Jerry Sheridan loves to make people happy. He gets to do that a lot as the father of the founder of Sheridan’s Frozen Custard. At 81-years-old, he stays active in the company’s catering business while his sons run the day-to-day operations of the restaurants.
One day, while attending a meeting in eastern Missouri, Jerry suddenly became very sick, and had trouble breathing. He was taken to two different hospitals, where he was told the only thing that would save him was a heart transplant. His family was even told to rush to see him at the hospital in Columbia because he may not make it. Jerry’s daughter was a nurse and immediately arranged for him to be taken to the Center For Advanced Heart Care at The University of Kansas Health System.
When he arrived, the heart team realized he had only minutes to live, and immediately began treatment, which included stents to open the clogged arteries, and a temporary pump to help the blood resume normal flow. That was enough to keep him alive, and in a few days, doctors felt he had recovered enough to place a device in his chest called an implantable defibrillator/pacemaker. It’s a battery powered device placed under the skin that keeps track of a patient’s heart rate, and can automatically deliver a life-saving shock if needed. The best part is once a day, the device takes readings of the heart and sends the data back to the doctor’s office through a special bedside monitor while the patient sleeps.
Today after his close call, Jerry feels the best he has in years, and his doctors say it was the team approach that kept Jerry from needing a heart transplant.
In the video, Andrew Sauer, MD, medical director of heart transplant and the advanced heart failure program at The University of Kansas Health System, describes Jerry’s dire condition when he arrived at the hospital, what the heart team did and the long term plan for Jerry. He also explains how a new heart failure medicine called Entresto is helping Jerry, and how he may not have survived without coming to The University of Kansas Health System.
Also in the video, Jerry Sheridan talks about what happened, what the doctors did, and why the device in his chest gives him such peace of mind. He also talks about the “miracle drug” Entresto he’s taking for heart failure, how he’s feeling today, and even though he was told he only had ten minutes to live, how grateful he was that it wasn’t his time.
The video also shows Jerry in his home, the bedside monitor, the device implanted in his chest, and a technician reading the device results transmitted from Jerry’s home to the hospital.