q - Augusta Health

Heart to heart
Augusta Health’s cardiology center—one man’s story
keith cooper, of StuartS draft, woke up on the morning
of nov. 2 with pain in both hiS armS. He chalked it up to
overusing his arms the day before while moving into the house
he and his wife had just built. But the pain only worsened, and
that’s when Cooper’s wife called 911.
Turns out what he was beginning to experience was a
“widow-maker heart attack”; it’s a usually fatal, massive heart
attack stemming from a blockage in one of the heart’s main
arteries. “I used to have borderline high cholesterol and high
blood pressure, but I wasn’t having any heart trouble and didn’t
have problems in my family,” 62-year-old Cooper says.
Cooper, a retired federal government employee, is proof
that heart attacks come in all types of packages. He never experienced
any chest pain and showed no other signs of a heart
attack, so emergency responders were unsure if he was having
one at fi rst. But he went into cardiac arrest and was resuscitated
in the ambulance when they were a few miles from the hospital.
Waiting for him upon his arrival at Augusta Health was
rajeev Pillai, M.D., an interventional cardiologist, who took
Cooper straight into the hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab.
In less than 20 minutes, Cooper says, Dr. Pillai was inserting
a wire mesh device, called a stent, to prop open his clogged
artery. His heart muscle suff ered little damage, if any.
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8 HealthMatters Spring 2011
Heart disease 101
For most people who suff er a heart attack, the main culprit
is heart disease, which occurs when arteries and small blood
vessels that supply blood to the heart narrow—usually
because of a buildup on artery walls of fatty substances such
as cholesterol. Warning signs that heart disease could be
developing include chest pain (angina), shortness of breath
and limb pain and discomfort.
“There’s no one pill to help manage heart disease,” says
John Yang, M.D., a cardiologist at Augusta Health. “You need
to modify your risk factors,” he notes. genetics play a part in
the development of the disease, but so do bad habits.
While you can’t change your heart disease risk factors
such as family history or age, you can control your:
• blood pressure • sedentary lifestyle
• cholesterol • smoking
• diabetes • stress levels
• diet • weight
caring for your heart
Cooper has plans. In addition to enjoying retirement, he
wants to join the hospital’s fi tness center to pick up where his
cardiac rehabilitation left off . “I couldn’t have asked for better
care,” he says of his time at Augusta Health. He credits the
quick treatment time with helping to save his life.