By Paul Swiech
The Pantagraph
PONTIAC, Ill. — John Rodino thought he was doing everything right.
A 39-year-old firefighter, he ran and lifted weights every day and ate fruits and vegetables.
But the lifelong Pontiac resident didn’t have his cholesterol checked. That was his first mistake.
When he began having a heart attack, he went into denial and didn’t immediately call 911. That was his second mistake.
His life hasn’t been the same since that first heart attack seven years ago. Now 46, Rodino has had a second heart attack, has had an amazing 18 stents inserted into blood vessels to keep them open and has undergone double-bypass heart surgery.
He can’t work any longer but continues to eat healthy and gets as much exercise as he can. He’s been careful not to make any other mistakes and thinks he may not have much time left.
Rodino wants to pass along to others what he’s learned: see your doctor; get screened for cholesterol, blood pressure and blood glucose; and if a problem is found, work with your doctor on the appropriate course of action.
In other words, know your numbers, because the numbers you don’t know could kill you.
“You may think that you’re in tip-top shape,” Rodino said. But eating healthy, exercising and stopping smoking aren’t the only things you should be doing, he said.
“You need to get your cholesterol checked. And if there is anything hereditary — such as high blood pressure — in your family, get that checked.
“When screenings are offered at the hospital, take advantage of them,” said Rodino’s fiancée, Tammy Riden.
The sooner you are checked, the sooner a doctor may identify a problem and prescribe medicine, therapy and other treatments that may help. If you begin to experience heart attack symptoms, chew an aspirin and call 911.
“The first time, I waited too long and it damaged my heart,” Rodino said. “What I wouldn’t do to be what I used to be.
“I’m scared of going to sleep and not waking up,” he admitted. “I used to go into burning buildings to rescue people and I wasn’t scared, but I’m scared now. I don’t want other people to be scared, and they don’t need to be if they get checked.”
Rodino was an athlete at Pontiac Township High School and remained active after high school, running and lifting weights.
“I was always in shape,” he said. “I’ve never been overweight.”
He always ate fruits and vegetables. His dad’s family owned Rodino’s Square, which included a grocery store, so he grew up eating a lot of produce that the family grew. He stayed active as a firefighter and emergency medical technician for the Pontiac Fire Department for 15 years.
Rodino also worked for several years at Mitsubishi Motors North America in Normal and in construction in the Pontiac area.
Late on Jan. 6, 2002, he began to ache all over. Then his chest began to hurt, the pain went down his arm and he began to perspire. He laid down but then had to run to the restroom to throw up.
“I knew from being an EMT that I was having a heart attack,” he said. “But I didn’t want to accept it. I thought ‘I’m 39 years old and I’m in good shape. It shouldn’t be.’”
He walked around the block but it didn’t help so he laid down again. When he couldn’t get air, he awoke his son, John. It was about four hours since his initial symptoms. His son called his ex-wife, who took him to OSF Saint James-John W. Albrecht Medical Center, Pontiac.
Just before arriving at Saint James, his heart stopped.
“I was dead,” he said. “They used a defibrillator and zapped me back to life.”
He was stabilized and taken to OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington. Three blood vessels were blocked and doctors inserted three stents — tubes placed into narrowing blood vessels to keep them open.
“That’s when I found out I had cholesterol problems,” he said.
His total cholesterol was 325 mg/dL (the goal is less than 200). His triglycerides level was 800 (the goal is less than 150). His HDL-good cholesterol was 18 (the goal is 40 or higher). And his LDL-bad cholesterol was more than 200 (the number should have been less than 100).
“I was totally shocked,” Rodino recalled. “I thought exercise and eating right would keep my cholesterol down, but they didn’t.
“That’s why people need to get their cholesterol checked. I did what I was supposed to do and I still plugged up.”
Rodino later found out that he has C factor, a blood condition prevalent in people of Mediterranean descent. The condition makes blood thicker and easier to clot, which made Rodino more at risk of high cholesterol and narrowing blood vessels, he said.
After a week in the hospital, he was released and began outpatient physical therapy at Saint James. He began to feel better. What he didn’t know was his seven-year odyssey had begun.
Every few months, he would get weak, short of breath and in pain again, have more stents put in, do physical therapy, get back to work and feel better for awhile. Then the same cycle would start again.
He had a second, smaller heart attack and a fourth stent put in on April 11, 2002. On May 10, 2003, two more blockages were found and two more stents were installed. He was put on Plavix, a blood thinner; 325 milligrams of aspirin a day; two cholesterol-fighting medicines, Zocor and Tricor; and two medicines to control his heart rate, Toprol and Norvasc.
On Sept. 11, 2003, two more stents were put in.
“Then I thought I was back to my old self,” he said. When he got sick in late April 2007, he went to St. John’s Medical Center in Springfield, where he met Dr. Michael Kelley, a cardiologist with Prairie Cardiovascular Consultants.
“I thought we had exhausted all of our stent options,” Kelley said, concluding that two blood vessels that had plugged couldn’t be kept open by stents but instead had to be bypassed using arteries from Rodino’s leg.
Kelley admitted that doctors aren’t positive why some arteries kept re-narrowing. Double-bypass heart surgery was performed on May 1.
Even after the surgery, he didn’t feel right. On July 9, 2007, doctors put two stents at the bottom of one of the bypasses where tissue was building, Ten days later, another stent was put at the bottom of the other bypass.
On May 29, June 18 and July 10, 2008, six more stents were put in as the vessels kept re-narrowing. Doctors found that Rodino’s body was not accepting the bypasses for some reason; that combined with the C factor condition may have resulted in the re-narrowing, he said.
“Re-stenosis is a phenomenon of scar tissue developing in the stent, reblocking the artery,” Kelley said. “We’ve performed multiple stent procedures to keep one of the two bypasses open,” Kelley said. “The other one has closed down.”
Last month, Rodino had trouble breathing and experienced chest and arm pain but figured doctors could do no more.
“I was ready to just give up,” he said. “I was tired of fighting. I accepted that I was going to heaven.”
His children — John, 22, and Erin, 20 — and Riden told him to not give up. That night, as he lay in bed, he thought about how his mom and dad didn’t give up when they had health problems and how he wanted to live long enough to walk his daughter down the aisle.
“So I went back down there (to St. John’s on Feb. 5), they found another blockage and put another stent in it. It seems to be helping so far. I don’t know how long it will last.”
Rodino is able to do little things around the house and can walk his dog, Lucy, about a half block before getting tired and turning back.
Kelley said, “His (Rodino’s) long-term prognosis remains very good.” If Rodino continues to take his medicine, see his doctors and maintain a heart-healthy lifestyle, he should have a good healthy life, Kelley said.
But Rodino said, “I don’t think much is next for me. I can tell by how my body is. But I don’t want to give up. And I don’t want other people to give up.”