Your heartbeat is as unique as your fingerprint.

A day in the ER, it's it's, different every day. We usually see around one hundred and twenty patients a day in the ER. You never really know what you're gonna get. That was one of the things that drew me to the ER.

We have three children and we have twins that are twelve and then we have an eight year old who's in first grade.

Really not a second in the day, you know, to rest. Kind of every day we're going to bed, you know, ten or eleven o'clock getting up at four or five and nonstop, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

It was around four o'clock. My alarm went off. I got the snooze button a few times.

Finally, I set up in bed and immediately upon sitting up in bed, I developed a severe pain in the center of my chest. I described a kind of like a pressure almost as if I was in a vice.

She was kinda holding her chest, and she was very pale and and sweaty. I mean, you know, I could tell something was not right. So, yeah, I said, gosh. You look like you're having a heart attack.

I knew that morning that something was terribly wrong, and I was ready to go to the ER.

When doctor Allison Rains came, the EKG looked abnormal. The blood tests for heart attack were elevated, plus she had an ultrasound done of the heart that showed some abnormality in contractility, specifically of a particular region that alerted us all that there's a distinct possibility of a heart attack occurring, and that prompted a cardiac catheterization where we identified a blockage and treated her with angioplasty.

As a physician, you never imagine yourself being the patient, but in the moment, I knew my husband trusted his partner and always talked highly of doctor Bose.

And doctor Bose was great. He talked to me throughout the entire procedure, explaining what he was doing, when he found the blockage.

He relayed that information to me and explained what he was doing to fix it and so I knew that I was in the best hands possible.

It was surreal, you know, with your wife back there and sorry.

Waiting in the recovery area.

I think right from the start, she had the ingredients of her timely care, and I think that's really important in, identifying heart disease, especially in women who sometimes may present in somewhat unusual ways. Chest pain is the most common presentation in women having a heart attack. But having said that, the atypical presentation such as arm pain, back pain, sweating, feeling weak, being short of breath, feeling dizzy, passing out is far more in women what we call atypical symptoms compared to men. Seek care early because delayed care can result in devastating complications.

As we say related to a heart attack, that time is muscle.

The months prior to all this, I had been having some odd symptoms. Ultimately, they diagnosed me with lupus, and they felt that I developed inflammation around the coronary vessel, and that had probably led to some compression of the vessel and that narrowing in that vessel led to a clot formation, which caused the heart attack.

Taking care of a colleague, especially who's a health care provider, is almost a multiplier effect where she not only is doing better and doing well and come back to work, but also has taken the initiative to increase this knowledge of women and heart disease.

This phase and age of life that we're in where parents are busy and kids are busy, parents forget to take care of themselves.

You know your body. If something feels off, listen to your body.

Take the time for yourself.

It really puts things into perspective.

You kind of realize what's important in life and try to cut out some of the chaos and just focus on the important things.

A horse gives you so much. I mean, when you think of what we ask a horse to do, I mean, what we're asking these mares to do, having babies and racing at the racetrack, we're asking them to be brave. They trust. They really are very trusting animals and very smart. They're the best.

Twenty two years ago, I had a fall going over a coop. He went this way, I went that way, and I fell on my back on the hard ground. A year later, I'm just getting a regular check checkup with my doctor, and he said, Jill, you know, you've got a pretty significant heart murmur. That was my very start of all of this hard stuff.

When I fell, that's where they feel like that's when it happened, when the small tear occurred.

The first time I met her, I knew that this was gonna work because as a heart patient, you always question if you're okay or not okay. It's scary.

Once you've had any kind of a cardiac problem, the heart is really your focus. She's so positive. She just wants a normal life. And so anything that I can do to help her achieve that goal is well worth it.

She makes you feel really safe. I think I truly trusted everything she said. She led the show for me.

I was riding, you know, continuously, and I was feeling really bad. Like, I couldn't stay in a canter without my heart just feeling like it was beating out of my chest.

When Jill came to see me in June, she knew that something wasn't quite right. She was starting to feel a little more short of breath. She didn't have quite as much energy as she did previously.

She had developed a head bob, and her head was literally going up and down at times. And when she was resting, her friends would notice that kind of thing. In Jill's case, she had calcium around the annulus of the valve plus the valve leaked very badly. She was not excited about having to undergo another open procedure.

And fortunately, over the last fifteen years, we have this wonderful transcatheter aortic valve ability.

She said, I think you're a great candidate for TAVR, which I didn't know anything about that procedure at all.

So the advantage of a transcatheter aortic valve is that the chest is not opened. We go up through the artery in the leg. We follow the aorta up to where the aortic valve is. We take a valve and put it inside the native valve or the bioprosthetic valve in her case. Expand the balloon, expand the valve, the balloon comes out, and you're done. The whole procedure takes less than an hour, usually closer to thirty minutes, and most people go home the next day. After surgery, they'll be free to go back and be the person that they used to be, be as active as they wanna be, and resume their life.

I feel like so strong because doctor Hollingsworth said, you can do whatever you want. You can exert yourself, which I was always a little hesitant to do because I was afraid that I would be doing too much to the heart muscle. She's pretty much cleared me to do whatever I wanna do.

She is a model patient. And if everybody took care of themselves like she does, we would have a lot less people returning for repeat surgeries and repeat procedures.

My experience at Baptist Health has been amazing. That's my hospital.

Yeah. Doctor Hollingsworth said, live your life the way you wanna live it. Do whatever you wanna do. And that's how everyone should live.

Well, actually, I think on our third date, we decided we're gonna get married through thick and thin, better or worse, sicker or poor, sometimes more sicker.

We have four grandchildren.

We had we had four sons, but, our fourth son was a resident physician.

We went on vacation with him in January of twenty three.

And, when he went back to residency, we could hear it in his voice that he was not doing well. [Rick and Debbie's son died by suicide on February 12, 2023]

And, so that's very traumatic.

It's hard on all of us. Heart disease and, mental health are epidemics.

What's very special about Brian Toole Racing is that we have a family culture and it's very important and people legitimately care about each other.

They call me the flying mustache because I move so fast. As much as I love my work, I I confess that I take it too seriously sometimes. I was at an off-site meeting. At the end of the meeting, I got pictures of these parts that we were, you know, hotshotting from Iowa and they're full of holes.

And I saw these pictures and it same thing. Boom. Right in the stomach. I'm like, oh.

[Two prior heart attacks in the early 2000s were both preceded by severe stomach pain. Rick knew what was happening.]

Rick had had a stent placed years ago and when he came into the hospital with chest pain, the stent had closed off.

And the first thing the cardiologist did was open up the stent to the RCA, the right coronary artery. And when he did that, he fibrillated, got him back, and then found out he had, triple vessel disease. All three main arteries had blockages. So then he was referred to me for surgery.

We Googled best heart surgeon in Louisville and doctor Pollock came up.

Our oldest son, Ricky, we call him Ricky.

Yeah. Richard the third.

Internal medicine doc. He he was we did FaceTime with doctor Pollock in the office, and Ricky was able to ask questions, and that gave Ricky peace of mind.

Doctor Pollock to his credit was very not defensive at all and answered every question to everyone's satisfaction and it was just such a pleasure to work with and it just gave us great confidence.

It's important for the patient to have choice. We were happy that he chose us to do surgery. What we did was remove veins from the legs and use an artery that runs in the chest wall, the internal thoracic artery to do four bypasses and this is done with the heart lung machine.

And because of his history of atrial fibrillation, we also isolated his left atrial appendage. That reduces the risk of strokes later on if he has any episodes of atrial fibrillation. Function after the surgery with the four bypasses was pretty normal.

I was walking in ICU, I think around twelve hours or less after surgery. And, I I really couldn't believe how pain free the whole experience was.

One thing I wanna stress is how amazing when I say staff, I mean all of the staff Yeah. At Baptist, they helped us through this Yeah.

Because we were scared. Yeah. We were very frightened.

I went to cardiac rehab, and it was a great experience.

We know that physically rehab helps, and that's monitored exercise. And it also improves function of the heart and it helps with the bypasses too. It's important to really modify the risk factors that we can. There are genetic factors that we can't modify, but we can modify cholesterol. We can stop smoking, we can work on diabetes and we can work on diet. And I think the results long term from bypass surgery are much better now than they were twenty years ago because of the things we can modify.

I have living proof that you could get world class health care, a world class cardiac thoracic surgery from Baptist Health, and I can't imagine any better care. I mean, I can't imagine how it could go any better.

Well, and I think that Baptist Health doesn't just concentrate on the surgical aspect of all this, it's the spiritual aspect too.

It really makes you take stock of your life and your priorities.

I I probably am a bit obsessed about my work, and I need to focus a little more on my little more on my wife and my family.

For the patient, you know, you're focused on yourself and, and then there's putting stress on other people around you.

That's what love's about.

Yeah. I appreciate it. I love you. I love you too.

[If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat at 988lifeline dot org]

When my son passed away three years ago, it was time for a new start, and that's kind of what this property means to us.

The gardening is all raised beds because we live literally on a mountain, you know, and then the heart attack happened and a lot got put on hold when that happened.

You know how you see the bubbles rise in a Coke or Sprite or something?

That is kind of what I felt.

And I was like, that's not normal.

That shouldn't be happening this way. And my husband looks at me and he asked, he's like, are you okay? And I said, I don't think I'm okay.

When they took her to the cath lab when she got here, they found that she had a one hundred percent blockage in the large artery that goes around to the left side of the heart. So we look at three major ones down the front, to the right, and to the left, and the entire left side of her heart was really not getting any blood flow at all.

When he put the stent in and then open it up, that was the first deep breath I had taken in two weeks because I was like barely breathing. I was just I had no idea. I just thought I was so tired.

When I met Violet, she was overwhelmed and she was scared, but she was determined. And in that moment, she said, what do I need to do? And so when a patient has set their mind to, I want to own my health, I want to improve my health, I want to be active in this role, it really makes my job a lot easier.

This vest lets us send people home safely if they are at risk for going into those life threatening dysrhythmias. So they wear this all the time except for when they're in the shower.

And if they were to go into that rhythm, it would sense it and it would deliver a shock.

You know, it's temporary to get you to be safe and stay alive until you can get to help or until help can get to you. It'll give you a lot of confidence.

We talked about diet. We talked about exercise. We talked about cardiac rehabilitation, which she took part in.

I will tell every soul on this planet, you need to go to cardiac rehab. The people in the cardiac rehab are awesome.

It allows us to get people moving in a safe way.

People can just go out and walk in their street, but they don't have a heart monitor on, and they don't have a registered nurse watching them saying, okay. I need you to take a little bit easier now. Let's let your heart recover, or you've got some room here. Let's push. Let's go even faster.

When I got to cardiac rehab, I was not in good shape. They do an in test and an out test.

When I left, I did it half the time and I had lost a lot of weight because I stuck to our diet plan for me.

I stuck to the exercise.

I took my meds. I took my blood pressure. I kept my diary. I did the thing and they took the rest away and a couple of medicines have disappeared.

But Kay has never let go of my hand the whole way, you know. And that to me is something you don't find a lot of, but I found it at the heart failure clinic. I have found it with Kaye. I have found it with heart rehab.

I found it at Baptist. They're not gonna make me do it on my own.

Violet's got a lot of eyes on her heart health these days.

Even machines need checkups.

You know, we take her car for an oil change every three months. So now that she has heart disease, she gets routine checkups, and we make sure that everything is exactly where we want it to keep her from developing new blockages.

Now I'm finally living again.

Healing comes in many forms, and sometimes that form is a very serious wake up call.

I have been so blessed with the Baptist care team. Baptist Health Corbin has been an amazing place to take my medical care from.

They care.

That's that's the best way I can put it is, Baptist Health Corbin, they care.

I actually felt like somebody cared, you know, so, yeah, they're kind of special to me.

I have a beautiful wife named Amy, and I have ten grandkids.

A perfect day for me, getting up in the morning, sitting drinking coffee with the wife, Amy, and us getting on the motorcycle and just taking off. It's relaxing. Just my perfect day. Just getting up every day and enjoying my family.

I was at my grandson's baseball game.

My legs started hurting and hurting. I'd stand up. I'd sit down. I'd stand up. I'd sit down.

I made it through the night, and then it just started turning purple. So that's when I went to the checking myself in emergency at Baptist, and they had the emergency surgery. It was a clot that was blocking the blood flow on my leg. I had a clot in my heart.

I had a clot in my lung. Doctor Chinchurian at Baptist Floyd, I mean, he took over my medical condition.

Wonderful, smart doctor.

When we worked his heart up, his heart was very enlarged, and he had a a big clot within the heart. But he also had a condition called left bundle branch block, an electrical issue in his heart to where the message for the heart to beat was not being distributed evenly.

So if you think of it as a pump, the walls weren't contracting at the same time. The right side was coming in first and then the left side, and that was making the pump very inefficient.

As a result, his heart function had decreased quite a bit. We implanted a special defibrillator called biventricular ICD, which synchronizes the heartbeats to where it's beating as naturally as possible.

And of course, we also introduced some medications as well. And within a few months his heart function recovered to almost normal. He did a lot of good things on his part with rehab and eating healthy.

Our cardiac rehab, it's a medically supervised program for exercise.

When Jim came in, he wasn't feeling very well and had had issues with his heart. We worked with him, setting him up in an exercise program where you do small amounts on treadmills, bicycles, arm ergometers, or what what people call arm bicycles.

From that, we increase as they get better. There's a lot of education that goes into what we do with the patients, and it's a really, it's a multidisciplinary approach.

You got all these nurses there, all these people, all these doctors that are right there. That gave me comfort. I work out at rehab, and then I can go to a gym. You know? We do it, and it's fun, and we get to do it together. I start eating better, taking care of myself, and I was about about forty five pounds.

To see a patient who really had a whole lot of problems to come in and tell us, I'm going to the gym. I'm you know, my a one c is under control. I don't smoke. I've I've kept my weight down. It's so gratifying.

Baptist Health Floyd offers a wide variety of treatment options for all aspects of cardiac care, not to mention amazing physicians, amazing staff, nurses. I feel like I'm making a positive impact. People like Jim with good results keep me going.

Baptist Health Floyd was amazing. The staff was amazing. I just keep chugging. I feel proud of myself.

I want to help other people, you know, not to give up. Look at me now. I'm married. Got a beautiful wife.

I just love life now. I wanna stay here as long as I can.

♪ [music]

♪ - [Bill]

Well, I was a basket case. I was 300 plus, smoked. I used to feel miserable, half sick, you know, all the time. Dr.

Mehta and I met each other at the behest of another doctor that was treating me for pneumonia, and I needed a heart doctor. Dr. Mehta was that doctor.

- [Dr. Mehta]

He was very special in the sense that he had a blockage that had been taken care of multiple times in another institution. And when he came to me, he was so down on himself, that why was it happening again and again. And I tried to explain to him what are the consequences and what are the things that have led to it. And he stopped smoking, he readily accepted bypass surgery, where anybody else would have said, "Try the angioplasty again," and he did so good.

- All the doctors that I had seen and the years and the age that I am, it seems like I would know what to do, right? Well, all that wasn't working, until Dr. Mehta.

- Everybody needs to be treated differently. If one technique doesn't work, try another way. Ask them what do they want to do. "Do you think you should be doing it?

Do you think you should be stopping smoking? If so, what will help you?" Different ways of asking will bring out the emotions in the person, and they'll be able to explain to you why they're not able to do what they want to do. ♪ [music]

♪ - Tyson...Ty's father worked it out to where they could take me in a wheelchair to the room, actual room, you know, and handed him to me. ♪ [music]

♪ I want to see him go to school.

- And my philosophy is we're all taking care of the whole patient. And I believe in preventive care. Diet, and exercise is emphasized a lot in my practice.

- Well, I had to have a plan. I put it on a spreadsheet to say where did I want to be, and when, and then put two lines on there, and it speaks to you. ♪ [music]

♪ I asked Dr. Mehta if he could give me the heart cath through my wrist, and he did, and I think I was the first one. And it was successful, they did it, there's no problem. That's one thing I like about Baptist Health and Dr.

Mehta is a formula to keep you healthy because they sure have kept me healthy now. ♪ [music]

♪ I used to have about three hours a day of activity, of something, three hours. The rest of the time, I was on a sleep app with oxygen. Now, I've got 13 hours. I'm not on oxygen.

The Barn is where I do something. I kind of like a challenge, you know. Can you fix it? Yeah, I can.

Bring it here. I like to see somebody good at their job, right? He's got it going on.

- Oh, my team is awesome. We believe in doing the best we can, not just say it but truly incorporate it into our day-to-day practice so patients can get the best possible care that they can get.

- Dr. Mehta was my doctor, and thank God he was, because I'm a firm believer that I wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for Dr. Mehta. If a conversation came up with anybody with me that's slow pulling, said they're looking for a heart doctor.

I'll say, "Well, let me tell you about this guy." If they ever came to me, I would plead them. "I'll take you over there. I'll show you where it is."

Tell you what, life doesn't get much better than this right here, does it? ♪ [music]

♪

We have lived here for many, many years. When we moved on the street, we said it looked like a nice street to grow old on.

We just celebrated our sixty first wedding anniversary. We've done a couple of international trips, which we've enjoyed. We've backpacked many times in the Smoky Mountains, so we like to be out.

We were in the Baptist system and we'd already talked about we're getting older, we'd like to get everybody that we see professionally into LaGrange. I was diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse in two thousand and four as mild.

Mitral valve is a valve in the heart on the left side of the heart that sort of controls blood flow between the upper and lower chamber. When your mitral valve doesn't work well, there's several things that could be wrong with it, but the two most common things are it's either stenotic, so it won't open well, or it's regurgitant, meaning it doesn't close well. Catherine's issue was that hers did not close well.

I would say in Greece I blamed it on the heat but as I look back now I think it was beginning its downward spiral.

We were following her mitral valve with something called echocardiography.

An echocardiogram is an ultrasound of the heart. It's a non invasive, way to evaluate the heart, the chamber sizes, the valves, the function of the heart. Her echocardiogram showed progressive insufficiency or regurgitation of the mitral valve, which over time then can cause the heart not to function the way it should.

When it got to the point where she did not feel well and the echocardiograms showed fairly significant pathology of the mitral valve, then we had a discussion about what the next step was, which was surgery.

When she saw that echo, she said, Okay, it's time to move. I was thinking let's do it. I had to repair.

Katherine was just she's always been so sweet. As a PA with a cardiology group we worked as a team with the physicians. We got her into cardiac rehab so now she is able to do her normal stuff without any issues.

I had twenty four sessions in cardiac rehab, and it was wonderful. The first time I didn't go back after I had graduated was like, You mean I don't get to see them?

Because they were so encouraging and so fun.

I had been a regular walker, then I got a fallen arch.

I was going, Oh no!

And the divers said instead of ten thousand steps a day, said, Cut yourself back to eight thousand.

Since surgery, I've been able to get back to walking, so I walk six days a week and give myself Sunday off. I give a shout out to the cardiac surgery folks and then to Doctor McFarlane's office and to the cardiac rehab people. They were great.

Our patients come first. They're our priority. That's what we strive to really do our best work is to take the very best care we can of the patients that we have. Don't hesitate going to your doctor, and then don't hesitate following through.

Katherine's story is a good demonstration of somebody who wants to take good care of themselves, and she really followed what we asked her to do.

And always the last question is, what's your goals? And I just told him the same thing every time. I had places to go and things to do.