My Mission Statement
My Mission Statement
Concisely stated: Help Men avoid serious health issues and possible death by seeing a family doctor once a year for an annual checkup!
I lost a close friend to a sudden heart attack in January of 2023. Steve and a group of neighbors were at my house Friday evening for a bonfire. We hung out burning our Christmas trees and having a few beers. I even drove with Steve alone back to his house on his golf cart to pick up his tree. We never talked about how he was feeling. I didn’t ask. He had a serious fall the year before while hanging Christmas lights and I am sure was having some pain. When I was cleaning up after Steve went home I remember pouring out some of his remaining Michelob ULTRA. Steve never failed to finish a beer and he could drink ULTRA like water. The next morning Steve’s wife called just before 9, Steve was dead, he died sometime in the night from a massive heart attack. I wish I had back that Friday night and I wish I had asked Steve how he was doing. Did he ignore the signs I feel he was surely having that evening. I failed my mission that evening.
My mission comes after I recovered from my near fatal situation in 2000, which started my journey of heart disease. After my diagnosis I grieved, asking “WHY ME”? Fortunately, I found the answer to that question pretty quickly. Being a Christion, I believe that God gave me my second chance for a reason, and that is to tell as many men as I can about my journey and encourage them to find a good primary care doctor who will spend the time necessary to hear them and listen to what is going on with their bodies. I am forever grateful to Dr. Ronald Vincencio for his willingness to explore with me my non-classic symptoms and order more tests instead of just sending me home as I hear too often is the case in so many patients’ experience which I personally know resulted in two peoples premature demise.
But men need to make the appointment. Hear me MEN! My Mission is for you to search out and find a good family physician and make an annual appointment with them even if you think nothing is wrong. Don’t worry about diagnosing yourself or googling WebMD, just make the APPOINTMENT! Too many men choose to ignore their body and play it tough. That was certainly Steve. DON’T! Your body will let you know when something is wrong, Listen! Don’t think “oh I must have pulled something” or “it’s just that I’m tired” or “I’ll wait a day or two, I am sure it will go away”. Listen!
If it hadn’t been for my colleague and friend Chris Petruccelli telling me in early 2000 to go see Dr. Vincencio, that I was probably just having acid reflux, like he had the year before, I may not be here to tell you to go to a doctor. When I had my first angiogram in March of 2000, I was 36 years old. I had a family history of heart disease on my mother’s side of the family and while I knew my cholesterol was on the high side from tests I had had as a teenager, I had not had a physical or seen a doctor for anything other than orthopedic injuries since my physical to play football in high school. The results of the angiogram was that two main vessels were 90% and 99% occluded. Fortunately they were able to do My cardiologist said if I had gone on my trip skiing in Colorado in that condition, it was likely that I would not have made it off the mountain. My angiogram was the day before the trip to Colorado.
Since my experience, I have had the opportunity to speak to a number of groups of men. My first was at church where I was the co-sponsor of a class called “Raising a Modern Day Knight”. This was a course dedicated to men raising their sons in a godly manner. I highly recommend the course. The class was a room of about 20 men, and I took the opportunity to not only teach them how to raise their son’s but more importantly how to be there TO raise their sons.
Since 2009, I have taught law students Negotiation and Mediation for Stetson College of Law. I always start my semester off with a brief story of why I no longer practice law and how mediation has been my avenue to stay involved in law and how I got into teaching the course. I encourage my male students to find that doctor who will listen and hear them and that late 20’s or early 30’s was not too early to establish that relationship. I explain that managing not just their cases but also their diet and wellbeing are all important factors in being a good attorney.
In 2011, I started teaching undergrads at St. Leo University. Some of these young men were only recently graduated from high school. Unfortunately, my cholesterol level is determined more from genetics than diet. My two children, Ashlyn and JoJo, unfortunately have my genetics when it comes to cholesterol. They have been on statins to lower their cholesterol since they were 12 years old in an effort to avoid the same fate as their dad and Nonna. I stress to my students that it is never too early to find that doctor who may be saving their life.
I don’t just talk to groups of men and share my story; I also talk to men individually. Within the last year when I was going through cardiac rehab for my latest issues, I met a guy named John. John was young, about 40, and he told me that his doctors had told him that they could not do anything for his totally occluded vessel. A totally occluded vessel is a 100% blockage. Not all cardiologists are experienced with methods to open total occlusions. I shared that I had a totally occluded vessel in October that my local cardiologist tried to get through but could not.
Fortunately, in August of last year after my first intervention in July, I had dinner with a dear friend from New Orleans who happened to be neighbors with one of the world’s most renowned cardiologist, Dr. Chris White. She told me if I wanted a second opinion, she could get me in to see Dr. White. When my local cardiologist could not fix the vessel and told me that he had “optimized” me, I decided to seek out Dr. White. I was still having regular chest pains and was having difficulty walking up minimal hills in North Carolina. I wanted to snow ski the following March, and I certainly did not feel optimized.
In January, my wife Lorena and I flew to New Orleans, where I had a special PET scan that showed that the vessel that was blocked fed 15% of my heart. There was not enough blood getting to that area of my heart thus the chest pain and shortness of breath. Dr. White does not lack confidence. When I first talked to him, he said “tell your cardiologist that you are coming to see me, and if he does not know me, get a new cardiologist!” Dr White believed that his team, headed by Dr. Jenkins, could do something for me. I asked about Dr. Jenkins qualifications in the context of NFL quarterbacks and while Dr. Jenkins is a top five QB when it came to total occlusions. But Dr. White did not hesitate to offer me the “Tom Brady”. a guy in Seattle. This guy does them all day, every day and is the GOAT, just like Tom. I asked about the availability of Dr. Jenkins, and they said that he had a cancellation and could get me in on Thursday, just two days later.
The kicker for me was that Dr. White told me that if Dr. Jenkins could not get through the blockage and open the vessel, that his effort would not preclude me from seeing the Doc in Seattle. Lorena and I delayed our return flight and after being the first one in the Cath lab Thursday morning at 6:00 am., I was back on a plane to Tampa that evening. God had a plan for me to continue to tell my story, so that is what I do. Thanks to Dr. White and Dr. Jenkins, I have been symptom-free since January, went skiing in March and had zero problems with the altitude at Breckenridge. I plan to ski until at least 70, if I can stop crashing and injuring my shoulders.
Getting back to John, after encouraging John with my story and graduating from Cardio Rehab, I wasn’t sure that I would ever hear from John again. But today, I got a text from him. He wrote: “Hey Joe, this is John, I spoke to you at cardio rehab and you gave me advice and contacts for some doctors who treat chronic total occlusion. Upon your recommendation, I contacted the local doctor who had tried your case here in Tampa and he was able to fix me up and open one of my occlusions and fix another problem the other guy missed. I just wanted to say thank you so very much. The doctor you referred me to was night and day to what the other guy was that I was seeing. I hope you are doing well (I am) and being healthy (I’m trying), and I am very grateful you took the time to talk to me”. Getting this text today made me elated. Knowing John was going to be around to raise his two young children for a long time and was going to have a quality of life that he may not have had, had we not talked reminded me of what God’s plan was for me.
Joseph P. Ludovici
