One of four state-of-the-art operating rooms in the new 28,000-square-foot Heart Center. Two of the rooms are dedicated to open-heart and vascular surgery and, at 1,000 sq. ft. each, are twice the normal size.
Walter Park knew something was wrong the instant he teed off the first hole of the former Dodgertown Golf Course. He drove home feeling breathless and nauseated, then called his doctor, pulmonologist Michele Maholtz, M.D. Get yourself to the emergency room right away, she instructed.
Walter, then 75, was having a heart attack. He was promptly admitted to Indian River Memorial Hospital, where he became the patient of cardiologist Charles Celano, M.D. The diagnostic workup culminated with a catheterization procedure that involved threading a small tube through a blood vessel into Walter’s heart.
The news was grim. Walter had four blocked coronary arteries. To save his life, he would need a cardiac surgeon to create a detour around the blockages. This “bypass surgery” would involve sawing through Walter’s breastbone and using a heart-lung machine so that the surgeon could stop his heart to work on it.
Read the entire article in the January 2007 issue
True Tails is a series written by Amy Robinson for Vero Beach’s dog lovers. Ask Amy about your dog’s behavior by clicking below.
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