
Emergency Cardiac Care | Adventist Health Sonora
Dale Robbins: Well, I was fishing and I had a little pinching underneath my sternum all day, and I didn't report it.
Robin Robbins: Dale came home, I'm watching NASCAR with him, and as I was sitting there, I hear. I get up and Dale's eyes are rolling back in his head.
Dale Robbins: Next thing I know that she was doing a sternal rub on me.
Robin Robbins: It feels like minutes, but it was probably five seconds where there were lights on and nobody's home.
Dale Robbins: I opened my eyes and everything was flickering, and I knew something that I didn't have control of was going on.
Robin Robbins: I said, "Are you okay?"
Dale Robbins: And I said, "I think I'm dying."
Robin Robbins: I said, "Let's get in the car and go." I pulled up. I walked in. I saw a triage nurse, and I said, "I think my husband's having a heart attack."
Dale Robbins: And from then on, it was like clockwork. Great teamwork. They made me feel comfortable. They did a blood draw, which showed that I had had a heart attack. Then they did an echocardiogram, which showed I had two 98% blockages
Melanie Davidson, MD: With two 98% blockages, that patient is lucky to be alive. So when I started here five years ago, we were doing diagnostic heart caths. We were doing stress tests and everything up to diagnosing heart problems and blockages. But if it got to the point where you had blockages and you needed a stent, we were having to stop, stabilize the patient and then send them to another facility. So now we've expanded our cardiovascular services, and now we can continue to care for our patients here at home and their family members can be here and we can continue to manage their care.
Robin Robbins: One of the nurses brought it up to me like he was given an option to go down the hill. We should go somewhere. And I think you just always think higher level care. My husband said, "No."
Dale Robbins: I'd already made up my mind. This is my family. I felt comfortable here. I knew that they had spent $4.2 million on a cath lab. I see the team every day that does the work. I hear their reputations. They're not new. Our cath lab's new, but the people doing the procedures aren't new. And I was staying.
Robin Robbins: The next day he went into the cath lab and I was in the ICU waiting room, and Kelly, the ICU nurse, brought him up and she took out pictures and she showed me everything and I had a million questions and I was like, "What happened here? What happened there?" And I didn't have to ask one question because she did such a great job of explaining it to me and I loved her. I think it was a nice experience, like to fall in love with the people you work with because my husband had a heart attack.
Dale Robbins: Well, August 26th, I had my stents put in here in Sonora by the heart cath lab, and I went home the next day and within three days I started painting. I mean, I felt like a new person. I mean, if you have those blockages, over time, your energy level goes down. But I painted all upstairs and I was back to work within two weeks. I say "good morning" to the cath lab team every day because now we have 24 hour coverage, so I make sure they're fed well because I'm in charge of that. I can make sure that they're taken care of on the weekends when they're away from their loved ones. And we're on a first name basis because they gave me a little extension on my life. And I appreciate that. I'll never take that for granted.
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