At 88 years of age, Joe Carpen of Hessville still works part-time as a courier for a firm based in Merrillville.
“I was feeling great that day in May 2019,” he says. “I had just got done with my route when I stopped in Meijer to do some shopping. Before heading to the checkout counter, I stopped in the frozen food section and that’s where I passed out. I went down and didn’t know how I got there when I came to.”
EMTs in the ambulance told Carpen that his heart was working at only 20 percent. Carpen has a family history of heart disease, had undergone a bypass 24 years ear¬lier and more recently had a heart stent implanted.
This time, Carpen was fitted with a pacemaker and underwent a stress test before being released from the hospital.
After the stress test, Carpen’s cardiologist, Abdul Kawamleh, MD, on staff at St. Mary Medical Center, asked how he felt.
“I told him, ‘Not too good.’ He asked if anyone had ever told me that I had a bad aortic valve in my heart. I said, ‘No, you’re the first one.’ He got me an appointment with Dr. Abbas the very next day. I am grateful.”
At the appointment, Carpen’s doctors told him that he needed to undergo the TAVR procedure.
TAVR does not require the patient to be placed on a bypass machine to breathe. Instead, under sedation, a catheter is inserted either into the arm or the groin and threaded through an artery to the heart to deliver the replacement valve. The original damaged aortic valve is left in place. Once the new valve is set in position and expanded, it pushes the original valve leaflets out of the way and the tissue in the replacement valve takes over the job of regulating blood flow.
“I stayed at Community Hospital just one day after the procedure,” Carpen says. “The care was very good. I’m feeling better. I still get out to bowl twice a week with my fellow alumni from Lever Brothers. Only the good Lord knows what the future holds.”
For more information on the Structural Heart & Valve Center at the hospitals of Community Healthcare System, call 219-703-5301 or visit COMHS.org/heart.
