The luck of the Irish didn’t always apply to the Finneran family. At the age of 19, Pennsylvania Medical Society member and Reading area cardiologist William Finneran, III, MD, FACC, nearly lost his father to a debilitating stroke. His dad, a successful New York City attorney, was only 49 years old. Several years earlier, his father’s older brother, also an attorney, had suffered a stroke at age 45.
“My dad had a high stress job as a partner in a large law firm. He was overweight, smoked and never exercised. Something was bound to happen,” recalls Dr. Finneran. And it did. One evening, while working on his taxes, the elder Finneran started talking to his wife and wasn’t making sense. “I remember my mother saying to him ‘Why are you speaking Latin to me?’”
His dad was exhibiting aphasia, a disorder that results from damage to portions of the brain that are responsible for language. He had suffered a brain bleed and would spend the next several months learning how to speak again.
A stroke occurs when a blood vessel that carries oxygen to the brain either bursts or becomes blocked by a clot. When part of the brain cannot get the blood and oxygen it needs, it begins to die. Because he never fully regained his ability to read, write or speak, he retired at the age of 53.
“What happened with my father and uncle prompted me to become a cardiologist. It also made me realize that I’d better maintain an active lifestyle, which is now a priority for my own family,” adds Dr. Finneran.