what I love about hockey is when I was a kid I was a New York Rangers fan and I played street
hockey there was something about what your body had to do with things moving at that pace that
appealed to me I'm Alan Steinberg from Rockaway Beach New York I live in Upper Peninsula of
Michigan in a little town called Iron Mountain and I'm a professional writer a journalist and
an educator I was initially diagnosed with aortic valve insufficiency the interesting
thing about whether or not I had symptoms was I was completely asymptomatic my first thought
was I will no longer be playing competitive ice hockey but that's not acceptable so when I was
diagnosed and I had to choose who was gonna do this surgery I ended up selecting dr. Patrick
McCarthy I was loaded with questions and one of the first questions I asked him and his team I
said so tell me what my real odds are of surviving this surgery he looked me in the eye and he said
look I have a 99% success rate with this surgery and you he says leaning forward are not in the 1%
my name is Missy module I'm a physician assistant at Northwestern Memorial Hospital
in cardiac surgery mr. Steinberg had severe aortic regurgitation and we replaced his aortic
valve through a minimally invasive procedure patients should feel very comfortable here at
Northwestern because this is something that we do every day and we do have kind of a strict
regimen that we follow for our patients my name is Janice nukkie I'm a nurse practitioner and
I work in the cardiac surgery outpatient clinic at Northwestern I see patients with
dr. McCarthy and the cardiac surgery clinic for their consultations but I will get them
ready for surgery make sure all their testing is completed and make sure everything's ready and I
also see them in their follow-up when they come for their post-op visits when we see patients in
clinic I believe there is a lot of anxiety about cardiac surgery I think it's normal everyone
does recover and heal differently some patients need to be patient about the recovery because
then they get frustrated because they feel like they can't do the things that they want to do
the surgery was remarkably successful I had absolutely no issues I found out that I came
through it very quickly faster than he does these normally-on people my age I think mr. Steinberg
came into his surgery very healthy he was very active he had a great attitude the combination of
those things helped him recover very quickly from his surgery my post-op recovery was so critical
in my mind it was beyond amazing to have people of the quality of Janice Nicky and Missy on my team I
would want patients to know that in the ICU after surgery we have a very comprehensive team managing
their care the nurses the physician assistants the nurse practitioners the physicians the critical
care doctors a cardiologist there's a huge team of people that are all caring for our patients
after surgery honestly speaking my first game on the ice I was so relaxed it never occurred to me
I hadn't been playing and I show up and the guys are stunned and they're all over me like are you
okay if I got an elbow and I dropped the gloves and go you want to go we're all having fun and
the goal was you're gonna want to feel normal you want to get back to feeling what you think
normal is so you add up what I had in my mind the feedback I got at Chicago Northwestern you
saved the life in my view how could I be any more grateful for that how do you be grateful for that
you