Tinley Park Man Finally Listened to His Heart’s Warnings

Jason Glenn was mowing the lawn on a hot, early-August day last year when he had to stop about two passes into it.

“It was hard to breathe, and I could feel my heart racing,” said Glenn, of Tinley Park, then 53 years old.

“I went inside to sit down, and my wife, Lisa, said she would finish mowing, so I knew there was a problem.”

Glenn had felt the symptoms before, but he passed it off as an anxiety attack. He nearly did this time as well, but something told him to get to the Emergency Department at Silver Cross Hospital in New Lenox.

“I knew if I didn’t, I would just blow it off again. And I had a guy’s trip planned to Wisconsin that weekend. If I went, I probably wouldn’t have come back,” he said.

A Message to Others

Thanks to the persistence of Interventional Cardiologist Dr. Hazem Alhawasli and the skilled hands of Cardiothoracic Surgeon Dr. Pat Pappas, Glenn is alive today, and he’s taking every opportunity to tell others to listen to their body’s warnings.

“It was an eye-opener, for sure,” he said.

Although his initial tests looked good, Dr. Alhawasli was concerned because Glenn could not complete a treadmill stress test. An angiogram the next day gave a clearer picture.

“I had two arteries that were 99 percent blocked, one that was 90 percent blocked and another that was 100 percent blocked,” Glenn said. “But since they were all blocked nearly the same, the problems weren’t showing up on the tests. Dr. Alhawasli saved my life.”

Three days later, after learning one of the arteries had rerouted, Dr. Pappas performed a triple bypass. After nine more days in the hospital, Glenn was released and referred to the cardiac rehabilitation program at Silver Cross.

Despite some lingering symptoms due to medication side effects, Glenn and his wife took a planned cruise with a stop in Aruba.

“I wanted to do it for her, for all she had been through.”

Not only did the symptoms subside, he said his fitness tracker showed he had walked seven miles that day.

“I knew then I was back,” said Glenn, a service writer for an auto dealership, who has only a handful of cardiac rehabilitation sessions at Silver Cross remaining.

Based on his experience, several of his friends had calcium artery scoring CT heart scans to make sure they were OK. Thankfully, he said, all came back clear.

Glenn praised Dr. Alhawasli and Dr. Pappas and said the hospital nurses and staff were “phenomenal,” keeping up his spirits during a very scary time.

“I told the nurses before the surgery that I’m very claustrophobic, so if there was anything in my throat afterward, I would likely panic. When I woke up from surgery, I did have the tube in my throat, but the nurse said they would be taking it out real soon and not to worry. I’m feeling really good. And my suggestion is, listen to your body when it’s trying to tell you something. Don’t blow it off!”

Highest Rating for Heart Surgery

Silver Cross Hospital recently earned a distinguished three-star rating from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) for its patient care and outcomes in isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedures. The three-star rating, which denotes the highest category of quality, places Silver Cross among the most elite for open heart surgery in the United States and Canada. The hospital’s heart surgery program launched in May 2019, is currently ranked #2 in Illinois by Healthgrades and is one of the highest-volume hospitals for heart surgery in the state.

For more information, visit www.silvercross.org/heart