Father's Day heart attack at 39: How a determined doctor and long recovery saved a life - Asbury Park Press

CLOSE

Even though Father's day is a bit away, it doesn't hurt to keep this in mind if you need a simple gift for your dad as in one you can make in a day! Buzz60's Mercer Morrison has the story. Buzz60

As the sedative wore off, I found myself on a hospital bed tethered to an oxygen tank in the intensive care section of the Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune.

"Get him a private nurse at least for the next 24 hours," I heard the doctor urge Dorothy, my wife. "When a patient this young has a heart attack sometimes the blockage reoccurs within 24 hours. … And, please, no visitors other than immediate family."

The date: June 21, 1964 — Father's Day, and I was 39 years old.

The pain in my left arm and shoulder that had awakened me shortly after 2 a.m. on that hellish day had dissipated. I could move my fingers again without straining. But the physician's words weren't very comforting.

Now pain free and breathing oxygen through tiny prongs in my nostrils, it was all hard to believe.

Si Liberman and his wife Dorothy at the Great Wall of China in 2003.

 (Photo: Courtesy Si Liberman)

Back to life: Brick EMTs save man who suffered 'widowmaker' heart attack

Dr. Emanuel Abraham, the summoned doctor, had used his stethoscope at my house that night and said he thought it could be a heart attack and was ready to call an ambulance. I didn't believe him and refused to go to the hospital. Irritated, he stormed out of our house, returned minutes later with a portable EKG machine, and hooked me up.

Without saying a word after reading machine's ticker-tape-like printed jagged lines he grabbed a telephone and called for an ambulance.

Hard to believe, too, was the fact that just two weeks earlier I had had my annual physical exam with Dr. Abraham, an internist, and came through with flying colors. (In those days, by the way, doctors routinely made house calls.)

The diagnosis on the hospital nurse's chart read "myocardial infarction," words foreign to me. Myocardial infarction, I later learned, occurs when an area of the heart muscle dies or is damaged by a lack of oxygen. In other words, a heart attack.

More from Si Liberman: An insider's view at Trump's Mar-a-Lago

My father, a widower who also had heart problems, was among the first family visitors that afternoon. In a chair across from my bed, he stared at me with a pained expression. Tears trickled down his cheeks.

I hardly knew what to say except that I was feeling a lot better.

Protect yourself: Multi-gene test may find risk for heart disease and more

There could have been a warning the day before. Mowing the lawn that Saturday, I felt pressure on my chest  as though someone or something was pushing against it. It made me slow down for a while, but I shrugged it off and went to work in the newsroom as usual that afternoon.

During my 17-day hospital stay and for eight years afterward, I was treated with coumadin, a blood thinner pill, to keep blood from clotting. "It's the same drug President Eisenhower has been taking since his heart attack," Dr. Abraham said.

More from Si Liberman: Fighter returns to Berlin 70 years after WWII

Free of a pressure cooker, smoke-filled newsroom, telephone interruptions and frequent deadlines, the hospital days were relaxing beyond belief. To do nothing but read a book, watch TV, pop a pill and look forward to the next low-calorie meal was a luxury adulthood hadn't afforded me before or since.

If anything concerned me, it was not seeing my daughter, then 13, and son, 9, for more than two weeks. Children weren't permitted in the intensive care section. But shortly before being discharged, Dorothy sneaked my daughter into my private room.

Heart attacks: Here are the places where you're most likely to die

Avoid going up stairs or driving the car for at least two weeks after leaving the hospital, the doctor cautioned, and he prescribed two medications — coumadin, a blood thinner, and nitroglycerin, a pain killer. Luckily though, I've never felt the need to use nitroglycerin, and after developing a shingle-like rash on my thighs eight years later, a suspected coumadin side effect, I stopped taking it.

I arrived home five pounds lighter. In addition to a warm embrace, my wife presented me with two new smaller size sport jackets and slacks.

Eight weeks after that fateful Father's Day, I was welcomed back to the newsroom with a considerate admonishment from the newspaper's co-owner and publisher: "Only come in for half a day during your first week back. If I see you at your desk after 12 noon, I'm going to kick your ass out of the building."

During the next 25 years before retirement I didn't miss a day's work because of illness.

More from Si Liberman: Writer finds visit to mother's homeland a revelation

At age 89, though, after a stress test revealed severe obstruction in a key artery, I underwent triple bypass surgery. The surgeon also repaired a malfunctioning mytral valve during the procedure.

Medications I take now include a beta blocker to control heart rhythm, statin to prevent arterial blockage and a low-dose aspirin.

Credit a devoted wife of 72 lucky years who's very health and diet conscious, plus an active physical and mental lifestyle that includes nearly a dozen roundtrip swimming pool laps most days, daily long walks and just keeping busy.

Come this Father's Day, we'll be counting our blessings.

Si Liberman, a retired editor of the Asbury Park Sunday Press and former Interlaken resident, lives in Palm Beach, Florida.

Read or Share this story: https://www.app.com/story/news/local/how-we-live/2021/06/17/fathers-day-heart-attack-si-liberman/7683432002/