Florida Hospital Waterman | Waterman Wellness | Fall 2018

Christopher Reed, of Uma- tilla, had no idea that a visit to his father, a patient at Florida Hospital Waterman, would include a medical emergency requiring a lifesaving proce- dure for himself. “I was helping my dad and went to wash my hands at the sink in his hospital room, when I started to sweat profusely,” says Reed. “I became dizzy and started seeing a jagged rainbow in my peripheral vision. Then my heart started fluttering in my chest, and I had to sit down.” His father’s nurse called a rapid re- sponse, and Reed was quickly taken to the emergency room, where cardiolo- gist Kehinde Layeni, MD, was imme- diately consulted. “He seemed to be having a heart at- tack, but when I listened to Mr. Reed’s heart, I suspected something else was going on,” says Dr. Layeni. “We did an echocardiogram (an ultrasound of the ‘Miracle Man’ HIS HEART WAS IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME heart), and it confirmed my diag- nosis that this patient had an aortic dissection.” Rare and dangerous “An aortic dissection is an uncommon but very lethal condition in which the inner layer of the aorta, the large blood vessel branching off the heart, tears,” says cardiovascular surgeon Gary Allen, MD. “Blood surges through the tear, causing the inner and middle layers of the aorta to separate. Think of it like an unzippering, if you will. “What made Mr. Reed’s condition especially threatening is that the dis- section started to head into the heart as opposed to away from the heart. So he had valve damage in addition to the dissection, and you can hear that on a stethoscope. It is very loud.” “When I had the ultrasound, I could see my valve going past the stop- ping point,” says Reed. “Dr. Layeni told me I was pretty much down to the last layer of my aorta from the top to the bottom and it was a good thing I was in the hospital when it happened, because I had very little time to spare.” Reed was rushed into an almost eight-hour surgery to repair the dissec- tion and replace the damaged valve. Kehinde Layeni, MD Gary Allen, MD “This is about the biggest procedure you can do in heart surgery,” says Dr. Allen. Amazing outcome The next day, Reed was up and walk- ing around the hospital. “Everybody came to see me, and somebody wrote ‘Miracle Man’ on the whiteboard in my room,” says Reed. “One of the nurses asked me for the lottery numbers, because he said I defi- nitely had some luck on my side!” Today Reed is fully recuperated and thankful to be alive. “I have been in practice for over 18 years and done over 5,000 heart surgeries,” says Dr. Allen. “This is far and away the fastest I have seen any- body go from symptoms to diagnosis to therapy, and I think that is part of the reason he did so well.” Florida Hospital Waterman has achieved Chest Pain Center Accreditation with Primary PCI and Resuscitation from the American College of Cardiology. LISTEN TO YOUR HEART. Take our heart health assessment at FHWatermanHeart.com . 6 FHWaterman.com | Fall 2018