By Emily Williams
According to the American Heart Association, heart disease is the nation’s number one killer.
Patients with heart disease and other related health issues also are among those at highest risk of death should they contract COVID-19.
With those facts in mind, the AHA will present its 2020 Birmingham Heart Walk virtually on June 13 with the goal of not only funding its mission to support those with heart disease, but also providing support to those who are affected by the virus.
This year’s Heart Walk chairman, David Cox, vice president of technology for Southern Company, hopes to see more participation than in prior years.
The fundraising campaign kicked off May 5 with “Rally Day,” resulting in more than 160 teams of participants and $32,000 initial donations.
“It has been really encouraging to see how many people have already signed on to participate,” Cox said.
Though this is the first year Cox has served in a leadership role with the AHA, he and his wife, Terri, have been supporters for many years. The AHA cause is one that is very personal to their family.
An Infant With a Heart Defect
When the couple welcomed their eldest child, Emily, into the world 16 years ago, it was a bittersweet moment in time. Their daughter was born with a life-threatening congenital heart defect that blocked blood flow to her extremities.
The only option for their newborn daughter was surgery, which Terri Cox noted was a blessing because it relieved them from having to make a decision.
Both David and Terri Cox have always led an active and healthy lifestyle, and in raising Emily that was no different. He describes her as active and competitive in her childhood, which has remained true in her adolescence. Emily is a member of Oak Mountain High School’s varsity volleyball team.
“Before she started playing volleyball, she competed in gymnastics for a while,” he said. “So, moving forward she was always very driven and goal-oriented.”
With age, Emily started to gain an understanding of her diagnosis at birth and the weight of being afforded the opportunity to receive life-saving heart surgery.
“I think it was when she was around 12 years old, that was when we started getting more involved and participated in the walks here in Birmingham and in Atlanta,” Cox said.
Just as she became actively involved in heart disease awareness and AHA fundraising, Emily’s health began to take a downturn.
At 13, she began to experience symptoms that she didn’t quite understand. She found that she couldn’t be as active as she typically had been. She was tired all the time.
One day while playing in a volleyball tournament, she felt herself becoming tired. Her vision became spotty and she blacked out on the court.
She had developed symptoms of a second congenital heart defect, a sub-aortic stenosis blocking blood flow to the center of her heart.
“That first diagnosis was more of a shock to the system,” Cox said. The second was a similar shock accompanied by a wave of unsettling nostalgia. He and his wife had to relive the fears they faced when their daughter was first born, being unsure of what the future would hold for her.
But her surgery was successful, and Emily took recovery as a new challenge.
She was told she would not be able to play sports again, and she was told that her recovery would take about a year.
Two months after her surgery, she had made a full recovery in time to work her way back on the volleyball court.
“When she was recovering after the last surgery, she had the idea to make these water bottles to raise money for AHA,” Cox said. So, they ordered a machine that would print labels for the water bottles and began selling them.
“I think she ended up raising about $500 or $600 alone,” he said.
She counted herself lucky, lucky that the research had been done years before and the surgery perfected so that when she needed the lifesaving technology, it was there.
Birmingham-Based Research
In the last year or two, Cox said he has upped his game in the AHA’s Birmingham chapter.
He saw the impact that UAB and Children’s of Alabama had in terms of research and medical advances in cardiology and how much the AHA was investing in Birmingham-based research.
“Birmingham is a net gainer when it comes to what we give every year,” he said. “Over the course of the years, more has been put back into the community than has been given.”
Thus, an investment in supporting the AHA and its ongoing campaigns as well as events such as Heart Walk are an investment in local efforts to research and spread awareness for heart disease.
The June 13 Heart Walk will be virtual. It will begin at 8 a.m., and those who participate just need to get active. They aren’t limited to walking.
AHA officials have suggested a few different kinds of activities:
• Take a walk outside – while following current social distancing guidelines.
• Get the whole family involved and have an indoor dance party.
• Try out a few strengthening exercises such as push-ups, lunges and squats.
• Create an at-home circuit workout.
To register, visit birminghamheartwalk.org.
