Local man recovering after near-fatal heart attack
Leonard Valencia did everything doctors tell patients to do to
stay healthy. He exercised regularly, didn’t smoke or do drugs and
ate pretty healthy. He enjoyed athletics and was involved in
several basketball leagues. Some might have said he was the epitome
of health at 45 years old.
Local man recovering after near-fatal heart attack
Leonard Valencia did everything doctors tell patients to do to stay healthy. He exercised regularly, didn’t smoke or do drugs and ate pretty healthy. He enjoyed athletics and was involved in several basketball leagues. Some might have said he was the epitome of health at 45 years old.
He had a loving wife and three beautiful daughters whose lives he stayed as active as he did. He drove a bread truck in San Jose and managed his time so he could be involved in his daughters’ extracurricular activities. He coached his daughter’s softball team and before that basketball.
Then, on a sunny Sunday in April 2006, everything changed.
In the middle of a recreation-league basketball game with his friends Leonard suffered cardiac arrest and his heart seized. Suddenly the world stopped spinning.
His friends with him that day, most several years older than him, were frozen.
Teammate and friend Bob Tiffany remembers that day.
“We were at Rancho [San Justo Middle School]. It was just before the half and Leonard and I had been playing for our team and we’d just gone out,” Tiffany said. “There were about five minutes left. I was sitting on the bench and Leonard, I think was leaning up against the wall. The half ended and we went out to be with our teammates, when I noticed that Leonard wasn’t moving. I think he’d collapsed. I don’t know how long he’d been down, but he was totally unresponsive. Another player and I ran over to him and started CPR. I never thought I’d be in that position.”
Tiffany and the other player continued to do CPR until the paramedics arrived. Tiffany remembers that he kept thinking, “Am I doing this right?”
Paramedics arrived a good 10 minutes later. Leonard still wasn’t responsive and Tiffany thinks that everyone there assumed the worst. Paramedics put Leonard on a stretcher and took him to the hospital.
“Leonard was in good shape,” Tiffany said. “You have to be when you play full-court basketball and he’s younger than I am. I remember talking to his doctor when this happened and he said this should be a wake-up call to all of us. We need to keep in good shape.”
His wife, Millie, was eventually located in Salinas where she had been running errands. She knew she had to go to the hospital, but the rest of the words were lost on her. She couldn’t understand what was happening.
When Millie arrived all of her family and friends were already at the hospital and the Rev. Rudy Ruiz, of Saint Benedict/Sacred Heart Parish was giving Leonard the Last Rites.
Leonard had been without oxygen for 15 minutes when he arrived at the hospital and was in a coma. He was airlifted to Natividad Medical Center, in Salinas.
The doctors at Hazel Hawkins hospital told Leonard’s wife to say goodbye to him. Later, in Salinas, the cardiologist echoed the same sentiment.
Millie said the details were a big blur. She was given choices of how to proceed, but it was advised that the best course of action would be to take her husband off life-support because it was likely he would never awake from his coma.
Leonard’s daughters, Kristen Valencia, 13; Erica Valencia, 16; and Desiree Huerta, 25, were devastated. Seeing their father lying lifeless in a coma with tubes coming out of his body was too much.
The girls handled their father’s tragedy in different manners. Kristen took it the hardest. She’d always had a special relationship with her dad. She couldn’t even go to see her father for the first few weeks. Erica, too, was devastated, but didn’t show it as much. Desiree was the rock that Millie needed during her time of need.
Fortunately, there was a lot of family who watched after the girls and even took them to school the next day while Millie stayed at her husband’s side and prayed for a miracle.
“Our friends and family were so, so supportive through it all,” Millie said. “They were incredible.”
The Power of Prayer
Millie and some of her friends from church prayed to God for a miracle and continued to pray. After three days, Leonard opened his eyes.
He began to recover, slowly, but all was not as it was before. Due to the amount of time that Leonard had been deprived of oxygen his short-term memory had suffered. He did not initially recognize his daughters or many of the friends that came to wish him well during his recovery.
Some of the care providers at the hospital playfully referred to Leonard as the “Miracle Man,” since they had never seen someone who had been without oxygen for 15 minutes wake-up from a coma. The doctors were very surprised.
Thirty years ago, if Leonard’s heart had seized on the basketball court he would have been considered dead. There would not have been efforts made to revive him.
Fortunately for Leonard and his family, technology has come a long way. He had a defibrillator implanted in his chest and after 30 days of recovery Leonard was able to start therapy and then he went through rehabilitation for another week or so. Finally on May 9, nearly amonth after his heart attack, Leonard was able to return home. But it was a home that he didn’t recognize.
A Slow Recovery
Leonard’s short-term memory was still gone. Millie recalls showing her husband photos of their daughters being born and from their wedding and Leonard didn’t recall any of it at first.
One of the first days Leonard was home Millie came home and caught him trying to take the car out. On another occasion he walked to the movies and didn’t tell anyone where he was going.
Later some of his memories would return, but others would not. All of Leonard’s life skills had to be relearned, He soon recognized his daughters and his extended family.
Therapy continued in Salinas and Millie had to drive Leonard there daily at first.
Nine months after his ordeal, Leonard sat on his couch with his daughters and his wife one evening this week. Leonard has come a long way since he left the hospital, but he still cannot work, driveor do many of the things he once enjoyed.
“It was so hard telling Dad how he used to be,” Erica said.
Her sister, Desiree ageed.
“The things that made him him were suddenly erased,” Desiree said.
Still, Leonard finds the strength to get up every morning. He goes to therapy twice a week. He works out at the gym and is taking a computer class at Gavilan College.
Before Leonard drove a bread truck in San Jose, his first profession was as a barber. He recently cut hair again for the first time since his injury.
The family is adjusting slowly. Some days it’s completely frustrating, Millie said, but she has to go on.
“It was so tough.” Millie said. “It was like being a single parent, the sole provider. I’m also in school right now, but routines have helped us progress back toward our former life.”
Life certainly hasn’t gotten back to the point that it was at yet, but there are signs that things are getting better every day. For one, Leonard is back to telling his family his dumb jokes.
“It’s good and bad – mostly good – because once in a while you catch glimpses of the old dad, but sometimes it’s frustrating,” Kristen said.
Kristen was involved with with her father before his heart attack. Leonard coached her softball team and helped her with her pitching. After the injury Kristen’s interest in those things initially waned. Her grades dropped and she was distracted in class.
As a form of therapy Kristen wrote a poem for her seventh grade literature class at Sacred Heart Parish School, which she later used as a speech in the school’s annual speech contest (see story).
Kristen and her father have had to find other ways to bond, since he can’t help her with pitching for now. They are finding new hobbies.
Leonard got a Nintendo DS and the Brain Age game for Christmas. Kristen enjoys helping him play with that, which he does as a brain-strengthening exercise. The two also play air hockey every night to help Leonard improve some of his motor skills.
One of the things that is still extremely hard for Leonard, though, is how many people recognize him that he can’t identify. People come up to him constantly and say “Hello.” Though he can’t recognize everyone, he said he is happy to have friends.
“I’m relieved to have so many friends. It’s good to know a lot of people,” Leonard said. “If we lived in San Jose a lot of people would not come up and talk to me like they do here. It’s nice.”
Patrick O’Donnell can be reached at po*******@pi*********.com.
