TRAINING IN PROGRESS: Arthur Youmans is training for next year’s Tulsa Run. He had a coronary stent put in last year and is an above knee amputee, which makes running difficult so he plans on race walking during the Tulsa Run. Youmans’ cardiologist, Dr. Frank Gaffney, says what he’s doing is inspirational.
Courtesy Arthur Youman
Arthur Youmans’ life was in danger and he didn’t even know it. Everything was normal. He was training for the Tulsa Run next year, which was difficult because of his prosthetic leg, but he felt fine.
His routine check-up at Hillcrest Medical Center, 1120 S. Utica Ave. included an electrocardiogram (EKG), which is a standard procedure for those 45 years and older. The EKG revealed a severe abnormality in his arteries and was the beginning of a series of non-invasive tests on his heart.
Dr. Frank Gaffney, general cardiologist at Hillcrest Medical Center, suggested that Youmans have a CT angiography (CTA), a non-invasive scan of his heart, to see what kind of abnormality they were working with.
The CTA visualizes calcified plaque, and more importantly, the soft non-calcified plaque and blockages, which are most often the cause of heart attacks. Most experts agree that a 64-slice CTA is the most accurate non-invasive technique for the detection of coronary disease. Hillcrest Medical Center was the first hospital in the Tulsa area to have the 64-slice CTA available for cardiac evaluation.
“It’s a way for us to use new technology to look at his heart to find a blockage,” says Gaffney. “It offered an option for him.”An angiogram is performed to diagnose and sometimes treat blocked arteries. A narrow tube called a catheter is inserted into the artery through a vein in the leg and threaded upwards to the heart. Using a special x-ray camera called a fluoroscope and radiopaque dye, which shows how blood passes through the heart and surrounding vessels, doctors can assess the amount of fat and calcium deposits (plaque) that may be blocking circulation. While cardiac catheterization is helpful in determining whether a person needs bypass surgery, doctors can sometimes clear the blockage during the procedure using balloon angioplasty or stents.
Emergency Amputation
But Youmans had his fill of invasive procedures after having an emergency amputation of his left leg when he was 64 years old. His leg was blue as could be when he went to the emergency room, he says. And the pain was like muscle cramps.
But it was like winning the lottery in reverse he says. A blood clot dislodged and went into his knee artery where it clogged the flow of blood into his leg. When he woke up six days later he noticed he could only see one foot, but he couldn’t feel anything.
“I could only see one foot. I got so depressed I didn’t want to know the truth,” says Youmans.
Fortunately, the doctors at Hillcrest Medical Center were able to amputate just above his left knee making it possible for him to fit a prosthetic limb. He can walk now, although he gets off balance sometimes.
“I’ve fallen 52 times, but I’m doing pretty good,” he says.
So the prospect of doing more surgery to see if there was a problem with his heart, when he didn’t even feel sick, was not something Youmans was prepared to do. Gaffney gave him six months to decide if we wanted the procedure.
“I was going to turn him down, but then I saw Salazar,” says Youmans.
Alberto Salazar
Youmans was an avid runner before his amputation and he looked up to world renowned runner, Alberto Salazar.
Salazar was the winner of three consecutive New York Marathons and a 1982 Boston Marathon, so it came as a shock when he collapsed at the Nike World Campus in 2007.
Youmans researched it more online and found out that Salazar had a stent put in to clear a blockage.
“I decided to do the angiogram because of the Salazar article,” he says. “I might not be here right now if I hadn’t Googled that. I could have had a sudden heart attack.”
He was just in time for his next appointment with Gaffney; for five months he had been against having the angiogram, but now he was ready.
When Wayne N. Leimbach, Jr., MD, chief cardiologist at Hillcrest Medical Center, performed the angiogram on Youmans, he found an 85-90 percent blockage in his artery. A stent was put in to clear the blockage.
“I consider myself very lucky,” says Youmans. “Dr. Gaffney possibly saved my life – I listened to Dr. Gaffney, but it was mostly Salazar. I didn’t want to take a chance, and I thank Dr. Gaffney for sticking with me.”
He says he listens to his doctors more now because he could have been one of the 50 percent of patients who die without a single symptom of heart disease.
Today Youmans, 76, is up and running again. He uses a treadmill to simulate a race and he plans on race walking in next year’s Tulsa Run.
“I’m having fun and have great stamina. The stent helped quite a bit,” he says. “I’m very appreciative for what the doctors at Oklahoma Heart Institute at Hillcrest Medical Center have done.”
