After receiving a diagnosis of coronary artery disease, a medical assistant who is also amputee found himself in the middle of a medical emergency. He is now sharing his survival tale after undergoing successful triple bypass surgery.
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A North Texas medical assistant with a history of health challenges is sharing his story after getting a life-threatening diagnosis.
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Bobby Watkins had severe neck pain and started getting short of breath after working out.
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He turned to a colleague in the Texas Health system and ended up having triple bypass surgery for coronary artery disease.
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A North Texas medical assistant with a history of health challenges is sharing his story after getting a life-threatening diagnosis.
-
Bobby Watkins had severe neck pain and started getting short of breath after working out.
-
He turned to a colleague in the Texas Health system and ended up having triple bypass surgery for coronary artery disease.
DALLAS—After receiving a diagnosis of coronary artery disease, a medical assistant who is also amputee found himself at the center of a medical emergency.
He is now sharing his survival tale after undergoing successful triple bypass surgery.
Coronary Artery Disease
The backstory
A medical assistant at Texas Health Surgical Specialists, a division of the Texas Health Physicians Group, is Bobby Watkins, a 50-year-old Corsicana resident.
Additionally, he had to lean on a few of his coworkers to help him get through his worst moments throughout the summer of last year.
He was working out at the gym one day when he had his most recent health concern.
“It started getting this massive pain in the side of my neck, and I started getting really short of breath,” Watkins stated.
He contacted Dr. Tulika Jain, a friend and former boss who is currently a cardiologist on the medical team at Texas Health Dallas, because he thought the symptoms might be related to the cardiovascular system.
“So when we did the stress tests, we can see a distribution of where what parts of the heart are having trouble with blood flow,” said Dr. Jain.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, imaging revealed that Watkins had coronary artery disease, which impacts over 20 million persons in the US.
At Texas Health Dallas, the first hospital in the state to be certified as a comprehensive heart attack center, Watkins underwent successful triple bypass surgery.
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Reasons to be concerned:
It’s fantastic that Watkins identified the signs, according to Dr. Jain.
“That s our fear in medicine that we can t help people that don t come to seek medical attention,” she stated.
Given his occupation and medical background, Watkins might have been more conscious of the urgency than most.
By sharing his tale, he hopes to serve as a warning to others. He thinks it’s critical that people pay attention to their bodies.
Because it’s about the heart, that was probably the scariest thing I’ve heard in all of my experiences. “It is the body’s workhorse,” he stated.
Next steps:
Watkins returned to the gym two months following the surgery, feeling more motivated than before.
He is now painting as a way to express his newly discovered vitality.
“Getting through it made me realize life is way shorter than I thought it was going to be,” he stated. “I need to accept that I cannot change the things I cannot control and I need to live my life.”
Watkins is also pursuing a nursing degree. Last year, he actually finished one of his final tests while still in the hospital.
In 2027, he should receive his BSN.
The Source: Bobby Watkins and Dr. Tulika Jain of Texas Health Dallas were interviewed for this story.
