Before I was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy,
we lived in Indianapolis in a very small town,
and I was having heart palpitations.
I was walking about five miles a day
because I was doing visual merchandising
for a large store there.
So I was up and down ladders and moving things around
and one day I just kind of started not feeling so well.
And I went to the hospital in this small town
and they said, 'Oh, you have an enlarged heart.'
Cardiomyopathy is when your heart is not functioning
as well as the average person.
After having cardiomyopathy
and being diagnosed with diabetes,
I had tried to change my life quite a bit.
So I was doing better things.
I had lost the weight and I was on vacation in Cuba.
And I had a bump that I had felt underneath my arm
before we went to Cuba.
So the following day we got back
and I had my diagnosis come back as stage two breast cancer.
So I came to Rush. Here I am, and I love it.
My team has been awesome from the very beginning.
My care team at Rush consisted of Dr. Toshi
who is my cardiologist,
and Dr. Perez who is my breast cancer surgeon,
and Dr. Kim who is my radiologist.
Angela developed breast cancer a few years back.
Prior to that, she had a history of heart failure already.
She developed heart failure way back in 1998,
so 20 something years ago,
and the breast cancer was 20 years later.
The way people have breast cancer,
especially the kind of breast cancer that she had,
required chemotherapy and the chemotherapy
that she was going to receive for her breast cancer
is what we call cardio toxic.
So it's technically kind of chemotherapy
that can hurt the heart.
And then interestingly, just as she was getting
her port placed in order for her to receive the chemotherapy
that she was going to receive,
she was noted to have what we call atrial fibrillation
which is an abnormal heart rhythm.
It can make you form clots in the heart.
And so that was another thing that added
to what she had already.
Other issues, she also had a history of diabetes
which increases the risk of heart disease.
And she also had high blood pressure,
which in the setting of the chemo she was about to receive,
increased the risk of even further heart failure
and heart problems.
She also received care from electrophysiology
with cardiologists that take care of
the electrical rhythm of the heart,
so the defibrillator aspect of it.
The surgeon that put in the port and then
all the ancillary staff, the nurses the infusion,
especially the infusion nurses who were the ones
infusing the chemotherapies that she received.
Then the nurses in our cardiology clinic as well.
It's a definitely a group effort.
I always felt very comfortable coming in
for my treatments once a week.
Dr. Toshi, who was my cardiologist, was awesome
as far as directing me on how I could keep my heart going,
keeping things under control there,
always monitoring me and making sure that things
were on track.
When there were issues going on with her heart
I had to be very frank about communicating
with her oncologist so that we both knew what we were doing.
And a couple of times her heart failure got so bad
that we had to stop treatment for like a month or two.
And then continue after that as well
because it was really necessary
that she got the cure that she was seeking
from her treatment, at the same time making sure
that her heart was stable enough to take that treatment.
So we knew her heart was going to take a hit in the process
but we had to figure out a way to manage her
through that treatment to make sure that she safely got
to the other end.
The cardiomyopathy was okay throughout my chemo treatment
but they still took very, very strict precautions
to make sure my heart did not get any worse than it was.
The breast cancer chemotherapy is very hard
on all of the extremities.
My kidneys suffered, my heart did suffer a little,
but not bad.
But through exercise and eating right
and following all of my medications,
I was able to come back
Right now, Angela's doing very well.
She sees me right now every six months.
She's doing extremely well.
She exercises regularly.
She takes her medications regularly.
My care with Dr. Toshi is something else.
She is definitely a pistol.
I absolutely love her, but she is no nonsense.
She takes no prisoners.
You know, I always appreciate directness
and she is not short of that.
There's so many at people that have become
so much more than just caretakers or nurses or doctors,
people who I know, people who remember my face,
people who remember my name,
Eunice in the care center, the greeter.
She knows about my mom, just things,
and that's always just a special touch.
Just customer service is incomparable
to any place I've been.
So many places say that they're the number one in care
for cancer treatment, Rush is definitely number one
in my heart because I've gotten such amazing service
from a great amazing team of people who seem to always care.