On September 11, 2001 Tom Vallely had a heart attack. He didn’t know it was a heart attack. He had been a construction worker/superintendent all his life and was fit, strong and always busy with some project. His wife, Rita, was in Hayward at the time, staying at their cabin on Lovejoy Lake.
Tom was hauling shingles for the gazebo in their yard in Lombard, Illinois, when he said he started to feel weak, sweaty and faint. It was a hot, uncomfortable day, so he sat down on the bundle of shingles to rest. He later felt better but didn’t go to the doctor.
A month later, while getting a routine physical from his doctor, including an EKG, his doctor told him he had had a heart attack. So began a very long year for both Tom and Rita who wanted to share this story with others—a story that’s not uncommon yet is always unique, distinctive and solitary to the person going through it.
After his doctor confirmed that he had earlier suffered a heart attack, he began having Tom get annual stress tests. In 2007 he scheduled an angiogram. At that time, they installed two stents and prescribed blood thinners. There were more frequent visits to the cardiologist now, with tests at almost every visit.
“On my visit of April of 2023, the doctor asked how I was feeling. I told him, ‘fine,’ but a week earlier I was putting lawn furniture out and cleaning the windows and later that day my right shoulder and side of my back was sore,” Tom told the doctor.
The doctor scheduled tests, including an echocardiogram and a nuclear stress test, put him back on blood thinners, which he had been off of for a couple of years, and scheduled another angiogram that showed more blockages in the stents.
“With that, they recommended surgery,” Tom said.
The surgeon talked to Tom and Rita about the surgery but Tom said, “I didn’t want to hear all that.” He said to the doctor, “I’ve had two knee surgeries and hip replacement, so this can’t be so bad. Just do it.”
Rita understood the seriousness of the situation and was scared. The doctor told her to get things in order—their will, their burial wishes, power of attorney, etc. She was scared but “absolutely optimistic,” she told the Record.
On September 19, 2023 Tom had triple bypass surgery at Good Samaritan Hospital in Downer’s Grove, Illinois. He went in to surgery at 1 p.m. and came out a little after 7 p.m., taking his place in the ICU unit.
“I don’t remember anything about the surgery,” Tom said, adding that he does remember they couldn’t get his wedding ring off his finger as they were prepping him for surgery. The ring had been on his finger for 53 years. His left hand and fingers and left leg were very swollen. One of the nurses managed to get it off and took it out to Rita.
Rita, who stayed at the hospital the entire time along with their two daughters, said the surgical team texted her hourly about how things were proceeding in the operating room.
“I was able to see him about 8 p.m. As soon as I saw him, I was relieved. His color was pink,” she said.
Tom had regained his sense of humor by that time, waking up to a lot of tubes, titanium clips, wires, staples and bandages. He said to the nurse, “What happened? I thought I came in for a caesarean section!”
Tom said he was hoarse from the breathing tube they used during surgery and he had an ace bandage that went from his ankle to his groin area, because they had harvested a vein to use for the bypass.
“The next day they came in with an x-ray machine to see if everything was in place. I asked them, ‘Did the surgeon lose something?’”
Tom was in ICU for four days, then moved to a regular room. On the sixth day he was given a shower and shampoo.
“In my stay at the hospital every nurse was very polite and I thought they were very nice. I never had any pain the whole time after surgery, just a little tenderness,” Tom said.
He was discharged seven days after the surgery and told not to lift his arms over his head and not to lift anything weighing more than a gallon of milk. They also gave him a red, heart-shaped pillow and a walker.
Back at home, Tom had home care, with a nurse and a physical therapist a couple days a week for three weeks.
Then he entered into a 12-week cardiac rehab program at the hospital that was scheduled Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, approximately one hour per day.
“The workout equipment consisted of treadmills, adjusted for speed and walking, and a recumbent machine called a NuStep, designed for low impact cardio and strength training, using the legs and the arms,” Tom said. There was also an arm crank which he moved in one direction for five minutes, and then the opposite direction. Before any of this, they took his blood pressure and attached three terminals to his chest which were connected to a monitor that two cardiac-care nurses constantly watched. Blood pressure was taken every 30 minutes.
Tom graduated from his cardiac rehab program 12 weeks later.
Now, almost a year later, Tom says he is very grateful. He paces himself, watches his diet, (dropped his weight from 279 to 235 pounds), and gets moderate exercise by walking every day.
His cardiologist told him he can have one beer a day. He asked Rita if he could have five beers on Saturday if he doesn’t have any during the week.
Rita said her advice to others who go through this with a spouse/partner is to not hesitate to ask the surgeon a lot of questions; ask for a diagram of what’s going to happen, i.e., placement of stents, blocked arteries, where the vein will be used in the bypass; and be aware of your spouse’s reaction to pain, mental attitude and physical capabilities.
Tom said he sees the doctor every six months now. He now understands how serious the surgery was. He recommends humor to help heal yourself. Today, Tom is another year older at 81 and knows he was fortunate to have had the surgery.
“Put your faith and trust in the hands of whoever or whatever your Almighty is. For us, it was God,” Rita said.
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