Issues Important to Our Employees Are Important to DesignPoint

Editor’s note: Kayla Karan is an interior designer and project manager with DesignPoint. More importantly, she is a beloved daughter, wife, sister, and aunt. She is dedicated to her family and to causes, like SCAD, that are near to her heart. We applaud Kayla for her energy, ambition, and commitment, and we are proud to have her on our team. 

To say the Mayo Clinic, located in Rochester, Minnesota, is amazing, is an understatement. The average person hears the name “Mayo Clinic” from time to time, but what they don’t understand is just how amazing a place it is and what the name “Mayo Clinic” stands for. Yes, it is rated the #1 hospital in the nation and is more than 100 years old, but it is so much more. My mom, Susan Edelman, and I, were able to set foot in the Mayo Clinic and meet with the leading doctors and researchers on Thursday, January 30^th, to help present the 2019 SCAD Research check for funds raised to the SCAD department of Care and Research.

SCAD. When people hear the name “SCAD,” they think of Savannah College of Art and Design. What so many adults do not know is that there is another meaning to SCAD: Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection. It is an increasingly-recognized cause of a heart attack that is poorly understood. This type of heart attack seems to strike healthy young women who do not have the conventional risk factors for heart disease. It is a sudden tear that occurs within the layers of one or more arteries of the heart. The tear blocks the blood flow and causes a heart attack. It is the number-one cause of a heart attack in women who are pregnant as well as new mothers experiencing postpartum. Researchers have identified several diseases and conditions as being associated with SCAD, but many times a SCAD occurs in people with no known risk factors or underlying condition.

The suspected associated conditions and potential triggers for SCAD include:

• pregnancy and postpartum period
• Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD)
• extreme physical exertion
• extreme emotional stress
• connective-tissue abnormalities and monogenetic mutations
  • Vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (type IV)
  • Marfan syndrome
  • Loeys-Dietz syndrome
  • Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease
  • Pseudoxanthoma elasticum

While most individuals who experience SCAD are women, SCAD can occur in men, too (https://www.scadresearch.org/about/).

This heart attack affected my sister, Meagan Duarte, at age 29, just eight weeks after giving birth to her youngest son. Unfortunately, my sister experienced what they said was a major heart attack. It left many complications, including being in a coma for 23 days until she wasn’t able to keep up the fight. It has changed her family’s and friends’ lives forever.

Each year, there are several SCADaddle 5Ks nationwide, held to help raise awareness and funds for SCAD research. Each year, a group is asked to present the check to the Mayo Clinic to the SCAD Research department. My family was asked to help present the check, along with another SCAD Angel couple who lost their sister / sister-in-law as well.

Many emotions came with the day of presenting the check. Uncertainty, reflection, thankfulness, honored, heart-warming. You drive up to the Mayo Clinic and it is more like a university campus. Buildings stretch out over a few blocks, making up a small town as opposed to a single hospital building or two. You set foot in the main building for outpatients, with names being called over the intercom for valet pick-up. You see marble flooring and wall cladding using marble from around the world. You see 13 blown-glass hanging sculptures suspended from the ceiling — sculptures that have been donated in honor of patients, including 13 pieces weighing approximately 6,000 pounds. All employees are dressed in business apparel, showing their respect for their patients and all that enter the building. Everything the doctors and staff do is for the care of their patients. There are approximately 1,000 outpatients in a single day alone. The Mayo Clinic is comprised of an inpatient hospital, outpatient hospital, research center, and school of medicine. All departments are always working together for the betterment of the patients, because their primary value is, “the needs of the patient come first” (https://www.mayoclinic.org/about-mayo-clinic/mission-values).

We got to meet with some of the best-of-the-best doctors, especially when it comes to cardiology and SCAD. It was an honor to meet and speak with them and for them to dedicate their time to meeting with us and having lunch with us. We presented a $150,000 check to SCAD Research, all funds going toward more research. “The overarching goal is to better characterize the pathophysiology and genetic basis of SCAD and guide optimal treatments” (https://www.scadresearch.org/about/research-notes/).