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| Franklin D. Roosevelt |
The month of March brought fear back to me in vivid memory as we waited to see what the prognosis would be on my husband’s open heart surgery.
I’ve had heart problems most of my life, since I was a
youngster stricken with rheumatic fever.
Although that was not the diagnosis at the time, the doctor did come
every day for ten days with a huge shot of penicillin. It got so I didn’t want to see him anymore; I
still don’t like needles. I wasn’t
really physical as a kid, but back in those days it was okay for girls not to
be athletic; so I contented myself with quieter activities like reading.
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| With permission of Drugs.com |
Age 23, I had my first genuine physical since I was
10. Diagnosis: Heart murmur in the
mitral valve. Then fluid started
collecting in my lungs at night when I was trying to sleep – scary not being
able to breath. The doctor thought it
might be asthma. I bought an over the
counter inhaler which didn’t help at all.
There were nights when I slept in the recliner because lying down was
impossible. Finally, with a little
detective work, we figured out the trigger was salt. That led to the diagnosis of Mitral
Stenosis. The mitral valve had been
damaged by the rheumatic fever 20 years before and had degenerated more through
the ensuing years.
Over the next four years, my energy waned along with my
weight. I had been slender, but was now
downright skinny weighing only 106 pounds.
I was told we had to wait. It
wasn’t “bad enough to operate.” So how
“bad” did it need to be? I thought I was
dying. At 26, an echo cardiogram (the
computer took up most of the room and the monitor was small with only green on
black imaging; now the computer and monitor which shows the heart in vivid
colors fit on a cart) and a cardiac catheterization showed that my mitral valve
was almost completely useless as the opening was the size of a pencil instead
of a large sausage.
Then when I was almost 28, it was time. I was scared.
What would happen? Would I be
scarred for life? Would I die? My wonderful surgeon explained the whole
operation to me – a closed heart commissurotomy which is rarely
performed anymore. He would make an
incision under my left breast, stretch my ribs apart, and clean the valve with
a small scalpel fitted over his finger.
That was still scary. We toured
the hospital. That was a little bit
reassuring. My pastor visited with me a
number of times to help reassure me. On
November 12, 1975, I presented myself at the admissions window of St. Luke’s
Rush Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. I was as ready as I would ever be.
I woke up with a tube in my throat. I could not talk. The nurses in ICU told me to bang on my bed
if I needed something. My ribs ached something
fierce! Pain meds allowed me to doze in
that semi-awake state through the weekend.
I have a few vivid memories of isolated incidents during that time. Mostly it’s a blur. The next week was better. Tubes had been removed; I could talk and walk
around. My ribs still hurt, but not as
bad unless someone made me laugh.
As I recovered, I gained strength. By that summer, I was playing tennis, running
around the track at the local high school, and enjoying as sense of
freedom. Carrying the air-conditioner up
from the basement was so easy – not the painful trip to carry it down. I wondered if it would work since someone had
obviously taken the heavy motor out of it.
The operation was said to last five to seven years; I
knew I did not want to lose two years of my life again. But after the seven years was up, I was still
going strong and running after two kids!
Luckily my operation lasted 25 years.
In 2000, I had a balloon valvotomy performed. No long recovery, I only missed a week of
work instead of eight weeks. A medical
advancement well worth waiting for.
But all that worry, anxiety, and fear came flooding back
early in March when my husband told me of his fears. I believe the fear of the unknown is the
hardest fear to overcome. It is not
until you are on the other side that it dissipates.
