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William Cooper calls Atlanta, a two-hour flight from Kansas City, his hometown, where he is a contract heart surgeon.
A proud Kansas City Chiefs fan, Cooper displayed the team’s logo on his jacket during a Zoom interview just one week after the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory.
The excitement of Sunday’s Super Bowl included an unexpected trip to the emergency room after Cooper felt chest pains.
Without hesitation, Cooper called a colleague and headed to the hospital. In the end, his test results came back negative for a cardiac event, and the pain he experienced was likely the result of overexertion from his previous training.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, chest pain is more common in athletes over the age of 35 than in those who lead less active lifestyles.
But Cooper knows that genetic factors contribute to the likelihood of developing heart disease, regardless of age. So after losing her two brothers to heart disease, she shares her family’s medical history with her children and encourages them to get tested.
What made you decide to pursue a career as a cardiothoracic surgeon?
That story has been unfolding for me ever since I was born. I’ve always been a bit precocious and someone who figures things out quickly. I had a very strong interest in biological sciences. But what really turned me upside down was her mother passing away when I was her 14th year old. Her mother died of pancreatic cancer when she was 46 years old and had eight children.
As a 14-year-old, the absence of my mother had a huge impact on me, and I felt angry. I thought, “God, why did you do this?” But I turned that into a desire to overcome and cure cancer.
At that point, I had no doubt that I would become a doctor. And I wasn’t going to back down from that effort. But the reality is that when I entered medical school, I could never fathom seeing more and more people die from cancer like my mother.
When I was in medical school, I connected with several cardiovascular surgeons who were very good at interacting with students. They motivated me and gave me confidence that I could do this.
Unfortunately, a few years later, my sister and brother died of heart attacks.
How has the personal tragedy of losing a family member to the same disease you are treating impacted your experience as a surgeon?
Therefore, our families are in many ways a microcosm of society, no more so than when it comes to genetic makeup. So it gave me perspective. This has allowed me to be honest with people about different perspectives on the whole idea of cardiovascular disease. Because it touched my heart.
And I’m glad you asked me this question because I think a lot of us don’t really think about it until the leaves are falling in our backyard. Then you have to scrape it up. As you know, there are leaves falling in your neighbor’s garden. It’s not my problem. But guess what? Heart disease and physical ailments will someday hit your backyard.
It not only influences the way I work and approach my personal health, but also the way I counsel.
It may seem strange, but frankly I hope that my family’s tragedy became a life of knowledge for someone else. I got really, really interested in the whole concept of cardiac genetics as it relates to heart disease. Throughout my career, I believe that the strongest risk factor is family history.
I’ve had perfectly normal people with strong family histories of heart disease come to me with heart attacks, need heart surgery, have had stents put in, and all the other symptoms. I’ve seen it held. So I started really thinking about the idea of genetics and family history as it relates to cardiovascular disease.
How have you communicated your family’s history of cardiovascular disease and your own medical experiences to your children?
There’s another little part of this story that I need to talk about first. In 2003 I was deployed to Iraq in the Army Reserve. I came back from that deployment, and over the next two, three, or four years, he developed PTSD. It manifested itself through overwhelming intrusive thoughts about dying young and prematurely. And one of the therapies for me became keeping a journal and writing things down.
As a result, I ended up writing a book titled “Heart Attack: Truth, Tragedy, and Triumph.” The first chapter of the book is about family history. I also think about the deaths of my mother, my sister, my sister and brother Vicki and Alvin who died of heart disease, my sister Janice who died of cancer, and my oldest brother Alex who died of HIV/AIDS.
It was therapeutic for me because it was the thought of leaving my children prematurely that caused so much fear for me. When I started writing this, I was writing a story to let them know about it.
Conversation is not difficult. It may be painful to think about it, but it’s only for a moment. Because then the reality sets in that they’re still here, you’re still here, and you’re here to have this conversation. That’s the beauty.
I am not going to allow my children to go through life without knowing they are at risk or have heart problems. So I’ll take the test. That’s how we communicate. We must be very open and honest with our children and loved ones about things that are important to them as well as to us.
Given the instances of death that you encounter in your professional capacity, what methods do you utilize to reduce their psychological impact?
Over the last 10-15 years, I have become a more spiritual person. Exposure to spirituality and a deeper sense of self can be very helpful in this regard. So, instead of wasting that energy, I put my energy into doing everything I can to benefit everyone I meet when it comes to their health.
I step away from books and academic rhetoric and statistics and just start talking to people. I start talking to people and try to meet them where they are. I understand that they don’t have the same knowledge as me, but I also remind them that the knowledge they do have is very powerful and they don’t have to rely on just one person’s opinion or advice when the time comes. I am. For their health.
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