David Tupper: Amazing His Doctors

"As I lay there, there was such extreme danger to the heart that they weren't sure what they were going to do with me. They were real concerned that I wasn't going to make it."

That's how 47-year-old David Tupper from Gresham, Oregon USA, described his experience after heart surgery three years ago.

Today, David would much rather describe his experience on the trail of the 129-mile Portland to Coast Walk, the sister event to the infamous and arduous Hood to Coast Relay.

In August 2003, David completed one leg of the relay (about five miles), walking an average of 13.5 minutes per mile—a personal best.

So, to what does David attribute his dramatic recovery? The answer is easy: determination, inspiration from others, and St. Jude Medical products.

In January 2000, David went to the hospital because he was having difficulty breathing. What he thought was asthma, was diagnosed as a heart attack. Doctors detected that he had previously suffered a couple of heart attacks. His heart was severely damaged.

Within the year, David found himself in the hospital for surgery to replace his leaky mitral valve with a St. Jude Medical valve, repair a blocked artery, and receive a St. Jude Medical pacemaker for rate control. (Learn more about pacemaker implantation.)

"I was in the hospital for 17 days," said David. "They just weren't sure what was going to happen."

What happened was that each day, David showed a little progress. Finally, doctors sent him home to recover from surgery and to await a possible heart transplant.

"I was not really sure what to do, though," said David. "So, I asked a nurse, 'How am I supposed to live? Am I supposed to go around like I'm going to get a transplant and take it easy?' She said, "Why don't you just try living like you're living?' I didn't know any better, so I just did that. I went along my days the best I could, adjusting to the heart medications, the valve, and the pacemaker."

When David arrived at the hospital for his two-month follow-up appointment, the doctors were amazed. He recalled, "The cardiologist said, 'I don't know what to tell you. For a person with your heart condition, you should be lying in the hospital waiting for a transplant!'"

David's cardiologist explained that medical technology moves quickly and that there were many new things coming down the line for heart patients. The longer David could wait without getting a transplant, the better.

"So, we just kept going, and we haven't looked back," explained David. "I have continually tried to amaze the doctors with what I can do. Sometimes I don't know how I do what I do, except that I draw a lot of inspiration from others."

As part of his recovery, David joined a cardiac therapy class at the local YMCA. It was with this group that David participated in the Portland to Coast Walk.

"They are all older than me, so there's a lot of great advice out there," he said of his classmates. "I get a lot of motivation from them, watching them as they move past their physical concerns."

As David's physician noted, technological advances did provide more treatment options. Early in 2003, David received a St. Jude Medical Epic™ DR implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). (Learn more about ICD implantation.) This was in response to a recent study that found that heart attack survivors with certain physical factors benefit from ICD therapy. (Learn more about Heart Attack and Sudden Cardiac Arrest.)

"It brings me comfort just knowing that it's there for me just in case my heart goes into an arrhythmia," David said of his ICD.

So, with his determination, inspiration from others, and his ICD, to which he refers to as his insurance policy, David is looking forward to life. For him that means being strong for his family—his wife, Karla, and teenage daughters, Monica and Michelle—challenging himself, and continuing to amaze his doctors.

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