Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 9, 1994 TAG: 9408090087
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Eight arterial blockages, eight careful detours around the heart, eight delicate new blood-carrying passages.
Not the kind of record any patient would be eager to set.
Donald Whitteker of Pearisburg certainly hadn't planned to go down in Roanoke Memorial Hospital record books when he was rolled into the operating room Aug. 1. Just three days later, he was discussing bypasses and bandages with a roomful of visitors.
"I feel pretty good, considering everything," Whitteker said quietly, as if talking too forcefully would unravel the hours of work hidden within his bandaged chest. "I've got enough Band-Aids to hold me together."
Considering the eight bypasses, considering the blood transfusions and the IVs, Whitteker, 50, looked pretty good.
Settled in an easy chair in the hospital's cardiac recovery unit, he shrugged off his unwanted celebrity status with a wry grin.
"Back when I came in, I really hadn't expected them to find anything," he said.
As time and tests showed, his expectations were slightly off the mark.
When Whitteker checked into Giles Memorial Hospital on July 19 with chest pains, doctors discovered that he'd suffered a mild heart attack and put him on several heart medications.
But he continued to have chest pains and was transferred to Roanoke Memorial, where a heart catheterization found that all major arteries and several branch passages around his heart were blocked, said Dr. Brian Strain, the cardiothoracic surgeon who performed the operation.
While the number of bypasses was a bit of a surprise - the catheterization had shown five to seven blockages, but more were found during the operation - the fact that Whitteker had heart trouble wasn't, Strain said.
A pack-and-a-half-a-day smoker, Whitteker was a high-risk patient from the start, the surgeon said. Add to all the cigarettes a diet high in artery-clogging fat and cholesterol and a family tree dotted with heart attack victims, and Whitteker's profile became that of a typical heart patient.
```Stop smoking,' that's what I keep drilling into his head,'' Strain said. "That's the most important thing he can do. The best thing that can come out of the surgery is that he stays off cigarettes."
At the rate he has been recuperating, Whitteker should be able to return to his job at Roche Biomedical Laboratories in two to three months, Strain said.
"If he had his way, he'd be back to work as soon as he's out of the hospital," said Whitteker's wife, Deborah.
But he'll obey his doctor's orders, said Whitteker, who was released from Roanoke Memorial on Friday. He won't overexert himself, he'll stay off cigarettes, he'll cut back on fat. It will be a struggle, he admitted, but he knows that returning to old habits could mean more chest pains and more surgery in a matter of years.
He already has set one record; he doesn't want to be the one to break it.
"It's serious," Whitteker said. "It's nothing to play with, that's for sure."
by CNB