Despite having many surgeries over the years, I live a happy, healthy life with heart disease
As I opened my eyes, I heard my cardiac surgeon say, “I’m so glad you’re with us. His voice full of emotion. “We had to do open-heart surgery.” And then everything went dark again.
The concept of surgery for HCM wasn’t new to me. My dad had a heart transplant. My cousins had ICDs. But for me, this was a complicated decision. Frankly, I was scared. I’d never had surgery before. Did I really need the procedure? One year after my ICD surgery, I found that physician. He agreed to perform surgery to look at the device. He couldn’t promise I would feel better, but he was willing to try. And that’s all I needed.
Then in 2012, I learned there was a recall on the device generator in my chest, and I had to have surgery to replace it. Shortly after that surgery, the manufacturer recalled the wires that deliver the electric signals. The ones that were still in my heart. I woke up with an enormous and deep cut down the middle of my chest. It’s hard to explain the shock and all the emotions that happen after you learn you’ve had emergency open-heart surgery. I was thankful to be alive. But I also knew the recovery process was going to be brutal and scarring on many levels. For the first time, I began to doubt that I’d ever have my quality of life back.It took more than a year for me to feel like myself again and it’s surreal to be on the other side of it today.
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