Hello,
My name is John Hajec and in February 2022 at age 47, I had a surprise aortic dissection.
My wife and I were driving from the Detroit, MI area to Marquette, MI to see our daughter perform in a theater production at NMU.
My parents were following behind us and we all stopped for gas in
St. Ignace on the north side of the Mackinaw Bridge.
Just after we pulled up to the pump, I felt a quick tearing sensation shoot down the center of my chest, it didn't seem like anything I ever felt before.
I got out, began feeling lightheaded, and told my wife I thought something was wrong with my heart and we went into the gas station.
I checked for a pulse but could not detect one so I asked for 911 and some aspirin to chew up and then I took a crouching position against a wall until EMS arrived.
When they arrived they asked if I thought I could walk to the ambulance; I don't remember all of this but I lost consciousness a couple of times before I was loaded on the stretcher, my BP was 80/40 and the pain although not unbearable was starting to spread to my back.
I was taken to Mackinaw Straits Hospital where I was quickly diagnosed with a Type A dissection. The doctor came in and explained how serious this was, that I needed emergency open heart surgery and that there was a chance that I might die. Then he went on to explain that I couldn’t be airlifted due to the snowstorm and also, they didn’t have any ground transportation at the time.
While they worked on finding a surgical team at the nearest hospitals, they called around for help with transportation. During this time they invited my family in to be with me.
I knew what this meant because before then they had told my family to wait in the parking lot due to COVID restrictions.
My family didn’t quite grasp what was happening and I think they may have thought I was overreacting when I started telling them things I wanted them to know.
I was simultaneously making peace with my mortality while also in work mode getting passwords and important insurance info to my wife. I did a lot of praying and had a feeling that somehow this was going to work out.
After 5 hours at the first hospital, an ambulance showed up to take me to Munson Hospital in Traverse City, about a 3-hour drive in the bad weather conditions. Once there, I had a successful 6.5-hour surgery.
My aneurysm was 7.1 cm, and I got a Dacron replacement and a graft in my left femoral artery. I was in ICU for seven days, they were talking about releasing me after five but kept me for two additional days due to back pain one morning and then because of a slight fever another morning, both situations turned out to be nothing serious.
I did well in the ICU and returned to work after 6 weeks, though I should have stayed out for two more weeks because I had a TIA on my 3rd day back to work.
In retrospect, there were both physical and spiritual signs that something was wrong. In the previous couple of years, I did some steep-incline hiking that seemed to wear me out much more than normal.
I had been very active in physically demanding jobs and did a lot of hiking up until around 2013 when I took an office position.
I chalked this change in endurance up to several years of sitting at a desk.
That summer my wife and I were on a hike and I became concerned about my heart rate and exhaustion, to the point that that we decided to turn back on our hike. In the weeks before the dissection, I helped a family member move out of one location and into another and took note that my endurance was lower than normal but again I thought it was my age and activity level that was the reason for this.
I had a history of smoking but had quit 12 years before this happened, I don't know if I have a connective tissue disorder.
In the year leading up, I had frequent thoughts about my mortality and sensed something impending, I even took out a life insurance policy on myself.
The morning of my event I shoveled snow in front of several homes and chipped ice off my neighbor's car. I was in good spirits but for some reason, I played some particular classical music that I love and told my wife that I would want that played at my funeral.
Of all the times listening to my gut proved to be the right choice I ignored it when it mattered the most, but then again, maybe any other way this went would have been worse.
The Cardiothoracic Surgeons of Grand Traverse are great and I felt like I was in the best possible care. I am currently showing no significant changes in my condition and am getting a yearly CT.
Sincerely,
John Hajec
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