Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s decades-long physician called him his “easiest patient,” saying Cheney never let his heart disease interfere with living a full life.
“He never let politics or his office get in the way … of doing the right thing for his health,” physician Jonathan Reiner told CNN on Tuesday.
“He was also never concerned about what people knew about his heart disease. He was very open about it,” he added. “He was the easiest patient, unbelievably compliant. And I think that’s one of the reasons why he was able to live such a long and full life. He was very involved in his health care, very compliant, asked great, great questions, made great decisions. And he was a very, very easy patient, incredibly easy.”
Cheney, who served as vice president under former President George W. Bush, died Monday night from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, his family said in a statement.
He served as the youngest White House chief of staff, taking over the role at age 34 under former President Ford, before later serving for years in the House and as secretary of Defense before ultimately being tapped for vice president.
Cheney had five heart attacks throughout his life, the first in 1978 at 37 years old, Reiner said. He wore a device to regulate his heartbeat starting in 2001 and underwent a successful heart transplant in 2012, three years after retiring from public office.
“He was only 37 years old, and when he had that heart attack, there was nothing that medicine really could do for people with heart attacks, except hope they didn’t die,” Reiner said. “And he survived that, and he went on to lead a vigorous life, really, in spite of very well-established, very premature heart disease.”
Reiner, who became Cheney’s physician as a young doctor in 1998, said Cheney was able to take advantage of every medical breakthrough just as they became available.
“He led this really amazing, amazing life where … every medical breakthrough became available to him at just the right time, things like bypass surgery and coronary stents, defibrillator, ventricular assist device, and ultimately, heart transplant, were all being developed, sort of, in parallel to his disease,” Reiner said.
“He was the most complicated patient I’ve ever cared for, and he happened to be the vice president [of the] United States,” he added.
Reiner pushed back when asked whether Cheney had “run out of options towards the end.”
“Well, he was 84 years old, and we all get to the end of our own story. I think the vice president was able to squeeze every ounce of juice from his life. And I think he lived an extraordinarily full and vigorous life — despite having developed heart disease at a very, very young age,” he said.
“He was emblematic of what people with heart disease can aspire to do, and what he also never really allowed to happen in his own life — he never really allowed the disease to dictate what he could do,” Reiner continued. “My father used to say that it’s one thing to have a disease, it’s another thing entirely to let the disease have you, and Vice President Cheney never let his coronary artery and heart disease dictate the course of his life.”
