“I’ve always been the healthy, athletic type,” Jodi Boyce-Thelen says, “but on a morning in January, when I was working out at the gym, I felt tightness in my chest.”
Jodi, 42, thought it might be something she ate. Maybe it was the cold January weather. She felt the tightness when she was running on the track, but it subsided as soon as she started weight lifting. It was probably nothing, she thought.
Unbeknownst to her, Jodi had just experienced a spontaneous coronary dissection—a sudden tear in her coronary artery. Fortunately she went to the doctor and went through a series of tests. They discovered her left main coronary artery was 90% blocked.
Jodi was rushed into the operating room at Spectrum Health Fred & Lena Meijer Heart Center for double bypass heart surgery.
About one month after surgery, she began cardiac rehabilitation. Jodi wanted to feel like herself again, to be able to run and lift weights and enjoy sports without worry.
“We want our patients to be healthier than ever,” says Jennifer Zinser, Jodi’s cardiac rehab nurse. “Our goal is to teach people to become independent again, to learn healthy habits and maintain them. We teach skills that you can take to any gym or situation.”
With her family supporting her every step of the way, Jodi worked hard in cardiac rehab.
“The rehab nurses became like members of our family,” she says. “They gave me my confidence back.”
“The seamless transition my health care team provided from diagnosis to surgery to homecoming to rehab—they saved my life,” Jodi says.
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