It was a beautiful day on the tennis courts as the then 42-year-old David Calhoon finished another game. He was playing mixed doubles with friends. But the group never finished the last set. A nagging pain across David' s chest made him call it a day - probably just a pulled muscle or something, he remembers thinking at the time. Going to work the next day at Aerojet, the rocket engineer still felt bad. "I thought I had the flu," David recalls. Luckily, he decided to see his family practitioner, Stephen Heck, M.D., who immediately sent him to Sutter Memorial Hospital. During the short drive to the hospital, David thought at first his doctor was over-reacting. However, the subsequent results of his EKG and blood tests convinced him his doctor had been prudent.

David had experienced a moderate heart attack with all the classic symptoms - uncomfortable ache in the center of the chest, pain spreading to shoulders and arms, lightheadedness and nausea. For David, this attack may have saved his life.

Sutter Heart & Vascular Institute cardiologist Melvin Flamm, M.D., performed an angiogram and found David's left main descending artery was 95 percent blocked. The first of two bypass operations followed. Although bypass surgery was relatively new at the time, Sutter Memorial was one of the pioneers in the field. David came through the first bypass with flying colors and was able to return home. "That's when things really got ugly," he says. David was readmitted to the hospital with ventricular tachycardia (abnormally high heart rate). His heart had accelerated to 300 beats per minute. "I was going into v-tach (ventricular tachycardia) so often, that the hospital kept a crash cart right outside my door," says David, who recalls the wonderful care he received from the doctors and nurses. A second surgery was possible but the cardiac team decided to try a less invasive alternative, a new drug called amiodarone. The potent antiarrhythmic drug restored David's heart to a more normal rhythm and the corrective surgery was cancelled.

"It was tough on the doctors and nurses. They worked so hard to keep me alive, and I was not an easy patient," he says.

One of those nurses was Carol Keating, who also worked in Sutter's Cardiac Rehabilitation program. "I basically followed him from the hospital to the rehab unit," says Keating. David was placed on a monitored exercise program and given instruction on diet and other factors to help him return to a healthy life. Not one to do things half way, David started running on his own with support from the cardiac rehab staff, ultimately completing a half marathon. "I ran for probably 10 years," says David.

Although he was functioning fairly well, David's heart was wearing out. Approximately 10 years after his first bypass, Dr. Flamm recommended a second operation. Cardiac surgeon Kuppe Shankar, M.D. performed the seven-way bypass.

However, David's disease continued to progress. Electrophysiologist, Larry Wolff, M.D., prescribed medications that kept the v-tach at bay for five more years. Then, a near fatal v-tach episode occurred promoting Dr. Wolff to suggest a heart transplant. David was resistant. "He's a very intelligent man who knew what was going on with his body," says Dr. Wolff. "He wasn't ready for a heart transplant so we implanted a defibrillator instead." This battery-powered device monitors the heart and, if necessary, corrects an irregular heart rhythm by sending electrical charges to the heart.

The defibrillator worked overtime sending electrical charges to David's heart every two to three weeks. "When it shocks you to restore your rhythm, it's brutal. One time I was in the middle of a staff meeting and ended up on the floor," he recalls. "It got to the point that I had to retire. I was afraid to even leave the house."

To minimize David's discomfort, Dr. Wolff used a non-surgical procedure known as radio frequency ablation, which allows the physician to destroy very small parts of the heart that are causing the irregular heart rhythms. Once again, the procedure extended the life of David's heart until he finally agreed to a heart transplant. David credits Michael Ingram, M.D., from Sacramento Cardiovascular Surgeons Medical Group, with helping him change his mind; "Dr. Ingram told me he'd rather be six months too early than five minutes too late. That made a lot of sense to me!"

With his usual analytical approach, David researched the various hospitals that performed transplants. "I found that Sutter had an incredible patient success record," explains the reluctant patient. On Feb. 26, 2000, David received his new heart.

"Dr. Wolff was right," David says. "I should have had the transplant sooner. We cut this one too close. A transplanted heart may not work as well as a healthy original one, but it sure works better than the one I had." David credits the entire transplant team with his successful operation; "They are very careful with their patients and follow a strict protocol to find the best match. Their post-operative care is superb, and they do a great job caring for and maintaining the new heart. That's the really difficult part."

Currently, David returns to Sutter every three to four months to monitor his progress and regulate his drug usage. However, he sees Dr. Wolff in between visits. "We've become friends over the years. I even got him to go duck hunting with me," says a smiling and healthy David. According to Dr. Wolff, not only has David become a friend, he has also been a "very instructive" patient. "You normally do one or two different procedures on one patient," says Dr. Wolff. "But, with David, we got to try just about everything!."

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