Listen to the doctor
W. Side man didn’t, & it nearly cost him his life
Even in his worst moment, with pain shooting between his shoulder blades like someone was stabbing him in the back, Gregory Bernhardt wasn’t in a rush to see a doctor.
“I said, ‘Let’s just wait, let’s just wait,’ ” Bernhardt recalled.
His wife wasn’t hearing it. Bernhardt was slurring his words and was having trouble standing.
So his wife called paramedics, who rushed Bernhardt out of their Upper West Side apartment last month to a local hospital, where doctors diagnosed a tear in his aorta that led to a paralyzing stroke that threatened his life.
But fixing the problem required immediate, delicate openheart surgery.
There was no time to think about it or get a second opinion, so doctors transferred Bernhardt to Mount Sinai Morningside hospital, where Omar Lattouf, a cardiovascular surgeon, prepped Bernhardt and his wife on the procedure and got to work.
“They told my wife if we don’t do this there’s zero percent chance of him surviving,” Bernhardt said.
Not only did the seven-hour surgery save his life, but it left Bernhardt with no brain damage or paralysis.
“By the next morning he was opening his arms and moving both arms and legs,” Lattouf said. “We were able to avert a catastrophic event.”
But Bernhardt, 65, who had surgery for prostate cancer last May during the height of the pandemic, could have easily avoided all the heart and stroke drama if he had just listened to his doctor months ago.
During a followup cancer treatment consultation, Bernhardt’s doctor heard something through his stethoscope that didn’t sound right.
He advised his patient to get an electrocardiogram, a test that would have easily detected Bernhardt’s aortic defect and would have kept him from getting so close to his deathbed.
But between the cancer recovery and coronavirus concerns, Bernhardt put off the EKG test — and put his life in danger.
“I kicked the can down the road a little and never followed up,” Bernhardt said.
Lattouf said he sees it all the time.
Since the pandemic started raging out of control, patients have been afraid of getting anywhere near a medical facility, and as a result, important medical procedures have been put off or canceled altogether.
“This darned COVID has kept many people from going to the doctor and getting their routine checkups,” Lattouf said.
“Then they end up with major problems. We have to follow the advice of the experts. They’re not telling us, ‘Don’t go to the doctor.’
“Yes, we want to protect ourselves from COVID, but we have to continue to do preventive care. People are taking it on their own, deciding what should be ignored and what should be pursued.”
Bernhardt was one of the lucky ones.
He said his stroke could have occurred while he was driving. Or it could have happened while he was at home alone.
“If something’s not right don’t just wish it away,” Bernhardt said. “Putting your head in the sand won’t make it better.”