Wow. I just realized right now, that 5 years ago today, I was lying on an operating table having open heart surgery. I was born with a bad valve and had it my whole life without knowing it. Not a single symptom or indication that I was a ticking time bomb. You know those crazy stories where you hear about some young dude in good health who just dropped dead from a heart attack out of nowhere? That was me. Except a doctor caught it ON ACCIDENT, literally just months before that heart attack was scheduled to kill me. I needed antibiotics one day for a sinus infection and when I went in, Dr. Regina Ng thought she heard something abnormal. Something no other doctor had caught my entire life. Couple tests later, they discovered the valve was in bad shape and scheduled me for surgery. My surgeon told my family that I was just months away from that valve causing a massive heart attack and killing me. The semi-routine 2.5 hour surgery nearly killed me as well. They replaced the valve and were ready to close me up when the doctor did all the final checks and saw something else abnormal. He made the team recalibrate the equipment and test it again, in disbelief. There was a 2nd issue in a different valve that was only visible after replacing the initial valve. They had to UNDO everything they just did in the previous 2 hours, stop my heart again, take out the new valve, fix the issue in the other one, then RE-DO everything they had just done. The 2 hour surgery turned into 7 hours with all hands on deck. My kidneys were starting to shut down at the end, but my heart started back up with its repairs and they rolled me into ICU for recovery after that. Life can be really crazy sometimes. Enjoy the ride while you can =)
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 21:03:34 +0000
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