‘Born Again’ Heart Patients Savor Life With Salt-Free Zest

It’s a brand-new contest with a $10,000 first prize, but you may be glad that you are not an entrant. On the other hand, all who have been nominated are glad they are in the running.

The award: Heart Patient of the Year.

About 100 hospitals are participating, nominating those men and women who essentially became “born again” heart patients after suffering heart attacks. Nearly 1.5 million Americans suffer heart attacks each year and about 450,000 have second heart attacks.

Nominees, chosen by their doctors, are people who have altered their lives considerably through diet, exercise, medication (including aspirin), quitting smoking, avoiding stress, and, if applicable, trying to go from Type A personality to Type B.

Dr. Robert C. Schlant, a professor of cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said he agreed to serve on the advisory committee because the recognition could stimulate other heart patients to follow physicians’ orders.

“Sometimes it’s rather discouraging to see how people are living after their recovery,” said Schlant, a heart disease specialist who has served as president of the Assn. of University Cardiologists and chairman of the council on clinical cardiology for the American Heart Assn. “They may stop smoking for a while, but then a year later, they are back on cigarettes.

“We’re doing rather miserably in getting people to alter their life styles. In an ideal world, this contest will also get some people to alter their lives before anything happens. After all, everything we do, bypassing, other surgeries, after-care treatment, is secondary and palliative. It’s primary prevention that is needed.”

One of the nominees already announced is Achille (Kelly) D’Aprile, now 48, who is in far better shape than he was four years ago when he suffered a heart attack. He gave up the pack of cigarettes a day he was smoking, he shed about 35 pounds, and he now jogs to work out stress.

“The hardest thing was realizing I had a heart attack,” said D’Aprile, owner of a deli and liquor store in Weathersfield, Conn. “I’d never been in a hospital before. I got chest pains going to visit somebody in the hospital.

“At the time I was working 16 to 18 hours a day. I ate all the butters, breads and meats I wanted. I had to make a major adjustment to try and not be such a Type A personality with workaholic tendencies.”

Low-Cholesterol Sausage

D’Aprile has even created a low-cholesterol special sausage for his deli customers, made with either veal or veal and chicken.

Schlant notes that most heart patients do, in fact, end up more active and stronger than before.

There are exceptions. Herman Rice, 67, of Linthicum Heights, Md., suffered too much damage when he had a major attack in 1982. But the doctors call him their miracle patient.

Rice worked on an assembly line at a meatpacking plant when he felt such pain in his forefingers that he asked the foreman if he could see the nurse.

A man not accustomed to being ill, a nonsmoker and teetotaler, Rice ran up the four flights to the medical office, collapsed, and was left with only 40% of his heart intact, despite triple-bypass surgery.

“When he first came home from the hospital he was crying and depressed, because he had to retire, he couldn’t lift anything over 5 pounds, and his exercise was limited to walking,” his wife said.

“I told him to stop crying. The Lord had given him another inning. When he said he didn’t know what for, I told him he was here to keep me company.

“I’m a strict nurse. I’ve had him for 37 years and I want to keep him. I’m happy to lift the shopping bags.”

Margaret Miko of Catonsville, Md., also 67, said that before her heart attack she felt that Westinghouse Corp. would probably fold without her. She was a secretary to an important executive.

Miko, a widow, goes to the cardiac rehabilitation center at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore three times a week, dons a sweat suit, does her warm-ups, and works out on a rowing machine, a treadmill and a bicycle.

“I was never what you would call the athletic type, but now I wouldn’t miss it.”

Day Had Been Stressful

Miko collapsed on the job during a stressful day at work and remembers someone shouting for anyone with knowledge of CPR.

“They practically had the shovel out,” she said. “The CPR and prayers pulled me through. The priest gave me the last rites.”

Dr. Raymond Bahr, director of the coronary care unit at St. Agnes Hospital, said he decided to nominate patients because of the transformations he saw in some. He said 1,700 heart patients a year come through this coronary care unit alone.

“The transformation of character is something like being born again,” Bahr said. “They have something the rest of us don’t appreciate. They see life differently after a heart attack.”

Bahr, as a heart specialist, regrets that so many people wait until it’s too late to make the changes that will make their heart stronger.

“Too many people have to wait until a Mack truck is sitting on their chest,” he said.

Bahr’s nominees include both Miko and Miller, who were virtually given up for dead.

Another of Bahr’s nominees is Bernie Walter, 45, a baseball coach and athletic director of Arundel High School outside of Annapolis, Md.

Ignored Early Warning

Walter pointed out that even though he was a health educator, he ignored the early warning signals. He suffered several aches in both elbows early in the day, but laid down for a few minutes and it went away. Then he coached for two hours and felt better, but not quite good.

“I just felt really tired. At 8:30 that night I was watching a hockey game. It was the Stanley Cup. The Philadelphia Flyers were winning 2-0 when the guy started down the ice to score the third goal. Then I had the severe pain and I told my wife,” he said.

He was rushed to the hospital, given a clot-dissolving drug, and the heart attack was arrested quickly.

“I’m not handicapped in any way,” he said. “The idea is not just keeping you alive; the idea is getting you back to doing the things you want to do.”