Former Vice President Dick Cheney is seen at the U.S. Capitol as President George H.W. Bush lies in state in the Rotunda on Dec. 3, 2018.

As many reflect on the life of former Vice President Dick Cheney and his political legacy, others marvel at his longevity.

Despite five heart attacks, multiple surgeries and a heart transplant, Cheney still lived a long life and died surrounded by his wife, daughters and other family members Nov. 3 at age 84.

“Modern medicine has kept this man alive through all of these years through innovative advancements in the field of cardiology,” said Dr. Baljash Cheema, advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

In a CBS “60 Minutes” interview in 2013, Cheney told CNN correspondent Sanjay Gupta that his heart disease was a product of genetics and unhealthy living. The former vice president had a family history of “bad hearts,” but he also indulged in fatty foods, beer and up to three packs of cigarettes a day.

Though genetics is important and can make patients more susceptible to certain coronary conditions, lifestyle factors like exercise, diet, sleep and stress “play a huge role,” Cheema said.

Cheney’s first heart attack occurred during his first congressional campaign in 1978, at age 37. Then as a congressional member, he suffered two additional heart attacks in 1984 and 1988. The fourth occurred after the 2000 presidential election as a legal battle ensued over who was the winning candidate.

The former vice president had a cardiac defibrillator implanted. The small electronic device monitors and regulates the heart’s rhythm by delivering an electrical shock if it detects an irregular heartbeat, Cheema said.

Doctors were probably worried his heart was weakened after the four heart attacks and implanted the defibrillator as “an insurance policy,” he said.

Cheney once revealed he had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off because of concerns terrorists might attempt to send his heart a fatal shock remotely, according to The Associated Press.

In February 2010, after leaving office, Cheney had a fifth heart attack. Five months later, he was outfitted with a device that helped pump blood and compensate for increasing heart congestion. It's called a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD.

The device takes over the entire function of the left ventricle, which is responsible for pumping oxygenated blood throughout the body, Cheema said.

“This is when things have gotten really serious in the world of advanced heart failure,” he said. In this world, none of the typical procedures and medications used to treat a heart condition is effective any longer and patients have a high chance of dying in the next one to five years.

The LVAD is also typically used as a bridge for patients awaiting a heart transplant, Cheema said. Though patients typically live five to seven years after an LVAD surgery, Cheney had to wait only 20 months until a heart became available in March 2012.

With his new heart, the former vice president lived another 13 years. Cheema said that's the average length of survival for a heart transplant, and it could have been longer if Cheney had received his new heart at a younger age.

Cheney's health condition inspired him to cowrite a book with cardiologist Jonathan Reiner titled "Heart: An American Medical Odyssey."

In an interview with USA TODAY in 2013, Reiner said: "He has the longest history of heart disease of any of my patients. ... He has the most complex history in terms of how difficult his disease became, the most number of moving parts. And he happens to be Dick Cheney."

Cheema says now that Cheney's story "isn't as uncommon as we think it is."

"This is, of course, a major story because he's Dick Cheney and he's a public figure, but our academic medical center at Northwestern and many academic medical centers are doing this day in and day out for patients," he said.

Although medical advancements are helping patients with heart disease live longer, Cheema looks forward to more progress in preventive care to avoid that first heart attack − or five.

"I'm most interested in ... How do we get a young Dick Cheney and identify his risk for having heart disease down the line and get him the interventions and support?" he said. "How do we shift things forward − how do we prevent things from forming and use the technology we have to decrease the frequency of these types of stories?"

Contributing: Michelle Del Rey and Susan Page

Adrianna Rodriguez can be reached at adrodriguez@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dick Cheney had five heart attacks. Here's how science helped him live until 84.

Reporting by Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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