Met at heart
After op, he’ll celebrate 90 in Citi
WHEN MOST PEOPLE find out they need treatment for a serious heart issue, they start pondering things like pacemakers and stents, hospital stays and surgical scars.
When Tom Hickey learned he needed his aortic valve replaced, all he could think about was the New York Mets.
It was 2013, and the then-88-year-old Amazin’s fanatic was already planning an epic 90th birthday bash at Citi Field.
So Hickey made his cardiologist a promise.
“I want you to get me to 90 years old, and if you do, I’ll invite you to a very special party,” Hickey remembers telling Dr. Gregory Macina.
Two years and one innovative heart procedure later, Hickey is now preparing to host Macina, his heart surgeons and more than 100 friends and relatives at his Aug. 16 celebration when the Mets face the Pittsburgh Pirates.
“I’m a Yankees fan, and I’m still going,” said Dr. John Goncalves, chief of Winthrop University Hospital’s cardiothoracic surgery division in Mineola.
“I said to him, ‘Even though it’s Citi Field and the Mets, you’re going to get a Yankee fan.’”
For Hickey — and his wife of 65 years, Maureen — the longawaited party can’t come soon enough.
“I just love the Mets,” Hickey said from his home in Franklin Square, L.I. “I’ve been a fan from the get-go, ever since the Dodgers left town.”
A stroll through Hickey’s house reveals the depths of his Amazin’ passion. A Mets banner hangs out front, 14 team hats line his living room closet and nearly two dozen bobbleheads fill his basement.
Just a few feet away from the leather recliner where he takes in every game is a Citi Field replica brick purchased by his grandkids. “Gram & Dado Hickey – True Fans From The Start,” it reads.
Hickey, a World War II vet who saw combat aboard the Navy’s USS Vincennes CL-64, looked as spry as Curtis Granderson as he led two visitors around his home on a recent day. And his mind remains so sharp he still remembers where he was on Oct. 21, 2000 – the day the Yankees beat the Mets in Game One of the World Series.
“We were at a restaurant in London, and one of my daughter’s friends happened to be a Yankee fan,” he said. “I wasn't too happy with the company.”
Hickey was in otherwise good health when his cardiologist told him the narrowing of his aortic valve would worsen without medical intervention. Hickey asked Macina if treatment could
wait until after his party. The answer was no.
“He said, ‘Well, let’s just do it now,” recalled Macina, of Cardiovascular Medical Associates.
“I didn’t think that something like a birthday party would be that important to someone that they would make a medical decision around it but obviously it was for him.”
The March 2014 procedure was performed by two Winthrop surgeons – Goncalves and Dr. Richard Schwartz, an interventional cardiologist.
Rather than split open Hickey’s chest, the surgeons inserted a replacement valve into his heart by using a catheter that was entered through his groin. Called a transcatheter aortic valve replacement, the procedure requires only a tiny incision.
“It was almost miraculous,” Hickey said. “I was only in (the hospital) for four days. I hardly knew I had an operation.”
Among those slated to attend the party are his seven children, 15 grandchildren and five great grandchildren.And with the Mets clinging to first place in the NL East, Hickey has just one more wish.
“I predicted they would be in first place for this party, but I want them to be firmly entrenched,” he said.