AD Awareness Day UK

Please welcome, ladies and gentlemen, Amy Yazbeck. And I'll be back. Thank you. We're going to swap microphones. Very sexy here. Well, yeah, but are you going to stand next to me or do I get to hold it? Hi. Hold on. Oh, not goodbye. Hello. I don't know. How's that? Is it working? Yeah. Okay. Hello. Thank you, Garrett. I'm having so much fun here. I love it here. Catherine, we'll tell you a story, maybe. Does anybody, do you know John Ritter here? I thought so, because Three's Company was the show that was on in the States way before I met him. That's a joke, because I was much younger. and it was based on a British show called Man About the House. So John was kind of having his resurgence for sitcom TV. 2002 started a show called Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. Very, very long title for ABC company. Oh, I almost fell through the floor. That would be bad, but there are doctors here. Orthopedic, hopefully, because I almost broke my leg. So, when the second year, it was a big hit and won Best New Comedy and all that stuff, People's Choice Award. And on the second season, when they started, I think there were three shows in. Actually, the guest stars were his, one of his best friends, Henry Winkler and Peter Bogdanovich, who's a very famous director and was a friend of John's. And during that day, and it was on September 11th, 2003, our child's fifth birthday actually too, a lot of stuff at the same time, he experienced chest pains and also in his back and became very nauseous and not wanting to disrupt the the taping. He's like, I just need to lay down for a while. And it got worse and it got worse. Sorry, I have not told this story this way in a long time, have I, Diana? Just now. Okay, all right. Okay, so he called, he called me, he said, did you guys ever see Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Do you remember that show? He did a guest star on that. Oh, I'm gonna go over 15 minutes. I'm sorry, I can tell. He did a guest star on that where he played Buffy's mom's new husband or stepfather or his new boyfriend or something and during that taping this was years ago he had the he had food poisoning so he had to work while he was like vomiting in a bucket and like fighting the vampire slayer he was some kind of robot what else and so he left me this message saying I think I've got some kind of something like when I had to kick Buffy's ass when I was throwing up in a bucket. He didn't know what was going on because he had pain but he didn't know if the pain was from the throwing up and he said, I think I tore something leaning over the toilet throwing up because he felt something tear. They took him across the street, he was shooting at Disney Studios, took him across the street to the hospital, a hospital in which he had been born almost 55 years earlier. and I I mean I wasn't there at that time but they took him in and they did all the tests most of the tests that they would do for a heart attack they were thinking heart attack that was the the route they were going to go down they did his troponin level was not having a heart attack they had leads on him to do to the EKG and he was sweating so profusely that they were sliding off of him. It was very hard to get, hey Mandy, I love you Mandy, to get a correct reading. They ordered, the cardiologist on duty at the emergency room ordered an X-ray and I know that that's not the gold standard. Oh sure, I know that now. I know lots of stuff now. ordered it, and then there was a shift change at the hospital, they dreaded six o'clock. The new cardiologist came on, said, we don't need that, we don't need to see an x-ray, this is a heart attack. And they had already pumped him full of probably every blood thinner known to man. Sorry. Sorry. Thank you. And this is vodka? It's gin. Oh, I hate gin. Tastes like pine trees. Okay. I'm good. Steady as she goes, old girl. Here I go. So, he was alive when they brought him in, alive and joking and worried that he was going to, you know, screw up the show that was happening and worried about everybody's job. And like, and he was saying to me, I guess, well, maybe if we don't shoot this week, they can show an old show and do, I mean, just that's what he was thinking about. And they, they said they were gonna do an angiogram, which I had heard of before. My brother-in-law had had one and they did a thing and he wasn't having a heart attack. They did an angiogram, they put in a pacemaker and the whole thing. So I kinda knew what that was. I called my family back in Cincinnati, Ohio and they're like, don't worry, this is a thing and it's all right. And the second doctor, as they were telling John what they were gonna do and that they had to shave his balls or something to do the thing, he was joking and he's like, I don't like this, I don't like this. and I was like, this is not gonna be the hardest part, don't worry. And he made a million jokes just trying, because he saw everybody's worried face, because John Ritter, Jack Tripper from the show was having a heart attack as they could see. Thank you for sitting here. It's okay, buddy. You're a nice man. Anytime. You're a nice man. And I met Mrs. Guerra, I think she's lovely. She is. She's cool with this. She's cool with this. She's cool with this? Very progressive here. Well, what was freaky when I look back at it and the part that just, you know, there's always that part, I've talked to Karen about this, there's always that part where you go, why did I say that? Or why did I do that? When really, I had no idea what was going on. Nobody, do you think anybody had said the word aorta at that point? No, nobody, whatever. Not that I would have even remembered from eighth grade anatomy what that was. So he was in the bed laying there and they're prepping him for the thing and the doctor came in and explained, well, you have to sign this because it says once we get in there if we need to put in a stent or put in a thing, you're out, you have to sign this now. And John said, can I have a second opinion? And the doctor said, very dismissively, there's no time for a second opinion. in the middle of having a heart attack. You have to do this to save your life." And John looked at me and said, please, to me, and I said, you know what? These guys know what they're doing. They're experts. Just be brave and do what they say. Shit, right? Okay. I don't know if Mrs. would be okay with this. Thank you, sweetheart. So that's what, so that's, so sadly that, you know, he did the thing, they took a, and so I was waiting in the, the, what do you call it, the waiting room, yeah, and they had gotten this, this guy, I can't remember what his name is, but I probably do, but I probably shouldn't say it, but he was the liaison for the hospital and for Disney, because apparently Disney and this hospital, St. Joseph's, etc., I'm I'm gonna say it, had, they supported each other. So this guy who had been Tim Allen's cardiologist, whatever, who cares, was going in and then coming out and explaining to me, explaining to the lay people, me and my friend Peter, who were there, of what was going on, and he came out in one point just ashen, and he goes, so it's not a heart attack, it's something called a aortic dissection, and I was like, what? And he just quickly drew on the back of a script that my friend Peter had with him because he had been in a meeting. And I'm like, what am I looking at? And he goes, this is very scary because you really can't see these coming. And I only know three, this is a cardiologist, only three people that I know. And two of them died and one is barely alive. And I went, great, good news, bye. And then I heard them call a code, whatever, a crash cart coming. It was a nightmare. And when he died, this same doctor guy came and told me. And then the surgeon came and God loved this guy because when they were doing the thing, they got in there, they saw what was going on and they had to call this surgeon to come from far away, this thoracic surgeon who got there just in time to see, you know, John laid open in this giant aneurysm, ascending aneurysm and the one doctor had put in his notes that it was like the biggest aneurysm he had ever seen. Oh, great. And so John passed away, I had no idea what was going on. The doctor at the time, not the surgeon, he was great, but this other guy that was supposed to be the liaison, he didn't say that it could be genetic, he didn't say, he didn't any of that, just like, well, on your way. A satellite fell out of the sky and hit your husband and he's dead. I mean, it was like that. And so when I went home, I had to like figure out what this was. And on the news, I had to call my family because it was being reported. It was like 10 o'clock at night being reported. So my family in Ohio was hearing stuff. So I had to like call and tell them before so they didn't crash their car hearing this about their, you know, their brother-in-law, their uncle John. And so the news mostly was saying, and this is, got it all wrong, that John had died of an undetectable heart defect. So O for two, not undetectable, not the heart. And I knew that was wrong, but there was, look at, I was starting, we were all, my family, the five stages of grief, but I call it the five stages on stage. People were trying to like interview us and stuff. It was really weird and really creepy and delayed a lot of the grieving and a lot of the normal activity. So I just went on the computer, which before had just been for me and my kid playing Pets 5 and Cats 5. I really didn't really know and I just started Googling the heck out of stuff. And first thing I saw was when I put in aortic aneurysm or aortic dissection was, oh, aneurysm. Like, yeah, that seems what it was. And Marfan, Marfan Foundation. And I'm like, nope, that's not him. Just by the physiological, the phenotype. But they had a little section that said related disorders. And it was Ehlers-Danlos, Loews-Dietz, Turner syndrome, and familial thoracic aortic dissection, I went, oh, that might be it. I didn't really have time to do anything except for, of course, be freaking out. The first time I was out in the world, a checkout lady at the drugstore said, hey, I just wanted to tell you I'm so sorry. People would just come up and hug me, by the way, like you did, but like with less warning. And I didn't know them, I didn't love them. But this lady's like, I am so sorry, my husband, the same thing, had an aortic dissection, and I leaned over, I'm like, I'm so sorry. I said, I'm sure you miss him very much. She goes, no, he's waiting for me in the car till my shift is over. And I'm like, you can live? I had no idea, it was never presented to me that this is an event that you could live through, that it was preventable, any of it. And so I was really jealous of her, but I was nice. And then the man that directed Problem Child, did anybody see Problem Child? I'm so sorry, terrible movie. But he told me that his dad had had an aortic dissection and that had gone into the hospital and they had done an esophageal scan on him. And so there were all these different things that I hadn't heard about. And then I started opening up the mail from everywhere, from all of the fans and friends really around the world. And some of them were saying that they had had this experience and lived. And then somebody sent me the article from the Wall Street Journal. It was a 10-piece article, I think, 10 articles written by Kevin Helicker and Tom Burton about aortic dissection and misdiagnosis. And in this, I found Dr. Milowitz's name and Dr. Eleftheriades at Yale, Dr. Safi, Dr. Estreira at University of Texas. And I just started calling them on what did I have to lose. And I had to say the thing that I hadn't really said out loud yet, which is, hi, this is John Ritter's widow. And they're like, we're so glad you called. We've been waiting for you to call because they can't call me and just go, what's up, you wanna talk about this? So I most importantly spoke to Dr. Milowitz who was researching this from the genetic end, the genetic beginning, I should say. And she advised me wisely to make sure that all of John's first degree relatives were imaged, but also we spit or get off the pot. Is that an expression here? Do people say shit or get off the pot? Oh, okay. But we do now? Well, I was saying, spit or get off the pot to my family. Spit in the thing, send the DNA to Diana. A little bit after that, in 2007, John's brother, Tom, who his scan had been fine and Diana was still working as, it's still cooking. Our DNA is still cooking. He has cerebral palsy and he had a TIA. And at the time, they said, well, we're just gonna push this. And I said, wait, don't push anything through him. I called Diane, and Diane said, you might wanna get him, because it wasn't time for him to get checked again. It was like every year. And you might wanna get a echo. Got an echo, and they saw something. They saw, right in the same place as John's, an aneurysm. And they were, again, no names. But the cardiologist at the time, who I didn't know, was saying, I don't know, it doesn't really look big enough to operate or do anything. It's like his brother had just died a few years before that at a younger age. I mean, it was ridiculous. So Diana, I think wrestled him into a headlock or something. I don't know how that happened, but finally Tommy went to, Uncle Tom, Tom Ritter, went to Stanford University and Dr. Craig Miller replaced his aortic arch and he is fine today. sassy but he's fine. I started doing the Google alerts because I was thinking if people start saying to me that when they went to their doctor they were being it it was being explained to them why they have to take care of their aneurysm and they have to know this and this because that's what John Ritter died from and so even though it wasn't exactly a family history they had everybody loved John he was very approachable it wasn't like a movie star people would just come up and and he was like a brother to them. So they would Google John Ritter dissection, John Ritter aorta, and I wanted something there that when they did that, it wasn't just like pictures of him with Suzanne Somers, but it was the real deal. It was like talking about it. So I started the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health for awareness, mostly. And we've been raising money also for the John Ritter Research Program in Aortic and Vascular Diseases. It's a long title. It used to be shorter. Are you gonna tell them why it's longer? Okay, she'll tell ya. And we raised money, okay, get this. There's a thing called the Adler Paddler. Am I right? Steve Adler was a stand-up paddle guy, like the guy. And he died of an aortic dissection. and his family had a history but had never addressed it and we did all that. So there's actually an event called the Adler Paddler where everybody paddles and that's, yeah, I'm just saying, photo op. And the New York Marathon. We have a team ridder that runs in the New York Marathon and raises money for awareness and that goes to research. And that's where I met Katherine's husband, Keep, who was running for, in honor of his father-in-law. And I'm like, tell me the story. And the story, I'm not gonna, spoiler alert, we have things in common, Catherine and I, where a loved one was lost, and then a loved one was saved. Just with our journey of information and awareness, and that has spurred both of us on to be Able to give that gift of information, I mean it's power, but it's also a precious, precious gift to know your family history and what your risk is because it can obviously save your life. And he finished the marathon. How was his time? A slow one. That's all right. We have gin for him. When I met, we started talking, she was telling us about the Think Aortic Campaign. And so we have a working group in the U.S. with Aortic Hope helping us, Karen Hanson, who is fantastic. And you and you, the whole time you were talking, Mandy, I was saying, I love her. I love her. That's your sister from another mister. You've heard brother from another mother. Yeah, this has to happen. This is not yes. Because she leads a non-profit that is a patient support and awareness group, and they talk each other through their surgeries and their ups and downs, and it's on Facebook, and it's amazing. We are so far behind on our Think Aorta-ish, because we have all the ideas, and we're so gung-ho but we both realize we are so humbled by what you all have done and I really want to blame it on like American medicine and privatized and stuff but it's that but it's also we don't want to reinvent the wheel we want to do what you did make the the language more American whatever that means worse I I guess that's what that means. Yee-haw! Watch out for your A-word, or something like that. Boo-boo-boo! But also, there's so much a deep well of information and buy-in from all of these people that's really going to make a giant difference. So we'll keep you updated on our stuff, but we will definitely, you are our guide star to lead the way. I wanted to say that in 2010, a multidisciplinary, Diana, I always say it wrong. Multidisciplinary committee created and then published the AHA, ACC treatment guidelines for aortic aneurysm and dissection, which was huge, such a big deal to have like a consensus and standard of care because it was kind of, I don't know, well, I do know, because there was a trial. There was misadventure and there was a trial. And during that trial, the insurance agencies and our team had 15 books open on both of their, they're like, what says here that this and this, and if he wouldn't have lived anyway, and I said, well, here's a person that lived, and it was all over the board. It's like, let's get this together. Let's focus on what this is. It's not as rare as you freaking think. Boy, have we learned that, right? So the guidelines. And then from the guidelines, we called, I don't know if that's the right word. I like it. 10 rules we call, Ritter Rules, just very concise. And it was very important to us. Did he leave the boss, the obstetrician guy? He left. Very important to us to put in a thing about women who dissect while giving birth or right after. And we have like lots of information on that that we will share with him, I told him. I just wanted to say thank you for letting me ramble. I last night tried to put my thoughts together because I haven't given this, that's not a speech, I haven't shared this in a while. It's always, of course, right there, as we know. But last night, I was laying there. What's our place we're staying? Not you and me, sorry. Just kidding. And I rolled over and I said, you know, Gareth. No, just kidding. I'm just kidding. There she is, shout out. What's it called? College Court. College Court. And I was laying there, and I thought, I'm just gonna go over in my head, and I was like, I can't do this. I can't talk about it. I should've just made a video. And then, when I woke up this morning, I thought, I'm just gonna wing it. So how was that? I winged it. But thank you so much. I guess that's it. Also, oh, you want me to say something? Also, I love it here. I love it here in sunny Leicester, and I just may dig in my heels and stay forever, because if it's good enough for Richard III, there, I did it. Thank you. you you you you you