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Heart Scene: King's College Graduates Saved My Life

By: Tony Mussari

The sign on the highway reads:

20 years of Open Heart Surgery Success!
Over 9,000 Cardiac Surgery Procedures.
Heart and Vascular Institute, Wilkes-Barre General Hospital

Impressive to be sure. 

If I had seen it one month earlier, I would have noticed it and thought little. Today as my wife and I passed it on our wedding anniversary, it meant a lot more.

You see, I am one of those 9,000 surgery procedures.

I’ve never been very comfortable in hospitals. At five, my brother, sister, cousin and I were lined up outside the operating room at a local hospital waiting for Dr. John L. Dorris to remove our tonsils.

My gurney was the last in line, and I was frightened out of my wits. At the appropriate moment, I bolted.

It must have been quite a scene. A tiny five-year old in a surgical gown racing down the hallways trying to find a place to hide while hospital personnel followed in pursuit.

The ending to this scene was very predictable.

They won. My tonsils were removed, and for the next six decades I kept an unhealthy distance from doctors and hospitals alike.

Then, on a brilliant Memorial Day, at the start of the parade in Kingston, I stood up in the Grand Marshal's car, lifted my video camera above my head, and my world changed forever.

Pain like I had never experienced before filled my chest and then my left arm. A knife-like pain attacked my neck and gums. Perspiration rolled off my forehead like the great falls at Niagara.

I knew I was in trouble.

My brother, Ken, died of a heart attack at 50, and since that day I always carried Bayer aspirins. On this day they may have saved my life.

I took one with water, and, five minutes later, I chewed another. The pain stabilized enough that I was able to finish my work.

Later that evening the pain returned with a vengeance, and I knew my life was in danger.

A visit to our family physician, and King’s College graduate Dr. Michael Fath,’97 resulted in arrangements for a cardiac catheterization.

I like Dr. Fath.  He’s young, energetic, respectful and proactive. To me he is more than my doctor.  Maybe it’s because we are both King’s grads.  Maybe it’s because we come from the same kind of blue collar families.  Or maybe it’s because we just like one another. Whatever the case, I feel very comfortable talking with him.

He knows me.  He knows my situation, and I get the feeling he genuinely cares about me.

On that fateful day in June when Dr. Fath looked at my file, he pushed back in his chair and said: “Looking at my notes, seeing the record of the stress you were under since we first met in 2004, it’s amazing that you did not have this happen a long time ago.”

When I left Dr. Fath’s office, I had an authorization for a cardiac catheterization, and a zillion questions about where it would be done, what it would be like and how painful it would be.
 
Two family friends, Tom and Sean McGrath, both King’s college graduates, helped us to see through the maze of the medical decisions we were facing.

In the 70’ and 80’s, Sean was at our home virtually every day. His older Brother, Tom, knows the medical profession in special ways. For almost three decades He and his company, McGrath Medical Associates, have been involved with the implantation of pacemakers and defibrillators.

When Sean and Tom were infants I held these youngsters in my arms, I watched them grow into consummate professionals, and now they were literally holding me up as I approached the most important decision of my life.

Tom knows the doctors and he knows the hospitals because of his job, and he was most kind to both Kitch and me.

I was apprehensive, and Tom was able to put everything into context for me. Every morning during my hospital stay, he came to visit and talk.

His recommendations and suggestions were absolutely accurate.

The results of my catheterization were not good… four blocked arteries. The descending aorta was 95 percent blocked and the others had 70 percent blockage.

Grim news, indeed, yet there was hope.

If I wanted to live, I had to have open heart surgery.

To my good fortune, Dr. Michael Harostock was available to explain my situation. He is an unimposing man in his 50’s. His smile is infectious, his eyes welcoming and his manner professional and very human.

I liked him immediately. He made me feel comfortable. I knew instinctively that he was the person I wanted to do the surgery.

Our first conversation sealed the deal.

He walked into my room, and he extended his hand as he introduced himself. When I began to reply, he interrupted with these words:

“I know who you are.  I was an undergraduate at King’s majoring in biology in the 1980’s.  I was on the golf team and I got to know you by your reputation.”

“You were a no-nonsense teacher.  You expected a great deal from your students, some of whom I knew. You were very passionate about what you taught, and you were a very intense person.”

He paused, and, looking me right in the eyes, he followed with a sentence that I will remember until the day I die.

“I am honored to meet you, and I want to thank you for being an outstanding teacher.”

Never in a million years did I ever expect to hear anything like that. It was one of the most important moments of my life. My apprehensions dissolved into complete trust. 
 
He was available.  My wife was characteristically optimistic and determined. We would go forward with the operation.

On June 12, 2007, my heart and my life were in Michael Harostock’s gifted hands for about four hours. He and his team worked with discipline, competence and precision on my 65 year-old heart.

I lost no blood. The muscle was strong. The replacement vessels were harvested from my left arm, and my right leg and some from behind my heart.

In less than six hours, I was off the ventilator, and the next day I was about to begin rehab in the step down unit of the hospital.

Every morning Michael Harostock came to visit. Our conversations were brief but very reassuring. The more we talked, the more I began to appreciate his enormous talent and his humanity. He combines the best in science and an understanding of the human condition.

During one of these visits he asked me this question:
“Would you like to know how I started your operation?”

I did, and he explained it this way.

“Remember our first conversation when you told me about your Garden of Life, and you asked me to give you a word that speaks to life?”

“Well, the day of your operation, I asked each member of my team to give me a word that speaks to life.  They did and then I said to them.  This is a man who has dedicated his life to giving life to his students.  As we work here this morning think of your word for life and let’s do our best work to give this man a second chance at life.”

To say that I was overwhelmed with emotion is an understatement.  Throughout most of my life I have tried to be an agent of change.  All of the people I admire are people who worked for change. As one of my heroes said often: “I dream dreams that never were and ask Why Not?” 

It does not make one’s life easy.  It can lead to great misunderstanding and in some instances conflict, and Kitch and I have had our share of that.

On this day, however, in a small hospital room three days after my operation, the man who saved my life put my life into perspective.  His thoughtful, caring nature made me whole again. It was without question everything I had ever dreamed of and everything I silently hoped for.

Michael Harostock, surgeon extraordinary, King’s College graduate, working in the shadow of the place where his father worked two jobs so that he could get his education gave an old teacher the kind of affirmation he never expected.  He fixed my heart, and he gave me hope and fulfillment.

He understood that there is more to an education than making a living. He knew that there is more to medicine than chemicals in a bottle. He knew that there is more to healing than science.  He knew that healing is as much about the kindness of an understanding heart as it is about the best in science.

Michael Harostock and his wife, Beverly, demonstrated  to Kitch and me everything we hoped for in every student we ever taught, and in so doing, they filled us with optimism and a desire to live.

There were, however, some anxious moments. During one of his visits, Dr. Harostock told us that they saw something in my lung and my blood system that they could not identify.  They ruled out several of the known infections, but some doubt remained.

He wanted to be very cautious so he called in an infectious disease specialist, Dr. Linda Slavoski, a King’s College graduate who visited my room and explained what she was about to do. 

Her last name was familiar, and so I asked the obvious question. “ Are you related to John Slavoski?

“John the pharmacist?”

“Yes. He’s my father-in-law.”

The irony here is that John, a King’s grad, served on a jury with me the October after my retirement.  During the trial, we became fast friends.

On another day Dr. Mary Louise Decker, another infectious disease specialist, and King’s College graduate, came to discuss the situation. She was quite sure that they had identified the problem, but Dr. Harostock wanted to be on the safe side, and so she would analyze another blood culture.

In the end, it turned out that the original blood cultures had been contaminated in the lab.  We all breathed a sigh of relief.

My doctors were fine people all.  They were excellent at what they did. They were, in a sense, my teachers about my new life.

The work of a teacher is about giving…not taking.  It is about forgiving…not rejecting.  It is about understanding…not alienation. It is about affirming…not demeaning. It is about optimism…not pessimism.  It is about community…not isolation.  It is about standards, expectations, dreams, accomplishments and values…not ego.

Teaching is about taking young people to new places and introducing them to new people. It is about challenging them to be the best people they can be, and in my case it was about helping them to change behaviors that will hold them back. 

The King’s College graduates who cared for me at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital were impressive, competent, thorough and very human.  I enjoyed meeting them. I enjoyed their visits, and I felt very comfortable with them.

They represented themselves, their families and their alma mater with dignity and class. They are some of our best and brightest graduates.  Their expertise saved my life.

There was another King’s grad, Joe Devizia ‘64, who visited me every day and offered prayers for my recovery.  My friendship with Joe Devizia dates back to my high school days at St. Mary’s. Joe and I were both protégés of a magnificent teacher, Sister Mary Hilary. 

Joe was one of the very first people to become a deacon in this diocese. He is one of the most spiritual people I know. His goodness radiates in his very quiet and unassuming way.

I looked forward to his visits, his words of encouragement, and his prayers. On one occasion he gave me communion.  It was a beautiful moment of redemption.

On Father's Day my wife, Kitch, and my daughter, Elena, took me home.

Before I left the hospital, Dr. Harostock asked me to evaluate the experience.

Without hesitation, I replied: “It’s been the most positive learning experience of my life.”

“No one has ever said that about this operation,” he replied with that infectious grin.

I meant every word, and, if given the chance, I will write and produce episodes of our series, Windsor Park Stories, that will document exactly what I experienced.

On the way home I saw the billboard for the first time:

20 years of Open Heart Surgery Success!
Over 9,000 Cardiac Surgery Procedures
Heart and Vascular Institute, Wilkes-Barre General Hospital

As our van sped by, I thought to myself, I am so fortunate to be one of them.

 

 

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