Las Vegas is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to die there. That's what was in the cards for me. And I was only 55.

My wife and I were walking through one of the massive casinos -- I think it was New York New York.

"I have to rest," I said. I sat down on a chair at an empty blackjack table and caught my breath.

"Are you OK?" the wife asked.

"Yeah, must be the thin air, and I'm not in very good shape."

It wasn't the thin air. It was blockages in five heart arteries. Enough to kill me.

It wasn't long before I was reminded how great it is to live in Bryan-College Station, my home for the past 50 years.

When we returned to Bryan, I immediately made a doctor's appointment. He scheduled a stress test, which led quickly to heart catherization, which then led, the day after the cath, to heart bypass surgery.

I didn't have to go to Temple,or Houston or the Mayo Clinic. I could have a major procedure with my family by my side, no having to travel or rent hotel rooms for them. There was no moment when I wasn't in good hands.

And now I am absolutely fine -- I can prove this by saying I am now 67 and in better health than ever (I quit smoking the day I went into the hospital).

And I owe it all to the local medical community and the American Heart Association. When it comes to treatment of heart-related illness, medical facilities in the Brazos Valley rank among the best in the state.

The local chapter of the American Heart Association, presenter of the popular Heart Rock Cafe in years past, is planning a new event for 2010.

The Brazos Valley Heart Gala, "April in Paris: A Night to Remember" will be held at Miramont Country Club in Bryan at 8 p.m. April 23. Entertainment will be by Karan Chavis and The Rockafellas. Tickets for the gala are $100 and can be ordered by calling 268-0068.

A special attraction will be a raffle for two tickets to Paris. The prize consists of travel from Houston to Paris, two nights in a luxury hotel, then five nights at the historic Manoir de Poul in Coeur de Bretagne (www.bretagnebb.com).

Raffle tickets are $100 and can be purchased during the event or by calling 268-0068.

The gala is the major fundraising effort by the heart association, and all of the money raised stays in the community in the form of grants.

In 2009, Texas A&M University in College Station received 10 research awards from the association for a total of $2,192,000. The Texas A&M Health Science Center in College Station received seven heart grants totaling $1,399,000.

"There is even more research that could have been funded if the money were there," said cardiologist James Rohack, who is director of the Scott & White Center for Health Care Policy and president of the American Medical Association. "A&M and the Health Science Center both have areas of interest in nutrition, physical activity, drugs and devices related to heart disease.

"Even the A&M vet school has been involved," Rohack continued. "Dr. Michael Debakey (pioneering heart surgeon from Houston who died in 2008) worked with the vet school to develop a device for people with heart failure to serve as a bridge to a transplant. The first heart valve research was in animals. Coronary stents were developed with pigs as surrogates. Bryan-College Station has greatly benefitted with funding of basic and clinical research leading to people getting better care."

Rohack will be guest of honor at the heart association gala.

Dr. Gordon Mitchell, who performed the first heart catherization in the Brazos Valley in 1987 and founded Central Texas Heart Center, cited two functions of the American Heart Association that have made a difference in the incidence of heart disease.

"One is education of lay people as to risk modification," Mitchell said. "The other is funding research."

Mitchell said two devices have "revolutionized" treatment of coronary artery disease.

Stents (mesh tubes inserted in an artery to hold it open) have dramatically reduced the incidence of restenosis over balloon treatment. With balloons, 30 to 40 percent of arteries closed up again within six months. That figure is now 15 percent, he said. The second is the use of defibrillators for preventing sudden death.

Mitchell is one of the honorary chairs of the heart association gala, along with Drs. Kennon Wigley, Gloria Mays, Marc Schwartz and Ricardo Gutierrez.

Another cutting edge treatment is being used by BCS Heart in College Station, a practice shared by cardiologists Mario Lammoglia, Marcel Lechin and Lane Miller. Their Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner is a less invasive way to diagnose heart disease, Miller said.

"We were only the fourth practice in Texas to get one of these," he said. "It's really the gold standard, the most accurate noninvasive way to diagnose coronary artery disease."

A graduate of Texas A&M, Miller agrees that the B-CS community is blessed with outstanding medical facilities to diagnose and treat heart disease.

"Things have really evolved here in the last few years," Miller said. "I trained at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, which is pretty much world famous. But I'd put our community right up there with them."

With continued education and research support by the American Heart Association, the future can only get brighter.

To learn more about the heart association, go to www.americanheart.org.