About Me (In My Own Words)
My story began with the birth of my son, Jack, on July 12, 2013. I was diagnosed with preeclampsyia late in pregnancy and consequently was induced to deliver on July 11th. After 18 hours of induction and labor, my doctor decided to move to a C-section. The procedure went fine and Jack was born happy and healthy at 2:16pm weighing 7lbs, 1oz. Many hours later, in the middle of the night in my postpartum room, I lay sleeping in the room with both my husband and my baby. The nurse came in around 1:00 am to check vitals and as I sat up in bed, all of a sudden, I could not breath. I watch my o2 sats on the monitor plummet into the 50's and gasped for my husband to call my mother. In the meantime, the rapid response team was called in and I was put on an oxygen mask at 50% o2 until my sats were back up. My mother arrived and I was terrified of what had just taken place. My Grandma had recently passed away from a long battle with COPD and I had watched her sats fall dramatically like that a few times and knew how scary and dangerous that could be...I just didn't understand why I was experiencing it.
The next morning, I went through many tests - an EKG, a chest Xray, and an echo. They also had administered lasiks to begin to relieve my body of the enormous amount of fluid I was retaining. Upon the results of the echo, they transfered me to the cardiac telemetry unit of the hospital for further montitoring. My resting heart rate was around 120 and I began to notice that I was short of breath, etc. that I thought was all relative to the pregnancy.
I ended up staying in the hospital for 8 days after Jack's arrival. It was super difficult because he could not stay there with me and had to be kept in the nursery at the other end of the hospital. But we were able to see him pretty much whenever we wanted. A nurse would have to bring him to us and stay with us the whole time, but it could have been much worse. He was nicknamed "Traveling Jack" by the nurses on the telemetry floor and everyone was always excited to see him coming down the hallway.
Eventually though we had to deal with what was going on with me. I was told that I had gone into Congestive Heart Failure and was given a cardiologist who looked at my echos and began the conversations with my husband and I. "Have you ever had rhuematic fever?" he asked. I never had to my knowledge and my mother (ironically a pediatric nurse) confirmed that I had never been diagnosed with that. The cardiologist then went on to explain that I had what was called "mitral valve stenosis and regurgitation" which he believed was caused by rhuematic fever at somepoint in my life.
Processing this information was a total blur. I had just given birth to my first child. THis was supposed to be the best time of my life. And it was definitley still very special but now was becoming tarnished and traumatic with this new diagnosis.
The cardiologist said that we would have to watch this and do another echo in a few months to see how things were...basically to see if the severity of the problem was just exacerbated by pregnancy or if this was my baseline.
2 months later... 2 months of anxiety and fear of going back into CHF and having a newborn baby at home...I had a repeat echo and it was determined that the valve was in bad shape and the regurgitation was severe. I would need surgery to rectify the problem.
Because I was so young (33) and the severity of the problem was relatively unusual for someone my age, my cardiologist wanted me to be seen at the Mayo Clinic in hopes of repairing the valve, rather than replacing it. My echos and a file was sent to the Mayo clinic were Dr. Rick Nishimura evaluated the tests. It was determined that the valve was damaged beyond repair and would need to be replaced.
We decided to have the surgery done in our home town of St. Louis rather than the Mayo CLinic and the cardiologist was fine with that as he said the reason to go to Mayo was only if they could repair since it's such an intricate and meticulous surgery. The replacement would be, for lack of a better and more significant word, less complicated and could easily be done at Missouri Baptist Hospital which was still a very reputable and progressive heart hospital.
Once this news was determined, I wanted the surgery right away. Before my baby could be mobile and before I had to waste any more of my days and nights worrying about the surgery and my health.
We went to meet the surgeon and he was fantastic. Very sympathetic to my situation but also very frank in the fact that my heart was failing me and we needed to get this taken care of. The only other hurdle to cross was to decide between and tissue valve that would last roughly 10 years and would allow me to have more children or a mechanical valve that would most likely last the rest of my life but would make having additional children rather difficult and dangerous.
I was very disturbed at the decision I had to make. How could I make this decision so soon after the birth of my first child? But I just kept seeing my little family of 3 and picturing us on a road trip with little Jack in the back seat all by himself and I knew that isn't what I wanted for my family. I knew I wanted Jack to experience the good, bad, and the ugly of having siblings. Both my husband and I have multiple siblings who we couldn't imagine our life without. But - I still couldn't imagine going through pregnancy and giving birth again with the way that I felt and what had happened. I was scarred from the trauma. But I knew that in a few years, I could feel differently and potentially much better so I felt strongly that I should leave my family with options.
Also, I must note that both the surgeon and the cardiologist were behind me getting the tissue valve to grow my family and then getting the mechanical valve.
So it was decided. Tissue valve and the surgery was booked for 3 weeks later. During that 3 weeks I tried to stay as busy as possible. I arranged one outing a day with the baby and stayed in close communication with my husband, family, and friends.
I organized the care that I would need post op since I wouldn't be able to lift Jack for 8 weeks and took care of arranging short term disability with my employer, etc.
I made special effort to stay off the internet during this time as I didn't want to run into any stories that would scare me...in hindsight, I wish I would have found this site prior to!
My husbands and my friends and coworkers and family rallied around us. They created a care calendar and arranged for meals to be delivered several times a week. They booked and paid for our cleaning lady for 8 weeks. Gift cards arrived for groceries, phone calls, text messages, and cards arrived by the dozens. It was beyond touching the amount of support that we received from our community. I would say that it was mostly because we were going through all of this with a newborn baby and I do believe that to be true but I would hate to shortchange all of the amazing people we have in our lives who undoubtably would've helped either way.
Finally...the day before the surgery had arrived. My parents were in town and the night before was like a frenzy of logistical coordination. Who was taking the baby and when. Who was going to drive me to the hospital. Who would be in the waiting room. When could they see me after. I was eerily calm as I busied myself sorting out the details.
That night I took a shower using the antibacterial wash, slept on clean sheets and pajamas as directed and could not BELIEVE that I was a 34 year old new mom about to undergo open heart surgery in less than 12 hours. HOW HAD THIS HAPPENED???
The following morning was a flurry of activity and before I knew it, I was siting in the pre-op room getting my IVs and looking around at my mom, dad, husband, and father-in-law who were waiting with me. It was the scariest moment of my life as they wheeled me away and into the OR. Tears were streaming down my face as I said goodbye but then a very cool moment happened right before I fell asleep.
I was in the OR and there were dozens of people running around and a man dressed in scrubs, a cap, and a mask - I'm not sure what his role was - but all I could see were his friendly blue eyes and he looked at me and said "My wife had the same surgery you're about to have when she was in her thirties and she went on to have more children. You're going to be just fine." It was the last thing I remembered and I felt very calm and was so grateful for his kind eyes and words. The next thing I knew I was waking up in the ICU vaguely aware of the tube down my throat...the surgery was a success!
I saw my family that afternoon and was in and out of it for the remainder of the day and night and the following morning I was sitting on the side of my bed eating breakfast (sort of) and was transfered to the progressive care unit where I would spend the rest of my hospital recovery.
More Info About Me & My Heart
More About Me
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I am from:
St. Louis, Missouri