change of heart
Our hearts beat as one
Advocate Sherman Hospital’s Heart and Vascular
Center offered Joe Pompa the very best cardiac
care from diagnosis through recovery. An
accredited Chest Pain Center with Advanced
Certification in Heart Failure, the hospital’s longestablished, award-winning program is focused on
preventing, diagnosing and treating a wide array of
heart conditions. That focus is shared throughout
the Advocate Health Care system. With services
ranging from community screenings to pediatric
cardiology research to heart transplant surgery,
Advocate has earned the trust of the most heart
patients in Illinois.
Funded in part by generous gifts from philanthropic
community members, projects to improve
cardiovascular services across Advocate are
ongoing. Fundraising is now underway to boost
three major projects designed to better serve heart
patients by combining convenience and efficiency
with the most advanced technology and expertise:
• Heart and Vascular Institute expansion at
Advocate Christ Medical Center—Christ
Medical Center has expanded its facilities for
outpatient services within the Heart and Vascular
Institute. Charitable funds will also help purchase
leading-edge technology and equipment, as
well as fund preventive services, community
education and outreach.
• One-stop heart care at Advocate Good
Samaritan Hospital—Good Samaritan Hospital
is renovating more than 21,000 square feet on
the ground floor of its main building to bring
together cardiac diagnostics, catheterization,
rehabilitation, observation and recovery services
into one convenient location.
• New Heart and Vascular Center at Advocate
South Suburban Hospital—South Suburban
Hospital’s new outpatient facility will consolidate
all cardiovascular programs, including a
dedicated congestive heart failure clinic, into
one space to make treatment more convenient
and efficient.
For more information, please call 630.929.6931.
4 – healing gifts – Spring 2014
Joseph Pompa believed healthy eating
and exercise kept him in top shape, until
a heart episode caught him by surprise.
J
oseph Pompa recalls October 9, 2013, in great
detail: He exercised for an hour and a half in the
morning, worked in the yard cutting branches, ran
errands and enjoyed dinner out with his wife, watched
television from 8-9 pm, and then climbed 15 stairs—with
no problem—to get ready for bed. As he bent over to
squeeze toothpaste onto his toothbrush, he experienced
sharp chest pain. Believing it was a pulled muscle, he
walked around while massaging the area, but the pain
started to radiate across his chest and intensify. At that
point, he went downstairs and told his wife she needed
to drive him to Advocate Sherman Hospital.
State of emergency
On the 14-mile drive from Joe’s home in Marengo to
Sherman Hospital in Elgin, he realized he should have
allowed his wife to call an ambulance. He fought the
reality of his increasing pain by thinking about how he had
always eaten well, worked out five or six times a week
and had not experienced any warning signs of health
problems. He was an active 72-year-old. Even when the
EKG technician in the emergency department informed
him “Sir you are having a heart attack,” it was something
Joe could not fully comprehend. “But fear set in when I
heard those words,” he explains. “I had been so active all
my life. What was my life going to be like if I survived?”
That night, Joe underwent angioplasty to open a
blocked artery, followed by a nine-day hospitalization.
His heart was very weak, so he was discharged with an
external defibrillator to wear in anticipation of receiving
an implant. His ejection fraction (EF)—an important
measure in determining how well the heart is pumping
out blood and in diagnosing and tracking heart failure—
was less than 30 percent (a normal EF is usually
between 55 and 70).
After discharge, Joe relied heavily on support from the
Heart Failure Clinic and still does today. He repeatedly
stresses how wonderful the staff and nurses in the clinic
are—always taking as much time as he needs to talk
through questions and answers to ensure he has clarity.
“Many times medical lingo and having multiple physicians