Yup, that's me at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, TN where I had my surgery. And no, my family isn't nuts. It was my own morbid curiosity. Pre-surgery I requested that they take pictures of me while I was still hooked up to the breathing machine, etc, as I was curious how that must have looked and thought it'd be a cool momento to have. This is the least gross picture that came out of the mix. All in all I had a breathing tube, a central line in my neck, a central line in my wrist, two pacing wires coming out of my chest, two drainage tubes coming out of my chest, EKG wires, a pressure cuff, an IV in each hand, and well...a massive effing scar.But in any event, it has made me reflect about a lot of things. For starters, check out the difference between me then and me now...
THEN (about 2 weeks post-op)
NOW
It's amazing that you can hardly even see my scars any more! But the truly amazing thing is that I was given a new lease on life. I've not been shy about the fact that my health has been anything but ideal. In fact it has down right sucked. But if it wasn't for one very thorough echo-tech at Ft. Campbell's Blanchfield Army Hospital (trust me, I too am shocked that I am praising an Army hospital) I could very well be on my way to being a goner by now. The fact was, I had been complaining of cardiac distress since 1999. I had chest pains, palpitations, what felt like an irregular heart beat, all sorts of symptoms. The diagnoses that I received over the years before 2005? Acid reflux, costochondritis, anxiety, and mitral valve prolapse. More or less, doctors blew me off. A 20 year old coming in complaining of cardiac issues when nothing blatant pops up means it's probably nothing according to them. Now...I do have a mitral valve prolapse, but how scary to think that after all the echos and EKGs and cardiac tests that I had done in 1999, no one caught the other more life threatening congenital defects I had. In fact all my LIFE no one saw or heard them. These were things that usually got fixed in infancy!
So thankfully in 2005, I had an episode at my job. I kept feeling like I was going to pass out for weeks on end. I'd be driving to work and would have to pull over because I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. I'd get short of breath and my head would feel like it was going to explode. For awhile I thought maybe I was having mini seizures because I'd almost lose consciousness for a moment and then zip back into it. But at work one day, I walked behind the nurses station and the head nurse took one look at me and said "sit the hell down." She said I was diaphoretic (sweating excessively for no reason), almost completely white in color, and looked visibly out of breath. My blood pressure typically is about 95/65. That day it was 150/100. My resting heart rate is usually high...around 80 or 90...but that day was 165. Resting. This was all completely abnormal. I got sent to the ER. And guess what. They said nothing was wrong. But they DID tell me to follow up with a cardiologist. Normally, I may have blown it off. But with all the symptoms I had been having, I knew I had to do something.
So I made an appointment at the Army hospital, as that was where my insurance worked out of. I was not thrilled about this because my experiences with the Army doctors had been nothing short of horrors. But I have to say, I literally owe them my life. Wouldn't you know it, that very thorough echo-tech saw that something was "a little off" to say the least. The right side of my heart was significantly enlarged. And it looked like there may be a hole. More tests were run and they found both the rare location of hole in my heart (which meant open heart surgery would be the only option for fixing it) and the pulmonary vein that was partially connected to the wrong part of my heart. Essentially, all the oxygenated blood was either leaking to the other side of my heart or being recirculated back out into my body. Very little of it was making it to my heart. In the end the doctors told me that the structural defects in my heart would have led the right side of my heart to enlarge even further, eventually leading to cardiac arrest. As the internet put it,
"After age 20 years, the mortality rate is approximately 5% per decade with 90% of patients dead by age 60 years."
Um. Yikes! However this clearly put things into perspective for me. Sure, open heart surgery sucked enormously. It tore my body to shreds. But I could have gone a lifetime never knowing and I could have been dead much sooner than hoped.
So in actually, open heart surgery was the best thing that has ever happened to me. My friend KK (Kristen) always tells me how much she loves my scar, as it is why I am still around. My appreciation for this fact is far deeper than I would ever show. Secretly, I do love my scar. Immensely.
It's amazing that you can hardly even see my scars any more! But the truly amazing thing is that I was given a new lease on life. I've not been shy about the fact that my health has been anything but ideal. In fact it has down right sucked. But if it wasn't for one very thorough echo-tech at Ft. Campbell's Blanchfield Army Hospital (trust me, I too am shocked that I am praising an Army hospital) I could very well be on my way to being a goner by now. The fact was, I had been complaining of cardiac distress since 1999. I had chest pains, palpitations, what felt like an irregular heart beat, all sorts of symptoms. The diagnoses that I received over the years before 2005? Acid reflux, costochondritis, anxiety, and mitral valve prolapse. More or less, doctors blew me off. A 20 year old coming in complaining of cardiac issues when nothing blatant pops up means it's probably nothing according to them. Now...I do have a mitral valve prolapse, but how scary to think that after all the echos and EKGs and cardiac tests that I had done in 1999, no one caught the other more life threatening congenital defects I had. In fact all my LIFE no one saw or heard them. These were things that usually got fixed in infancy!
So thankfully in 2005, I had an episode at my job. I kept feeling like I was going to pass out for weeks on end. I'd be driving to work and would have to pull over because I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. I'd get short of breath and my head would feel like it was going to explode. For awhile I thought maybe I was having mini seizures because I'd almost lose consciousness for a moment and then zip back into it. But at work one day, I walked behind the nurses station and the head nurse took one look at me and said "sit the hell down." She said I was diaphoretic (sweating excessively for no reason), almost completely white in color, and looked visibly out of breath. My blood pressure typically is about 95/65. That day it was 150/100. My resting heart rate is usually high...around 80 or 90...but that day was 165. Resting. This was all completely abnormal. I got sent to the ER. And guess what. They said nothing was wrong. But they DID tell me to follow up with a cardiologist. Normally, I may have blown it off. But with all the symptoms I had been having, I knew I had to do something.
So I made an appointment at the Army hospital, as that was where my insurance worked out of. I was not thrilled about this because my experiences with the Army doctors had been nothing short of horrors. But I have to say, I literally owe them my life. Wouldn't you know it, that very thorough echo-tech saw that something was "a little off" to say the least. The right side of my heart was significantly enlarged. And it looked like there may be a hole. More tests were run and they found both the rare location of hole in my heart (which meant open heart surgery would be the only option for fixing it) and the pulmonary vein that was partially connected to the wrong part of my heart. Essentially, all the oxygenated blood was either leaking to the other side of my heart or being recirculated back out into my body. Very little of it was making it to my heart. In the end the doctors told me that the structural defects in my heart would have led the right side of my heart to enlarge even further, eventually leading to cardiac arrest. As the internet put it,
"After age 20 years, the mortality rate is approximately 5% per decade with 90% of patients dead by age 60 years."
Um. Yikes! However this clearly put things into perspective for me. Sure, open heart surgery sucked enormously. It tore my body to shreds. But I could have gone a lifetime never knowing and I could have been dead much sooner than hoped.
So in actually, open heart surgery was the best thing that has ever happened to me. My friend KK (Kristen) always tells me how much she loves my scar, as it is why I am still around. My appreciation for this fact is far deeper than I would ever show. Secretly, I do love my scar. Immensely.
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