Rosie the Savior?

Of late, I've been troubled by questions I'm sure the American Heart Association, Go Red for Women, The Heart Truth, WomenHeart and other organizations/campaigns must tangle with daily: It's easy to preach to a friendly, well-indoctrinated choir—comprised in large part of survivors and/or the families of those who didn't make it—but how do you kick-start the distracted masses to take action? How do you really reach those whose lives haven't been devastated by heart disease?

Take me, for example: for much of my adult life, I suspect I could've answered few questions about heart attack or heart disease, and you could have stumped me on most true-or-false quizzes. Certainly, you'd never get me to believe someone of my age needed to give heart issues more than a passing thought—something along the lines of, “Wow, too bad people die of heart attacks. Are you planning to hog the entire green bean casserole?”

Without knowing heart disease was stampeding toward our home, I might easily have worried more about thinning hair, or wondered what could really be so wrong about an erection lasting more than four hours (I still don’t know.) I wasn't ready or willing to become an expert on any random ailment I pulled out of the Grab Bag of Delicious Possible Deaths. Even in a world in which I couldn’t step three feet outside my door without getting tangled in pink ribbons, I didn’t find myself nagging my wife Patty about when she last had her boobs mashed. Most busy folks operate according to one equation:

HEART ATTACK + MY HEART = ME AS NEW EXPERT ON HEART ATTACKS

Or, to put it in a less positive way:

IF HEART ATTACK < YES = NOT MY PROBLEM

This may seem like backward thinking, but most people won’t buy flood insurance while their toes are curled into dry carpet. We react to emerging shitstorms because it’s hard and expensive to anticipate what might come and take action to prevent it, whatever “it” is. Our human machine can break down in so many ways—and even if some of those ways are more common than others, few know they’re going to get liver cancer any more than they know they’ll be wiped out by an ebola outbreak or a random falling tree. The only thing we do know is that we’ll all die one day…of something.

Once Patty had her heart attack, though, I became an evangelist. Suddenly, I was not only listening, but asking questions and tossing around opinions, punctuating my arguments with cool-sounding terms like ischemia and ejection fraction and panel reactive antibodies. I was motivated. From time to time, I've even felt guilty about this new knowledge and energy, because it could have served us much better before Patty got sick. We're fortunate that she survived, because what we've learned since may help her extend her life. Heck, we even wrote a book about Patty’s experience, and stuffed the book with information we believe might save lives. But we face a long uphill battle to transform what we believe is an important book into a popular book.

Here’s the problem: there’s tons of evangelists out there, and not so many converts. The biggest "fans" of a health-related charity are those who've already been hurt by that charity’s central illness: heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and so on. Without a crystal ball to see what's coming or a time machine to let you go back and say, "You REALLY do NOT want that chocolate eclair", how do you save those who don't know they'll ever need to be saved?

Like it or not, the answer may be (drumroll please)...Rosie O'Donnell.

Rosie is arguably the most famous female survivor of a heart attack and, whether she wants the role or not, has become a de facto ambassador. Many folks will listen to her because they feel some connection, even if it's with a person they'll never know. For example, on Rosie’s Facebook page, you’ll find dozens of people who went to the hospital because Rosie told them not to ignore symptoms. Many claim to have refocused their lifestyles because of what Rosie’s experience taught them. One woman explained that she too had suffered a heart attack, and said, “I think it’s important you know,” as though Rosie can now add “faith-healer” to her resume.

Of course, lest Rosie ever let her new role as the people’s saint go to her head, she can always find her many detractors, who balance the enthusiasm with comments like, “I didn’t know witches had hearts,” “You’re still a selfish idiot,” and “Even Dr. Oz can’t save your ugly face.” (I suspect even these folks may make better decisions about their hearts, even if it’s  out of spite.) As much as I may envy Rosie’s celebrity, and I do—especially at a time when Patty and I, as relative unknowns, struggle to get the word out about our labor of love—I’m so glad I don’t hear people lament that Patty survived, as so many have with Rosie.

The cult of celebrity seems so silly when you step back and look at it. What does Rosie have to say that hasn’t already been said by so many others—others who know more on the topic and who’ve been caring about the issue for much longer? Probably not much. But she’ll be listened to, and some of those who listen will take action before they have a heart attack. So, even if on the surface it seems outrageous that brash, outspoken Rosie O’Donnell is becoming the new face of heart attack survival—at least until Ellen or Oprah or someone else famous feels a suspious ache across a collarbone and knocks Rosie from this perch—how silly can any of this be if it saves hundreds of lives?