Abstract
Editor's Note: Mr. Cheney, 46th vice president of the United States, was the featured guest speaker at the third annual Baylor Health Care System Foundation Heart and Vascular Dinner on April 7, 2009, at the home of Kathy and Harlan Crow (Figures 1 and 2). Previous speakers were former Senator Bob Dole and Denton Cooley, MD. Cheney spoke about his experiences with cardiovascular disease, his 40-year career in public service, and the challenges facing health care. Mr. Cheney has had four heart attacks and numerous other cardiovascular episodes, beginning with his first heart attack when he was 37 years old. The Foundation's Heart and Vascular Campaign, which has raised more than $11.2 million toward its $20 million fundraising goal, supports eight cardiology fellows and four residents in vascular surgery, as well as cardiovascular research at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, Baylor Hamilton Heart and Vascular Hospital, and The Heart Hospital Baylor Plano.
I appreciate the warm welcome and the hospitality of our hosts this evening. This is not exactly the first time I've been around this many cardiologists—though it's nice for once not to have to be rushed to see you.
All of you are friends of the Baylor Health Care System, and I'm pleased to join you in supporting one of the nation's finest medical facilities. Baylor has risen to a leading position in one of the most sophisticated and vital specialties. It's done so by attracting the most impressive talent in the field, some of whom are with us this evening.
To keep all that work going is an expensive proposition. In the years to come, your contributions will add to the reputation of a life-saving institution. When people anywhere think about the latest in cardiovascular care and technology, about the place where standards are highest and the professionals are the best, they think Baylor, and they think Dallas. Each of you has helped to make that possible, and I know your generosity is greatly appreciated.
It's been a while since I last saw Dallas and almost a decade since Lynne and I called this city home. We have some very good friends here, including, of course, the former president and Mrs. Bush.
I'll always be grateful to this country, and to George W. Bush, for the wonderful opportunity to serve two terms as vice president. Only seven others have served that long in the office. And surely not many were as surprised as I was even to be nominated in the first place.
When I think back on my career, one thing I'm very certain of is this. Many of the opportunities I've had would never have come to me at all were it not for steady advances in the practice of cardiology. I might well have faced a much more confined existence, and perhaps even a forced retirement long ago, without the good care I've received from cardiologists. I guess what I'm saying is that, for those who wish Dick Cheney had called it quits a long time ago, they can blame it all on you.
Becoming the most visible heart patient in the country isn't anyone's preferred route to the big time. But from the very beginning, I've been fortunate in the way of doctors. They're the kind of physicians who have confidence in their own abilities, but also a good sense for the capacities of their patients. They've always kept me focused on the possibilities and not just the problems.
The problems, of course, were serious enough—starting with that first heart attack on Father's Day weekend, 1978. Something like that is never convenient, but here it was, June of an election year, and I was making my first run for political office. Believe me, it's kind of hard to rally the troops when you start your congressional campaign with a heart attack.
What's more, optimism didn't come easy when I thought back on what I'd seen some years earlier. I was in the house with my grandfather when he had a sudden heart attack, and he didn't make it. That was one example of a generally unpromising family history with heart disease. So naturally I had some big worries about my own prospects.
My first direct encounter with your profession was with a doctor in Cheyenne, that June weekend in 1978. He saw me through the emergency and drew my attention to an array of high-risk factors. For starters, there was the cholesterol reading above 300 and the series of high-stress jobs I'd had. Then there was that three-pack-a-day cigarette habit I had as chief of staff to President Ford. We're talking about a time when cigarettes were still passed out on airplanes, and at the White House, staff could get unfiltered Camels for free—by the carton, with the presidential seal on each pack. Doctors had given me all the usual warnings about the risks I was taking. But you know how it is: I was still in my mid-30s, and the only thing that would slow me down was a crisis.
When the day came, and the doctors laid it out for me, I was ready to try things their way. And it turned out their way was less intimidating, and a lot more promising, than I'd expected. I wanted to stay in that campaign, go to Congress if elected, and keep moving forward in life. And they said nothing to discourage me. That same doctor in Cheyenne told me, “Hard work never killed anybody.”
The medical profession had leveled with me, so I did the same thing and leveled with the people of Wyoming about my condition. I won that election and was reelected to Congress five times. Those were good years, most of them during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and my colleagues even honored me with a position in the House leadership. Health-wise, there were a few setbacks along the way, including a second heart attack in 1984 and a third in 1988. As you may recall, I was to have to another small heart attack in late 2000. I'll leave it for the experts here to tell me why these things always happened in election years.
Like many thousands of cardiovascular patients, I've gratefully observed at each new turn that technology was keeping pace with my condition. I've had two angioplasties and had two stents placed in my arteries. And the third coronary, 21 years ago, was the biggest turning point. That's when we went ahead with a quadruple bypass.
In the days before the operation, I was actually at the Republican National Convention in New Orleans, where George Bush was nominated. Bypass surgery was new territory for me, and I was feeling the usual nerves that go with it. I remember having a long talk about it with Larry King. Larry had been through it all, and as we sat there on the steps outside a broadcast booth, he gave me a full and reassuring briefing on what to expect. He told me I'd be surprised at how good I'd feel, and how soon after the operation. I hoped he was right, and sure enough, I was out on the slopes at Vail in time for Christmas.
What I didn't know just then was that I was in for a career change. And this change would introduce me to a new level of responsibility and stress. In the short version, in March of 1989, President George Bush was in urgent need of a secretary of defense. He raised the subject with me during a visit to the Capitol one day, when he pulled me aside and said, “How's your health?”
At the time I could reasonably answer “not bad.” And it stayed pretty much that way during an eventful time at the Pentagon. Those were the years of the military action in Panama, the Persian Gulf War, the end of the Soviet Union, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. In my second decade as a heart patient, I found myself leading the United States military, making long round trips to the Middle East, and putting in some extremely long days and nights. And yet my condition seemed good enough that for long stretches I hardly had to think about it at all.
I served until the change of administrations in 1993, drove back to Wyoming, and then a couple of years later found work here in Dallas.
I considered my political career over and done with when Lynne and I settled in Highland Park. By any standard—and especially by the standards of heart patients—I considered myself mighty lucky to have done all that I had done in public office. And on top of that, I had the privilege of running a great American company called Halliburton.
That was my idea of a very good job, and I wasn't looking for new challenges when the governor of Texas signed me up for some volunteer work. He was casting about for a running mate and needed someone to head up the search. We started putting together a list, and he was honest with me from the outset. He said, “I want you on that list.”
I've joked about it over the years, but I had little reason to think I'd end up on the ticket. That's because there were some influential people who made an airtight case against it. These included Karl Rove and me. When the governor chose me anyway, there were some concerns to be addressed—mainly whether I had the strength to campaign for vice president and then to handle a demanding job in the event we got elected. Both questions were resolved with a letter of certification from a man whose opinion carries a lot of weight in such matters, Dr. Denton Cooley in Houston.
So a few months later, I was headed back to Washington as vice president elect. But certified or not, there are no guarantees of smooth sailing with a heart condition. And before I was sworn in, I found myself in the emergency room at George Washington University Hospital, after that last heart attack. Somehow, my most productive years always seem to begin with a coronary crisis.
From then on, friends never had to inquire about my health, because anything worth knowing wound up on TV. Among the new developments over 8 years was the implant of a defibrillator and the occasional adjustment or battery upgrade. I don't have to tell you how any of those things work or how they are monitored. Every so often a person would come to my office in the White House, hit a few keys on a laptop, and download all the data from my defibrillator. They actually told me this could be done over the telephone, but they didn't want to risk hackers figuring out a way to mess with my ICD.
That ICD, by the way, hasn't been heard from, and that's just fine with me. But I know it's on the job, and that's one more thing I owe to the medical profession.
When I look back on my patient history of three decades, I'm sure that I beat the odds a time or two. Not only was I able to complete two terms in national office, but I've settled into a new life, and I like to think I've got plenty of juice left in me. Many people across our country, and well beyond, can feel just as good about their own prospects. And every one of us is in the debt of professionals at places like the Baylor heart and vascular hospitals. So I thank each of you for supporting that work. Your generosity goes an awfully long way for Baylor Health Care System and its mission. And above all, I thank all the doctors in this room for the hard work you do in one of the greatest callings there is.
Thank you very much.
Figure 1.
Dick Cheney with Lynne Cheney and Dr. Clyde Yancy.
Figure 2.
Mr. Cheney with Dr. Michael Mack.