As he recounts the day he collapsed in his home in Guatemala, William Stixrud, 80, father of five, retired civil engineer and former ambassador to the U.S., gets understandably emotional as he ponders the decision that was facing his large, closely knit family. Mr. Stixrud suffered a “type A” dissection, a life-threatening tear in the ascending part of the aorta, just as it branches off the heart.
[Transcript]
- I was blessed with five daughters. My children who work with me in this development coffee business and macadamia business. We love Guatemala. We love our family. We were blessed to have everybody nearby. I fell in the bathroom. I don't know how I got to the Guatemalan hospital, and they did what they could do with equipment that they have in Guatemala and they said, "Well, this is as far as we can go." They say, "Well, go to the Baptist healthcare." I can just imagine my family, the most difficult part for them was to decide what to do. It must have been very difficult for them to decide
- As he suffered a cardiac arrest during his sternotomy, they put some drainage tubes, and because they noticed that they could not handle this catastrophe, they transferred the patient to us.
- Our foundation of the international team is building relationships abroad, and then being of service. We knew that if we couldn't get him here to the right doctor at the right time, we wouldn't be able to save his life.
- [William] Through him a lot of things happened very quickly. International team of the Baptist coordinated everything with very professional way.
- We transferred him to the operating room right away, did a open heart operation, and total aortic arch replacement, and aortic root operation. His ruptured aorta was complex. That required extensive and more experienced team to take care of him. Miami Cardiovascular Institute, we are the first center in Florida that do this operation. It's very state of the art technique.
- It's these cases that come out to win. At the end of the day, you felt like your team did something great. There's a motto here at Baptist Health is people helping people, and that's truly what we do.
- Mr. William, he is going to do fine. He is full of energy, and he already sent me a picture hiking with his family. It makes my day so that I come to work again the next day and do another complex operation.
- The recovery has been very fast, able to walk, and eat, and take a bath by myself. It's very lucky to have somebody with such experience in this procedure, and it never passed through my mind that life has a moment to finish. Now I think a little different. I'm going to see if we can do some trips with my wife and my family.
