Triple bypass surgery saves silent heart attack patient | Northwell Health
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Triple bypass heart surgery gives wrestling legend fighter’s chance
December 21st, 2022
Johnny Rodz runs a wrestling school out of Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn and has had a hand in training several big name WWE superstars.
What felt like discomfort and exhaustion to WWE Hall-of-Famer John Rodriguez turned out to be a silent heart attack, which would require surgery — fast
The Unpredictable One. That’s what the world of professional wrestling dubbed John Rodriguez — better known as Johnny Rodz — during his nearly two-decade career with the World Wrestling Federation (now known as the WWE).
Rodriguez retired from the ring in the mid-1980s, dedicating the nearly 40 years since to training future superstars of wrestling at the world famous Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn.
As a lifelong athlete — who still gets in the ring to help up-and-coming wrestlers learn the ropes — Rodriguez is used to pushing through the pain. But in late 2021 he suddenly found himself struggling to breathe while on a road trip from New York to Ohio. “I never had to fight for every breath like that.”
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The discomfort, he explained, “felt different — like nothing I had experienced before.” He continued to feel bad in the days that followed, unable to walk up a flight of stairs without stopping to rest. There was no pushing past this one. He needed to see a doctor.
So when Rodriguez got back home, his cardiologist,
Michael Sicat, MD
, sent him to Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH) for an evaluation. The cardiac team performed a series of tests, including a cardiac MRI and a stress test. The assessment revealed an enlarged heart and evidence of a previous myocardial infarction — a heart attack.
What is a silent heart attack?
This wasn’t the first time Rodriguez had issues with his heart. In 2009, cardiologists had found blocked arteries, and placed stents to help improve blood flow. But he was shocked to learn he’d experienced a heart attack. He assumed a heart attack meant crushing chest pain and possibly a cinematic moment in which he clutched his arm and fell to the ground. Instead, all he’d felt was intermittent discomfort, exhaustion and frightening episodes of breathlessness.
“It’s called a ‘silent heart attack,'” says
Rohit Shahani, MD
, a cardiothoracic surgeon at SIUH. “And it’s more common than you think.” In fact, of the estimated 805,000 heart attacks each year in the U.S., nearly
one in five
are silent heart attacks, according to the American Heart Association.
Silent heart attack symptoms
Rodriguez had been taken off-guard by the symptoms of his silent heart attack, but when the doctors looked at his test results, they fit perfectly with his diagnosis. Heart disease had weakened his heart’s pumping ability — in fact, his doctors told him, he had class IV congestive
heart failure
. Heart failure occurs when the heart isn’t able to pump enough blood to meet the needs of the body; class IV is when the heart has become so weak you can’t do any physical activity without discomfort, and you feel symptoms even at rest.
“Johnny was working with just 15% of his heart function,” says Dr. Shahani. “His heart failure was so severe it was the kind we call incompatible with life.”
A triple bypass
Rodriguez’s disease was too advanced for more stents to help. He needed triple bypass heart surgery — and he needed it fast. Doctors would put him on a heart-lung machine to keep circulating and oxygenating his blood while they stopped his heart; then they’d take healthy blood vessels from elsewhere in his body and use them to create new pathways around the blockages.
All surgery comes with the potential of complications, but for Rodriguez, the risks were particularly high, says Dr. Shahani. Because his heart was so enlarged and damaged and his heart function was so compromised, there was a distinct chance that he wouldn’t be able to come off the heart-lung machine. But opting not to have the surgery would be a death sentence.
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“Everything was doom and gloom — they told me that I was in a worst-case scenario situation,” says Rodriguez. “But after talking to Dr. Shahani, I didn’t have any fear. He was such a positive and reassuring guy that I was like, Yeah, let’s do this surgery!”
So on the morning of May 26, 2022, Rodriguez went into the operating room. In a six-hour surgery, Dr. Shahani and his team took an artery from Rodriguez’s chest and veins from his leg to bypass his three blocked coronary arteries. In the recovery room, Rodriguez recalls saying I think I’m alive, and hearing Dr. Shahani respond. “Well, stop messing around and open your eyes, then — we’re all here waiting on you.”
Rodriguez was delighted to oblige. Then he did one better and sat up.
A post-operative echocardiogram found his heart function improved from less than 15% to 40%. Bypass surgery can’t reverse damage already done, but by ensuring the heart gets enough blood, it improved Rodriguez’s symptoms significantly. And it saved his life.
Living a heart-healthier life
Rodriguez’s recovery has been impressive for someone of his age, no doubt aided by his life as an athlete, says Dr. Shahani. What comes next depends on his choices day by day: eating a heart-healthy diet,
lowering his cholesterol
through diet and medication, getting gentle exercise, sleeping enough and reducing his stress levels.
“I just do fancy plumbing,” says Dr. Shahani. “The patient is the one who has the power to recover, and that is what I told Johnny. Every time he sees his surgery scar in the mirror, it should remind him what he is really fighting for.”
Rodriguez is doing his part. He’s eating less junk food and getting more sleep. He continues to spend time at his Brooklyn gym, still giving back to the wrestling business he loves. And he’s spending more quality time with his family.
“I’m sitting here with my wife of 47 years, my two kids and my three-year-old grandson,” beams Rodriguez. “The little guy is going to be the next hall of famer! This is what life is really about. “I gave my doctor a hell of a battle to save my life,” Rodriguez says. “Now, he’s my champion.”
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