Latest Weather Blog
BRG Survivor Series: Local resident shares story a decade after his battle with heart disease
Related Story
BATON ROUGE - Patton Brantley was on his way to celebrate his brother’s birthday when disaster struck.
“I was ironing a shirt to get ready to go to dinner. And as soon as I finished ironing the shirt, I’d taken a step and just felt like a rush went through my whole body. And it was very unnatural. So I was like, That was a little strange. So I sat down on the couch and just immediately started sweating like, like never before is like, dripping from my fingertips. That's when I was like, Something's wrong. We need to go to the hospital. The baby was almost one year old and my wife asked, "Do I have time to change the baby?" I was like, “No, you don't. We're going like, we're going now,” Patton said.
Patton knew he had a family history of heart disease, even at age 36.
“I'm the spitting image of my grandfather, and he had a heart attack at 42, and he passed away from that. My uncle has had a heart attack. My dad, before he passed away, had quadruple bypass surgery," he said.
After arriving at the Baton Rouge General, Patton learned that he had two blockages causing his heart attack.
"They went in through my wrist, did a balloon stent and my clogged arteries, put them in, and I was it, from when it started to when my procedure was done it was only 56 minutes. I always tell everybody that that was one of the more amazing aspects of it, Like you're in the room getting prepped and it was like a clock, like a perfect synchronized clock,” he said.
During recovery, Patton said he would often panic at any discomfort he was feeling, something that he was eventually able to overcome with the help of his cardiologist.
"You could call it PTSD or whatever you want to call it, but honestly, if I thought something was wrong, I would make my wife get in the car and we'd go sit in the parking lot of the Baton Rouge General and just sit," he said.
"Knowing that I could call Dr. Luikart at any time, he literally was like, I don't care what time it is, You can call me. Carrie and I took a beach trip to Orange Beach and I thought something was happening, So I called him. He's like, You're fine if you want to call somebody, you can, but this was probably like nine or ten at night, and it didn't matter, call him,” he said.
Patton says building a relationship with your cardiologist is just another part of staying proactive while battling heart disease.
“I feel like a lot of people would be a little timid to talk to their doctor honestly, because they may not know what their family history is. They may feel like I did before anything happened to me, feel like, oh, I'm invincible. Like nothing's going to happen to me. I'm going to be fine. I'm young, I'm energetic. Nah, that's not that's not the case. It doesn't matter. Heart disease doesn't care," he said.
Now a decade after his attack, Patton lives his normal life with just a small change to his daily routine.
“I take medication every night. And if that's going to keep me going and keep me healthy, that's easy. You know, if the hardest part of my week is separating the pills into the little pill box, I'm going to do it, you know, because I'm not literally not just doing it for myself. I've got three children now and they're my world so I'm not doing it for myself and to just stick around, I want to be there for them," he said.
News
