Former heart patients on LI celebrate life

Surgeries may have repaired Raquel Speziale's heart, but her husband says the Cardiac Kids kept her alive.

"She wouldn't have survived as long as she did without this group," Vinnie Speziale, 83, of Valley Stream, said. "It brought her outlook way up."

The Cardiac Kids -- former heart patients who met during cardiac rehabilitation sessions at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre -- gathered for lunch Monday as they have for more than five years.

When the hospital shut down the program in 2006 during a round of cost-cutting measures, the group knew they had to stick together. By that time, they had bonded over music, jokes and laughs as they trod on treadmills and pedaled on exercise bikes.

The roughly dozen members meet monthly at an Italian restaurant in Bellmore, where they pass around cellphones displaying photos of their grandchildren and cheat a little on their restricted diets, ordering Raquel Speziale's favorite dessert, tartufo, as a tribute.

Speziale died two years ago at age 78.

The youngest Cardiac Kids member is 58.

Monday, the group celebrated the birthday of its oldest member: David Feldman, who turned 97 on Jan. 11.

"It's a lovely group," Feldman said, before they brought out a chocolate and vanilla birthday cake. "We got along well at [Mercy] and it just continued."

Carleen Slattery, 79, of Wantagh, began going to Mercy for rehab in 2003 after a valve replacement.

"I thought it was just going to be machines, and nothing personal," Slattery said.

"Immediately it was fun. People were friendly. You don't complain about your aches and pains because they all have it."

Ken Lewis, 68, of Merrick, who had a triple bypass and 13 stents inserted, said the rehab gang kept him going after the surgeries.

"It gave me a reason to get up out of bed at least three times a week," he said. "If I didn't go, people would be calling me saying, 'Are you OK?' "

Raquel Speziale rarely missed a Cardiac Kids lunch. Now Vinnie Speziale won't miss one, either.

"They've adopted me as a non-heart patient," Speziale said of the group, before wryly knocking twice on the wooden table.

"I love them and hopefully they love me."