Tom Price

Tom Price of Clay, New York, is a long-distance runner. He’s completed seven full marathons and many half marathons. Tom has always been conscientious about his health because his father died from his second heart attack at the age of 62. Tom made regular visits to his general practitioner, who had monitored his mild heart murmur for about five years. When Tom went in for a routine checkup in order to refill an allergy medication prescription, Tom’s doctor discovered that the murmur had worsened and recommended that Tom get an echocardiogram. The echo showed moderate to severe regurgitation, calcification, and a bicuspid aortic valve. But Tom kept running. In fact, he ran the inaugural Disneyland Half Marathon in September 2006. Unfortunately, Tom didn’t know at the time that it would be his last race for quite some time. By November 2006, Tom could barely finish running a mile and was experiencing chest pains and lethargy.
Tom met with cardiologist, Dr. Ron Caputo, to discuss the symptoms he was experiencing, and scheduled his surgery at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, New York. On January 25, 2007 Dr. Ahmed Nazem successfully replaced Tom’s aortic heart valve with a Carpentier-Edwards PERIMOUNT Magna aortic valve. Dr. Nazem and Tom chose this Edwards valve for its durability and proven performance. After only four days in the hospital, Tom was released. He would have been home a day sooner, but his recovery occurred over a weekend.
Within six weeks of his surgery, Tom returned to his job as a warehouse manager. Even more to his delight, Tom was running again only eight weeks after his operation. Tom is feeling “much better than when he was symptomatic” and is training to get back to his pre-op physical condition. Tom also found a group of fellow runners online through a website called “Cardiac Athletes.” These runners have all had some sort of heart surgery – from heart valve repair to heart valve replacements. Together, they completed a half marathon in New Jersey in May 2008.
At the beginning of September 2008, Tom made his annual visit to follow-up with his cardiologist, Dr, Caputo, and received the green light to run a full marathon. On November 2, 2008, less than two years after his surgery, Tom completed the New York City Marathon in a little over five hours. Around Mile 21, Tom started to cramp up and had to switch off between stretching, walking, and running. It was at this point, however, that Tom decided he would “finish the race no matter what” and award his finisher’s medal to Dr. Caputo. Tom arranged for a news crew to cover the symbolic medal exchange about a week after the race, and took Dr. Caputo completely by surprise. Tom hasn’t chosen which race will be his next, but knows that he has a long future of running ahead of him.