By Judy O’Gorman Alvarez
The morning of May 22, 2021, Liz Barrett and Michael Russano of Red Bank were looking forward to their long-awaited wedding day. COVID-19 safety restrictions had forced the couple to postpone their celebration twice.
As the bride and her bridal party gathered at her parents’ Middletown home to get ready for the day, Russano arrived to drop off his mother, carefully backing into the driveway so he wouldn’t risk a look at the house and possibly his intended bride. Tradition called for the couple not to see each other until Barrett’s walk down the aisle at nearby St. Agnes Church later that day.
But that never happened.
While Barrett was having her makeup applied, Russano decided to go for a pre-wedding swim at Anchorage Beach in Sea Bright. He never made it to the water, instead collapsing on the sand. His heart failed. Passers-by and EMTs were unable to revive him.
Some nine months earlier in late 2020 – in the midst of the pandemic – Russano had been diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy. After experiencing unusual fatigue and lightheadedness after exercising, he saw his primary care doctor at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore who referred him to a cardiologist. (The couple had recently moved from Washington D.C.)
“It was uncommon for him to have such scarring on his heart as he was only 35,” said Barrett, 31, a program analyst for WIC (Women, Infants and Children nutrition program). “So because there was no other kind of underlying condition or reason for this, or family history, they did genetic testing. That’s how they found out that he had a mutated gene – the Desmin gene.”
Doctors recommended Russano get an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). Surgically placed in the chest, an ICD is helpful in preventing sudden death in patients with known ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation. Studies have shown ICDs to have a role in preventing cardiac arrest in high-risk patients who haven’t had, but are at risk for, life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias.
The diagnosis was a condition not to be ignored, but Barrett said they both thought they had time.
“The doctors said it was out of an abundance of caution” that he should think about the surgery, Barrett said. “There wasn’t a sense of urgency.”
In addition, amidst the pandemic, elective surgeries were not easy to schedule.
“We had just moved. We pushed off our wedding two times. So we thought, one thing at a time: Move into our first house, get married and then Mike was going to address his recently diagnosed heart condition,” Barrett said.
Although he was not Russano’s physician and did not review that case, Ravi Diwan, M.D., a cardiologist with Hackensack Meridian, said, “Any (unusual symptoms) with exertion, is always concerning, whether that’s shortness of breath, classic chest pain, or dizziness with exertion.”
Diwan said those symptoms “should be an alarm for somebody to seek attention because when you’re putting your heart to a challenge and it can’t meet that challenge, usually that’s when you have a supply-and-demand mismatch and then matters arise. So, symptoms that occur with exertion should always be looked into.”
He confirmed the next step would be “echocardiography, EKG, stress testing and then further testing.” In Russano’s case, genetic testing held the key.
In cases like that, “We’re trying to get to the bottom and see if there’s any structural abnormalities or flow of maladies and coronary arteries and so forth,” said Diwan.
“With everything that goes on between work and life,
we often put ourselves second, and that should never be done.
If something’s not feeling right,” Diwan said, take the time to
“get checked out and get the appropriate diagnostic testing.”
Ravi Diwan, M.D.,
Hackensack Meridian
Barrett and Russano met in 2014 while both were working and living in Washington, D.C. After graduating from Loyola University, Russano, who grew up on Long Island, started working for the U.S. Navy, where he stayed for 15 years. “We met on a kickball team in D.C.,” Barrett said.
They were engaged on a trip to Paris. “He proposed at the Eiffel Tower,” she said. “That was so Mike. He made everything more fun. Even grocery shopping was fun with him.”
There is no room for second-guessing and “what ifs” for Barrett in her healing journey. After selling what she thought was “our forever home” she moved in temporarily with her parents and works on dealing with her grief.
“I run,” she said. “A lot.”
She also finds solace at Stephy’s Place, a grief counseling center in Red Bank, where people who have experienced the same kind of loss share their thoughts and comfort.
And she’s appreciative of the “kindness of others,” from the EMTs in Sea Bright who tried to save Russano to friends, neighbors in Red Bank and even strangers. Kind words and deeds and acts to help to preserve her fiancé’s memory are treasured.
When he was a child, a friend of Russano’s died tragically at age 14 when he suffered a blow to his chest during a lacrosse game. That friend’s parents created the Louis J. Acompora Memorial Foundation which is now donating life-saving defibrillators to the Sea Bright beach to honor Russano.
Barrett also takes comfort in the messages Russano shared at their rehearsal dinner the night before he died. In the speech, he told his parents and brothers how much he loved them and spoke to Barrett’s parents and sisters and friends.
“Then he turned to me and told me he finally figured out where he belonged in life, which was right next to me,” said Barrett. “It was really beautiful. If you’re looking for silver linings, he was able to stand up there with immediate family and close friends and be able to tell everyone how much he loved them.”
Even though Russano did everything suggested by his doctors, Barrett and Diwan want to remind people to listen to their bodies.
“With everything that goes on between work and life, we often put ourselves second, and that should never be done. If something’s not feeling right,” Diwan said, take the time to “get checked out and get the appropriate diagnostic testing.”
The article originally appeared in the February 3 – 9, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
