Tales from the heart

Advocate’s Christ Hospital and Medical Center offers the largest heart care program in Chicagoland. With a multidisciplinary staff of skilled medical professionals and comprehensive diagnostics, treatments and rehabilitation, the hospital offers heart patients of all ages leading-edge care with an emphasis on listening and responding to each patient’s needs. Here are just a few of our patients’ success stories.

Jim Jennings is no stranger to heart surgery. Over the years, Jennings, 67, has had four bypass surgeries, an angioplasty and 11 angiograms. “Despite the procedures, Jim continued to suffer from painful bouts of chest pain, called angina,” says Masood Qazi, M.D., a cardiologist at Christ Hospital. “He’s been my patient for over 20 years. Surgeries and other procedures improved his heart’s condition—often for years at a time—but then the angina would recur.” Angina occurs when the heart isn’t getting enough oxygen because blocked or narrowed arteries are restricting the flow of blood.

“Sometimes I would get angina just sitting in a chair,” Jennings says. “I became fearful of doing anything.” After assessing Jennings’ condition, Dr. Qazi recommended a new procedure called enhanced external counterpulsation (EECP).

“EECP is an outpatient procedure that uses lower leg compression to help generate new blood vessels in the heart, thus enhancing the blood and oxygen supply,” says Marc Silver, M.D., medical director of the hospital’s Heart Failure Institute, who supervises the procedure. Patients undergoing the treatment must attend 35 one-hour treatment sessions over seven weeks. “I started to feel better after just a couple of sessions,” says Jennings, who added that he received much-needed support from the Heart Failure Institute’s staff. “The team there was terrific. When I completed my last session, they gave me a diploma—an M.A., for minimal angina!” Says Dr. Qazi, “Jim was the first patient to complete EECP at the hospital and he’s doing very well. He talks to other patients about it. He’s a very vibrant and inspirational person.”

“I’ve been on disability for 20 years because of my heart condition,” says Jennings. “Now, thanks to Dr. Qazi, Dr. Silver and EECP, I’m able to live a more productive life. My wife and daughter are happy because I’m back to taking care of things around the house. I can even pick up my 2-year-old grandson, Justin, and take walks with him without fear of angina. I feel really good. With faith in God and a sense of humor, I believe you can get through anything.”

Scott Zierke, 39, was an active young man until his college days, when he began feeling short of breath. Doctors diagnosed him with cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that results in a weakened heart and failing mitral valve. For the next two decades, Zierke struggled with the disease, which eventually forced him to quit work.

Despite various treatments, including vascular surgery, Zierke’s condition worsened until doctors decided last year that he needed surgery to replace his mitral valve. During the procedure, surgeons implanted a revolutionary ventricular-assist device (VAD) called Thoratec. The device is the only FDA-approved VAD system that can support patients waiting for a heart transplant. It also can serve as a bridge to recovery, improving cardiac function after heart surgery. Zierke spent the next nine weeks at Christ Hospital recuperating and, thanks to Thoratec, Zierke’s heart strengthened to the point that he no longer needed the device. “Typically these devices have been used to buy time for patients while they wait for a heart transplant,” says Dr. Silver. But as ventricular-assist devices evolve, they’re becoming an alternative to transplant, improving cardiac condition to the point where a heart transplant is not needed. “We hope that will be the case for Scott,” says Dr. Silver.

“I have a lot more energy now,” says Zierke. “I spent a lot of time looking at travel magazines while I was in the hospital and I want to make up for lost time. I’ve already done a lot of traveling in Michigan. I enjoy taking photographs of the lighthouses there. Some of the lighthouses are in remote areas, so I have to do a lot of walking, but I feel good.” He exercises regularly and he takes medications to keep his blood pressure low. “In the next few years, I may be eligible for a heart transplant—if it’s necessary. Now I take things one day at a time and I just enjoy myself.”

Hayley Wolosek was as beautiful as newborns come. But soon after she was delivered on October 8, 1992, doctors detected a heart problem. Hayley, who is now 7 years old, was flown from Rockford Memorial Hospital to Christ Hospital, where Michel Ilbawi, M.D., a pediatric cardiac surgeon and director of pediatric cardiovascular surgery at The Heart Institute for Children, diagnosed her with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). This serious and usually fatal form of congenital heart disease is the result of a poorly formed ventricle (pumping chamber) on the left side of the heart. “We were terrified,” says Hayley’s mom, Sally. “Hayley was our first baby. To save her life, my husband, Mark, and I were given two options: a heart transplant or the Norwood procedure.”

They chose the Norwood procedure, a three-stage operation that can sometimes correct the heart’s defects. The complicated procedure has revolutionized the care of babies with HLHS, giving many of them a new chance at life. Three weeks after her birth, Hayley had successfully completed the first stage of the operation, which involved rerouting the heart’s arteries. On October 30, Mark and Sally were able to bring their new daughter home. Hayley wouldn’t complete all three stages of the Norwood procedure until she was almost 3 years old. “Dr. Ilbawi and Hayley’s pediatric cardiologist, Tarek Husayni, M.D., are God-sent,” says Sally. “Hayley wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them. Everyone at Christ took such a personal interest in Hayley and that has never changed.”

“She’s very busy—with school, a church group and new friends,” says Sally. “We still see Dr. Husayni once a month and Hayley has to take medication, but she’s doing wonderfully. Mark and I thank everyone at Christ Hospital for that.”