Lindsay Dunning has been a patient access representative with ECU Health Neurosurgery for 13 years. She was drawn to her role in part because of her own diagnosis of scoliosis as a child, an experience that she said helps her connect with the patients she serves every day.
“I see patients come in and they’re worried, and I tell them I understand where they’re coming from and it’ll be okay,” Dunning said.
The Robersonville native never expected she would help her husband during a time of medical crisis, however.
“It was a Monday night in June 2022, and I was up feeding our four-week-old,” Dunning shared. “My husband Jeff had just put our four-year-old to bed and came in complaining his chest hurt. He said he didn’t feel right. Even though he didn’t have a history of heart issues, I said right then we were going to the ED.”
That decision, in part, saved her husband’s life.
“The doctors told him he’d had a heart attack, and they were going to do a heart catheterization immediately,” she said. “I had gone home to get our older child to school, and by the time I got back to the hospital, five doctors came into his room and told him he needed a triple bypass.”
An unexpected diagnosis
This news caught Lindsay and Jeff, who was only 38 at the time, by surprise.
“Jeff broke down; he didn’t know what to do,” Lindsay said. “He was going to have to miss work. We had an infant and a small child at home, and my mother had recently died. On top of that, my sister-in-law had just had her baby at 27 weeks, and our niece was in the NICU. We had a lot going on.”
Thankfully, Lindsay’s mother-in-law was there to help watch the kids while Jeff underwent surgery. Dr. Michael Bates rearranged his schedule so he could perform the surgery before he went out on vacation.
“Dr. Bates came in the morning of surgery and it was like he’d known us our whole lives,” Lindsay said. “He gave me a hug and said everything was going to be okay. You just felt his confidence about how things would go.”
“He needed three bypasses and we did all three with arteries instead of veins,” Dr. Bates shared.
“Arterial bypasses last longer and improve survival, and we routinely do that here at ECU Health for younger patients. Our rate of multi-arterial bypass is two times the national average and is a marker for high-performing cardiac surgery programs.”
The road to recovery
During Jeff’s 11-day hospital stay, Lindsay said he received great care, right down to one of the volunteers who regularly took him for a walk in the halls. Jeff also participated in cardiac rehab, but he was determined to recover as quickly as possible and walked a mile every morning.
“Jeff works with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, so he wanted to get back to work as soon as possible,” Lindsay said.
Once he returned home, Jeff still required some assistance, and Lindsay had her hands full with two small children. Thankfully, she said, their community of family, friends and co-workers chipped in by establishing a meal train, taking Jeff out for rides, calling and texting and mowing their lawn.
Jeff went back to work that August, and his annual cardiology follow-up appointments show everything is working as it should. Lindsay said that Jeff tells her regularly, “You saved my life!” She’s pretty humble about that, but she is quick to thank Dr. Bates and God for his quick and skilled intervention.
“The Heart Center is top notch, and we are so thankful for the care we received and for Dr. Bates,” she said. “He told us that Jeff’s condition was a ‘ticking time bomb,’ but he expects this bypass to last Jeff a lifetime.”