July 14th, 2010 By Kathy Lee Bishop MS, PT, CCS; Manager, Emory HeartWise Risk Reduction Program
In this post, I’d like to introduce you to the Cardiac Rehabilitation Center at Emory Healthcare. The facility offers state-of-the-art amenities, panoramic views, and experienced staff to care for patients following heart attacks, open heart surgery, angioplasty, and stent placement.
Our mission is to help reduce risk factors for heart disease through exercise, education, and support. If you’d like to visit us in person, please call 404-778-2850 to arrange a site visit. We’re available Monday through Friday (except on major holidays) and are located within the Earle B. and Stephanie Blomeyer Fitness Center at 1525 Clifton Road NE in Atlanta. We’ll help you to identify your risk factors and generate a plan to make you healthier.
Here, you can join me on a virtual tour to learn more about what we can offer patients as they recover from heart procedures:
If you have any questions or comments about our facility, please feel free to let me know in the comments section.
A year and a half ago, Rachel Moore was readying to have her heart transplant at Emory. The surgery followed years of heart troubles, and Rachel spent two years with an LVAD as she awaited her transplant. Still, she was unsure if the heart transplant could really return her to good health. “My doctor told me, ‘After the transplant, you are going to feel so much better,’” Moore recalled recently during a phone chat. “It’s almost like I didn’t know what that meant.”
Now, 18 months later, Moore knows. “Before, when I was ill, I often wanted to just take a nap,” she said. “Now, when I’m up, I’m up all day and I exercise about five days a week for about an hour a day. I don’t feel winded or short of breath.” Moore, 45, visits Emory every three months for her check-up. Her medical team here checks her blood work and runs tests on her heart. If everything is running smoothly, she continues to take medication, and she returns in three months.
You can listen to Rachel Moore talk about how much better she feels since heart transplant surgery by clicking on the play button below:
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“Sometimes I don’t know the right words to use, but I feel really good,” said Moore. “It’s almost like sometimes you have to remind yourself that there used to be something wrong. Like sometimes I’ll think to myself, ‘You had a heart transplant.’” For more information on Moore’s heart transplant and the effect it’s had on her life, visit her website at http://www.heart4rachel.org/ and watch this video:
May 25th, 2010 By Kris Wittersheim, RN, MSN APRN-BC
William Shaw & Kris Wittersheim (VAD Coordinator)
In May of 2009, William Shaw, who has suffered from congestive heart failure for years, figured he had about two weeks left to live. Shaw, 72, had been in and out of the hospital for four months due to various heart-related troubles.
“I was just going down,” Mr. Shaw remembered during a recent visit to the Emory Transplant Center. “At the time, I was so weak that I couldn’t even sit up on the bed. If you sat me up, I’d fall over.”
But on May 22, 2009, Mr. Shaw underwent surgery and was implanted with a Ventricular Assist Device (VAD). The VAD procedure, discussed in detail here, is an emerging option for three types of heart failure patients: transplant candidates who are too sick to wait for a heart to become available, patients who may be heart transplant candidates but aren’t currently eligible for various reasons—such as obesity or smoking—and are getting sicker, and patients who aren’t transplant candidates due to other medical issues, or who (as in Mr. Shaw’s case) are elderly.
Simply put, the surgeons place a rotary pump under the heart (in the abdomen) to take over the function of the left side of the heart. This pump is dependent upon electricity—either batteries or AC power—at all times. The VAD does what the ailing heart can no longer do – it sends blood and oxygen to all areas of the body. Consequently, the VAD decreases heart failure symptoms, increases activity and drastically improves quality of life.
On May 18, 2010, almost one year after undergoing surgery, Mr. Shaw came in for his monthly checkup with me. So, how’s he doing? Not only is he now sitting up on his own, he’s enjoying life again. He took a hunting trip last November to South Dakota with his two sons, he works out three times a week, and he takes part in a number of retirement activities.
“My lifestyle has improved from one year ago,” Mr. Shaw said. “On a scale of 1-10, if 1 is the poorest and 10 is the best, I’ve gone from a 1 or 2 to a 7 or 8.”
In Mr. Shaw’s case, the VAD is destination therapy – meaning he’s not waiting for a heart transplant to make him better. The VAD is the cure.
Since receiving the procedure, Mr. Shaw has become a positive example for other heart transplant patients as they consider VAD surgery. He was even recently featured on a FOX 5 news report:
And when he visits Emory Clinic for his monthly check-ups, he spends time talking to other heart patients, and always asks if there is someone waiting in the hospital or being evaluated for a VAD that he may be able to talk to. His hope is to help them understand what they might be facing. His newfound independence, age, and story of recovery are an inspiration to others.
“When you’re my age, we all have things we have to work around,” Shaw said during his visit. “I’m just very thankful that it has worked out for me. They have taken care of me very well at Emory.”
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Heart & Vascular
