SAN ANTONIO – February is American Heart Month, and a local doctor is hoping others will hear his story and get more serious and committed to their own heart health.
Dr. Eloy Ochoa is an orthopedic surgeon who can also say he is a heart attack survivor.
Almost two months ago, following Christmas celebrations, Ochoa went from planning to perform surgery the next day to being told he needed surgery.
“Christmas Day was great. We did a lot of cooking and had a good time with the family, as we normally do,” Ochoa said. “And I went to bed ready to go to work the next day like I normally did. I had two surgeries scheduled.”
But around 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 26, he said something abnormal woke him up.
“(I had these) kind of hot sweats and just a weird sensation in this kind of general area of the body,” he said, using his hand to make a circling motion around his chest. “Not really pain, not really pressure, but it’s something I’d never really felt before.”
Not taking any chances, Ochoa said he got dressed and went to the emergency room at North Central Baptist Hospital.
But once he got inside the emergency room, he said his symptoms subsided and stopped.
When he described his chest symptoms to the ER staff, it activated a diagnostic protocol that included an electrocardiogram, also known as an EKG or ECG.
Ochoa said knowing his family’s history of heart disease combined with his symptoms meant he wasn’t surprised at what he heard next.
“They got the EKG on, and they told me, ‘Yeah, you’re having a heart attack.’”
The protocol also included a cardiac catheterization.
Cardiologist Dr. Scott Moore with the Baptist Medical Network treated Ochoa that night.
He said the cardiac catheterization showed just how serious Ochoa’s situation was.
“We advance the catheter up to the heart and injected dye to take pictures of the blood vessels to the heart,” Moore explained. “He actually did have multiple blockages involving all the major coronary arteries.”
Moore shared his findings with Ochoa.
“He noticed the vessel disease was so advanced that he couldn’t treat it with a stent, so he opted for bypass surgery, which we did 48 hours later,” Ochoa said.
Ochoa underwent open heart surgery, and his surgeon performed a quadruple bypass.
Two days after his surgery, Ochoa was out of bed and was soon in the Baptist Health Link Cardiac Rehab.
On Tuesday, he told KSAT, “I just started jogging this week and been back to work for two and a half weeks and starting to do surgery this week again, which is nice.”
Ochoa said you could describe him as an active person.
“I participated in a half Ironman, a full Ironman and more recently just, you know, I exercise in my garage and pretty vigorously,” Ochoa said.
He said he noticed some differences in the way he felt when he exercised but described it as subtle.
Using that as a reference point, he said a person may want to be a little more verbal about those subtleties with their physician.
Ochoa said everyone needs to be self-aware and shouldn’t be afraid to ask any questions they might have.
He said that sometimes there are things like genetics that are out your control. But Ochoa is encouraging others who hear or read his story to be proactive about the things they can control.
“Take your medicine, have a good diet, exercise,” he said. “Listen to your body. If you feel anything that’s just unique or different, do not hesitate and go to the ER, because it can make a huge difference.”
As his recovery continues, Ochoa expressed gratitude and appreciation for his entire medical team, from the ER staff to the surgical team, intensive care unit and the daily care and rehab teams.
“This team is second to none, so I was very happy that they took care of me,” Ochoa said.
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