RV Park owner found perfect heart surgeon by chance

Larry Fowler has a long history of heart problems.

“I fought my heart all my life, since I was 46,” he said last week.

Fowler has arthritis and the arthritis, he said makes it easier for plaque to grow on his arteries. He’s had multiple surgeries, but this time, doctors told him there wasn’t much they could do.

This summer was the worst. His heart hurt so bad he was taking, two, three nitroglycerin pills at a time, plus pain killers on top of it.

But his heart still hurt.

Fowler, who owns the Columbia Falls RV Park, began searching locally and the country for a doctor who might be able to help. He got online, searched the Internet for months — Houston, Cleveland, New York, Arizona. Doctors said there wasn’t much they could do.

“They said ‘You’ll have a heart attack, but it shouldn’t kill you,’” he said.

Not exactly a reassuring thought.

Fowler’s always lived in active life, heart problems aside.

He grew up in Toledo, Washington, spent most of his life there as an oil jobber. He built and ran gas stations and convenience stores.

“We sold everything,” he said. “Nuts, bolts, even dynamite.”

He bought the Columbia Falls RV Park about eight years ago. Has been expanding and improving it ever since.

One day a few weeks ago an RVer pulled up with a $2 million rig into the RV park. Fowler went over to chat it up with the owner and the man said his Fowler’s heart case sounded a lot like a case his friend had. There was a doctor in California who might be able to help.

So Fowler sent the physician — Dr. Richard Schatz of the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California — his information. The next day Schatz’s nurse called, asked if he could overnight his medical records. It was a Thursday.

By Monday, Fowler was in California on the cardiologist’s operating table. Schatz had invented a stent that would do just the trick. A stent is a tiny wire mesh tube that props open an artery.

He put five of them in Fowler’s heart arteries. The next day Fowler was walking the streets of La Jolla, no pain, a new man.

Fowler is grateful for the care. Insurance covered the procedure. He wishes he’d known about Schatz before.

“Prior to that I had talked to some of the best doctors in the U.S.,” he said. He said he wasn’t disparaging the care he received from other doctors, it was just that “some have a little more expertise and experience than others. Never give up.”

Schatz said Fowler could do whatever he wanted to do. At 72, the RV Park keeps Fowler busy. He was out pouring concrete later that week.

“Schatz told me to go home and get back to work,” Fowler said.

He hasn’t had any pain since and has nothing but praise for Schatz and his staff.

“They treated me exceptionally nice,” he said.