Jennie Przano likes to live her life on the go. She walks, works out and tries to keep up with two busy grandchildren. But 10 years ago, the normally active 75-year-old started slowing down.

She noticed her legs would get tired just seconds into a stroll or upon starting exercises of any kind. As the condition worsened, the pain set in. The final straw came during a milestone trip to Italy with her husband. The couple had to sit out during many of the planned excursions because Jennie couldn’t keep up.

Back in Texas, she turned to vascular surgeon Charles West Jr., M.D., at Texas Health Vascular Surgical Specialists, a Texas Health Physicians Group practice in Fort Worth. West specializes in minimally invasive endovascular treatments and therapies for problems with lower-extremity blood flow. 

“Over the last few years, she’d developed progressive leg pain with walking,” West explains. “And when we evaluated her, what we found was her abdominal aorta and the blood vessels going to the legs were completely occluded with atherosclerotic plaque. She had really no pulse that could be detected in her legs and she had very poor circulation in her lower extremities.”

Atherosclerosis is a hardening of the arteries that occurs when plaque builds up and creates a narrowing or blockage (occlusion). This plaque buildup limits blood flow and the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the lower extremities. Left untreated, it can lead to peripheral artery disease (PAD).

The typical symptom of PAD is leg pain that starts with walking or exercise. PAD may result in tissue and cell loss, which can be serious.

In Jennie’s case, her arteries were 100-percent blocked. To get her moving again without pain, West needed to surgically bypass Jennie’s blocked arteries and replace the affected aorta with a graft to promote blood flow to her lower extremities. “Once the blood vessel has been replaced, patients can almost immediately see a difference,” West says.

The same held true for Jennie. A month after her procedure and recovery, she had her life back. “It has been a total miracle. I can do things that I couldn’t do before, like my gardening — getting up and down. This has been a miracle to where I can run up and down hills and go fishing.”

“I would recommend Dr. West and Texas Health Vascular Surgical Specialists. Everybody was right there for me. It was nice to have people surround you with all the answers,” she adds.

Jennie now has plans to do a lot more traveling with her husband and more running and playing with her grandkids.   

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