When Glenn Winslett of the

Holiday Inn Express in Fayetteville first experienced

chest pains a year ago, he did what he was supposed to

do.

He went to the emergency

room. They ran tests, gave him an upper GI

"cocktail" which eased the pain, and told him

to go home. He was advised to take a stress test or to

see his doctor the following morning, but they thought he

probably had a bad case of indigestion since the tests

didn't show anything.

The next morning he still

had pain, so he went to see his doctor. The doctor ran

tests and said he thought his esophagus might be infected

and wrote out a prescription. That seemed to solve the

problem so Winslett went to work, slept that night, woke

up the next morning, went to work - and began having pain

again.

The pain medication the

doctor had given him offered no relief but, as he didn't

think it could be his heart, he wasn't overly worried.

However, when he got home, he bent over to pick up his

dog and realized his arms weren't working, and "my

teeth were killing me," he noted.

He went to Peachtree

Regional Hospital in Coweta County where once again he

suffered through more testing and yet another EKG. He

told the attendant who came in to give the EKG that there

wasn't any point in "plugging in that machine, I'm

not having a heart attack." He jokingly opened his

shirt and pointed to his chest, saying he'd had so many

in the past few days the spots were clearly marked.

As it turned out, Winslett

was wrong - he was having a heart attack. Dr.

Charles Pettus, who is on the Fayette County American

Heart Board, was his doctor. Pettus gave him a new

"clot buster" which almost immediately relieved

his pain and helped prevent further heart damage. Later,

when he had an angiogram they discovered only 30 percent

blockage which they attributed to the fast use of the

clot buster.

Winslett says the biggest

mistake he made was not following up with cardiac rehab

and the cardiac counseling which was recommended. His

insurance company would not cover the costs and, as he

was following the diet and exercise program, he thought

he was doing enough.

In October of this year,

Winslett once again experienced problems. He quipped,

"I try to schedule my heart problems to coincide

with the annual budget process."

Due to circumstances beyond

his control, he had to delay following up immediately.

When he did get in to see his cardiologist, and

subsequently worked out the kinks with his insurance, he

had to undergo surgery to correct some problems. They

found he had experienced another heart attack and that

there was some blockage from scar tissue. He had an

angiogram, followed by angioplasty in which the arteries

were "ballooned" out and a metal stent

implanted. Currently he is home, recuperating, although

he is anxious to get