy several rounds of golf.

However, as the days went on, the shortness of breath returned and was worse. He returned to Chicago and immediately saw his doctor, who found the 32 bpm pulse and immediately sent him to the ER. He then went to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

We assumed he would need a pacemaker and possibly an internal defibrillator. However, a cardiac catheter revealed severe blockage of his left anterior descending and coronary arteries. The doctors recommended relatively urgent surgery. Typically analytical about everything, he proceeded without emotion and knew what had to be done.

Upon finding out the news, dad called me and asked if he should delay the surgery until after the Foot and Ankle Business Innovations (FABI) 2015 meeting that we had planned and scheduled for the following week. “Of course not!” I proclaimed.

A week later, he underwent an open heart, two vessel bypass myectomy (cutting open the heart and carving out heart wall to create more space) and an aortic valve replacement. Upon taking him off the heart/lung machine, his heart did not start beating and he had defibrillation to get the heart going and connection to an external pacemaker and defibrillator. The following day, the doctors placed an internal pacemaker and defibrillator.

As one might expect, dad insisted that the FABI 2015 event proceed without him because he feels so strongly about creating a community that encourages ethical patient care while developing the business that allows us to succeed. With our minds in many places, Greg Berlet, MD, Chris Hyer, DPM, Terry Philbin, DO, and I hosted FABI 2015 and had 150 attendees enjoying the open discussion, good fellowship and debate while we honored my dad’s contributions to the evolution of foot and ankle treatment.

He had bumps along the way including throwing premature ventricular contractions two days post-op and suffering with atrial fibrillation so he needed sedation and cardioversion with electricity. After a thoracentesis removed 1350 cc of fluid from his pleural cavity, his O2 went up to 98. He was subsequently discharged from the hospital and is now resting comfortably at his home. We expect him to make a full recovery and return to his life prior to surgery.

For those who know my dad, you will not be surprised to hear that he never took any pain medication and was working on his iPad two days after surgery while eyeing a return to the office, his patients and employees in the near future. In the meantime, he has appreciated the outpouring of well wishes from people across the globe who have heard about his situation.

The doctors say it is amazing that he never had any chest pain, heart attack or worse. He was lucky that the shortness of breath revealed the problems so they could be corrected before anything more severe occurred.

This gets me back to my last blog posting and the first sentence of this one.

Do not delay making sure that your important relationships are solid. Tell the people who mean the most to you that you love them, appreciate them and value their relationships. Whether or not there is a major life reflecting event as I just went through, your life will be better and more meaningful if you let those people know how you feel and then act upon it by strengthening those relationships. 

Don’t let another day go by without doing this. You will not be sorry if you do so.