I don’t want to do this again. The first time nearly killed me.
But with matters of the heart, it’s best not to delay.
Apparently, I need a valve job.
Turns out my already-prolapsed mitral valve is floppy, won’t fully close and spits excess blood backward into my left atrium causing stress on my heart.
No question that this – “mitral valve regurgitation” – leads to congestive heart failure, which slowly did in my parents.
Upon hearing the news, my old Florida friend put the onus squarely where it belonged.
“I think, without question, you can blame Donald Trump for this,” Lorelei emailed. “His existence in the presidency increases the anxiety of each day exponentially, which causes your and countless others’ heart valves to flop, work harder and require medical intervention. It’s just one more reason to impeach him.”
God bless activist friends.
Election or not, something sent me into an abnormal heart rhythm last Nov. 14, when I clocked a resting heart rate of 137 beats per minute. Thank God I was at my annual physical, and internist Jami Small caught it.
My guardian angel/doc has already saved me once, back in 2001 during a routine office visit when, by the grace of God, she thought she heard something other than my heart murmur. Turned out to be a benign cardiac tumor the size of a tennis ball. That was a painful summer. Until 9-11 happened. Perspective.
Back to November. “Why is your heart rate so high?” Dr. Small asked.
“White Coat Syndrome?” I joked.
She wasn’t laughing.
Then, instead of spending the afternoon wandering the aisles of Trader Joe’s, I ended up in Royal Oak Beaumont Hospital’s ER hooked up to two IV drips with a half-dozen Doogie Howsers ogling me.
“Excuse me, but what’s your combined age?” I asked, as my supportive sister gave me the stink eye.
The trauma doctor was 35. I have sweaters that old.
Surgery is set for May 29 at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. I’m scared shitless, mostly because I know what to expect. Seventeen years ago, ignorance was bliss, and I wasn’t 58.
Barring any coronary artery disease, the surgery will be minimally invasive, not to be confused with less painful. It will go something like this:
A man I’ve met once will flip me on my left side, slice open my chest and spread a couple of ribs to access my parts. He’ll hold my heart in his hands, put me on a bypass machine and return my valve to its proper “cathedral arch” position, praise the Lord. Once tightened to normal size – picture the “A-OK” circle you make with your thumb and forefinger – he’ll put a ring on it.
Not exactly what I had in mind when marriage for all passed in 2015.
Meantime, a March 7 cardiac catheterization and trans-esophageal echocardiogram await.
There are things much harder than this. No one gets through life with an unbroken stride. Everybody’s got something.
But, honestly, I’d rather be wandering the aisles at Trader Joe’s.
(Copyright 2018)
