3 minute read
Your partners for life
Samuel J. Goss, D.O., FACC, is one of our invasive cardiologists at Cardiovascular Associates of Lake County. He specializes in cardiovascular disease, and performs various procedures in the diagnosing and treatment of heart disease, such as Diagnostic Catheterizations, Nuclear Stress Testing, Cardiac P.E.T. and Echo-cardiography. He is one of 6 cardiologists on our staff performing Targeted Endovenous Therapy, a radio-frequency ablation procedure for the treatment of varicose veins.
As one of the oldest and most experienced private cardiology practices in Central Florida, at Cardiovascular Associates of Lake County, we are dedicated to bringing innovation in cardiovascular care to our patients. Since 1992, we have been your partners for life.
Courage is on display all around us, if we just take the time to look.
Rita Corsair taught me that truth 40 years ago.
Grandma Rita knew courage. Her husband was a fall-down drunk; she was crippled in a terrible auto accident; she worked in a home for troubled teenage girls and at a mental hospital.
I didn’t know all those things on the day she saved my life.
Grandma Rita came to live with us after the old man drank himself to death. Living alone wasn’t an option. Her left leg was badly deformed. It actually had a dent that nearly ran from kneecap to ankle. That leg looked like an unbaked loaf of bread, sliced from end to end. Her right leg wasn’t much better.
Grandma Rita spent a lot of time in her room doing crossword puzzles.
I never thought of her as courageous … until she rescued me.
One day, I decided to mow the narrow crest of the hill with the John Deere rider instead of the push mower like I was supposed to. And I got stuck trying to turn around — couldn’t go forward or backward. And the parking brake didn’t work. I decided to jump off and let the mower roll down.
Seemed like a good plan. But as I tried to jump off, the rider careened down the hill quicker than I could shout, “I’m a moron.” At the bottom, it flipped over, pinning me underneath 568 pounds of Moline, Illinois, pride.
I struggled to wiggle free, but couldn’t. As the muffler burned skin off my leg I screamed with all my might, though Grandma Rita was the only one home.
I screamed and screamed.
And then I heard her. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
I remember thinking, “How did she get here?!” Her walker was useless on a driveway of crushed rock and ground littered with twigs, butternuts and gopher holes. Somehow, Grandma Rita hobbled 80 yards.
Through her tears, she tried to lift the riding mower. As veins I had never seen appeared on her neck, I pulled my pinned leg free.
Grandma Rita was in bed for two days and bruised for two weeks, but proudly bore the discolorations like the badges of courage they were.
This month, Healthy Living salutes courage.
By the time you reach the back cover, you should know how to find your inner courage. It’s in there. It’s in all of us. We just have to liberate it.
Until next time, Gary Corsair
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