Here are some Cardiac Patient Stories from the Saint Barnabas
Health Care System.
Michele admits that had she felt the dull pain in
the middle of the night she might have passed it off or waited
until the morning. Luckily for her, the pain came while she
was en route to a meeting at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center
where she is Chief Technologist in the Special Coagulation
Lab. As she approached the Emergency Department on her way,
she was aware that the pain, dead center in her chest, was
a pain she had never felt before. The decision to go to the
Emergency Department was one that she will never regret.
Still, her abnormal EKG, and swift move to the cardiac catheterization
lab for a balloon angioplasty to clear a clot in her artery,
were bewildering to the active 53 year old. “I had
none of the risk factors associated with heart disease so
it was a mystery,” reflects Michele. “But it
taught me not to gloss over symptoms, feel it is inconvenient
or be embarrassed about getting help. Heart disease affects
men and women, young and old.”
While her emotions were up and down as she came to grips
with her situation, her husband, Bill, and her two grown
daughters, helped her through. But she credits Marc Cohen,
M.D., Director of Cardiology at Newark Beth Israel, along
with the team in the Emergency and Cardiology Departments,
for their quick assessment and rapid intervention that saved
her life. “I was pretty much putty in their hands,” she
recalls, “but they explained everything that was happening
along the way.” Miraculously, Michele was back to work
in less than two weeks.
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