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A moment. That’s all it took to change the world
for Daryl Travis, a successful, 40-something branding
strategist who lives and works in downtown Chicago with
his wife, Donnita. Healthy and fit, Daryl exercised
regularly, ate the right foods, and received a clean
bill of health after each physical, until a routine
checkup in late 1999 changed his world. That is when
Daryl’s internist heard an odd sound in his heartbeat.
A battery of tests revealed what no one expected –
that Daryl had an aneurysm and a congenital heart valve
problem requiring immediate replacement.
 The
first person Daryl told was Donnita. When he said it
was his heart, it shattered Donnita’s world as
much as it had changed Daryl’s.
As the CEO of a Chicago-based branding firm, Daryl
knew what he and Donnita had to do first – conduct
research to find the most experienced team of cardiologists
and vascular surgeons for Daryl’s valve replacement
surgery. They sent videotapes of Daryl’s heart
to the top cardiovascular centers nationwide, conducted
extensive telephone interviews of those teams and compared
each center’s performance. What they found was
that the team performing as many – if not more
– heart valve replacement surgeries than any other
had literally been in front of them the entire time.
It was the cardiovascular team at Loyola University
Health System (Loyola) in west suburban Chicago. Loyola’s
cardiovascular program, built on a tradition of excellence
and innovation, brings together nationally known specialists
and the latest treatments to provide patients the best
in comprehensive heart care.
Confident in Loyola’s qualifications, he found
comfort in the care Loyola’s team took to treat
him as an individual, answer his questions factually
and help him face the challenges ahead. After meeting
with the team of specialists who would be involved in
his surgery, Daryl was ready to get the procedure behind
him.
For Donnita, the time spent waiting for her husband
to come out of surgery seemed to last a lifetime. But
when she finally saw Daryl in the recovery room, she
knew they had made the right choice. Awake and alert
but unable to speak, Daryl communicated the best way
he knew how – by spelling out the words “I
love you” in Donnita’s hand. “That’s
when I knew everything was okay,” she recalled.
“Now I truly understand what they mean when they
say we also treat the human spirit.”
Today, Daryl has a clean bill of health and is back
at his peak. The moment that changed the world for Daryl
and Donnita was actually the start of a new life, thanks
to the cardiovascular team at Loyola.
Related Links
Center
for Heart and Vascular Medicine
Heart
Valve Disease Services
Clinical
Trials
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