8 Months later: My Experience Of Having Open Heart Surgery At the Age of 22

Its been roughly eight months since my life was changed forever when I had open heart surgery. Looking back at it now it seems like only yesterday I was laying in the hospital bed, weak and helpless. I want to share with you my experience of what happened and why at such a young age I needed the surgery.

• Chapter 1 – Predetermined

A great man once said “Shit Happens” and that basically explains what happened in my situation. I was born with a small heart murmur and Aortic Stenosis, which basically meant my bicuspid valve had a little backwash when it would pump blood into my body. Not an uncommon occurrence by any means and not a problem that would cause me from doing anything in life really. Other than taking antibiotics before I went to the dentist, I was free to do whatever I wanted, restriction free. However unknown to my cardiologist was that I had an unknown, likely genetic disorder, that was slowly causing my bicuspid valve to grow in size. The size of the valve had been monitored since I was a child, but when I turned 20 there was a noticeable increase in the width. My doctor said that it isn’t uncommon and we would just have to monitor it. At that point I was away at college and hadn’t really gone to see the doctor as much as I should have and it would be another 2 years until I went back to the cardiologist. Just because we hadn’t gone in a while my mother recommended we stop in for a quick checkup while I was on summer vacation. When I had the sonogram and the Echo Cardiogram, the doctor was not pleased. He said that the width had grown to a dangerous level and that I should get a CT scan to confirm this. When I got the CT scan done, I was informed that it was worse than they thought and I would have to have the surgery within the month. The risk of the valve getting too wide is an aneurism which only 1/10 people survive from, so it was better to have the surgery as soon as possible and not risk it.

• Chapter 2- Why Me?

The first thought you have in situations like this are, why me? I wasn’t overly active, I didn’t abuse my body, take steroids or do drugs so I thought that problems like this wouldn’t ever happen to me. I was partly in shock because I was about to undergo heart surgery, although safe, still scary for me at only 22. The surgery meant I would have to take the semester off, I wouldn’t graduate with my friends I would have to stay an extra semester alone and watch all of the adventures my friends were going on, through my laptop from my bed. This period in general was depressing, waiting for a surgery and doing nothing I felt helpless. I was anxious and fearful that any day my valve would burst and I would die alone laying in my bed or in my sleep. Depression would take a hold of me for days to come after the surgery as well during recovery and still now occasionally.

• Chapter 3 - The Surgery and Hospital

For some strange reason the morning of the surgery I wasn’t scared. I remember sitting in the waiting room just ready to hear my name called to make my way to the OR and begin. The surgery was a grueling 8 hours long so the ones I really felt bad for were my parents who were waiting to hear news of how it went. For me however I don’t remember much, I remember getting the anesthesia and bam I was out. After they replaced my valve with a bovine one and gave me titanium plates to heal my chest back together I was sent to the intensive care unit. The next memory I have was waking up in the ICU and feeling as if I had been nailed in the chest with a sledgehammer and had the wind knocked out of me at the same time. Despite being on high dosages of painkillers I could still feel the pain at a “kill me now” level. There were no doctors or nurses in sight and I could speak so I just sat there looking like a zombie trying to get someone’s attention. Eventually someone came to give me water and up the painkillers which is about what I remember of the ICU. On my third day I was moved up to the general care hospital, but the pain wasn’t much better, in fact it was worse. If you don’t know how the surgery works, they basically break my sternum and cut my ribs to get to the heart so that was the pain I was feeling. The hospital was hell, you could never get sleep, every hour someone would come to take blood or check vitals and they gave you enough pills to kill a horse. Not to mention I was the youngest person in the cardiology wing by 30-40 years. Everyday I had to get up and walk around which I could barely do which made me more depressed and anxious to leave. Finally on day seven I was able to leave the hospital and return home. I thought that my pain and the problems were over but they were far from over.

• Chapter 4- Recovery

I was finally home in my own bed and I thought I would be able to get some rest but I was wrong. I had to sleep on my back on a wedge pillow and had just as tough as a problem falling asleep as I did in the hospital ,granted there was no one coming for samples. It took a good 2 weeks before I could comfortably sleep on my side and get a decent nights rest. The pain however was still there. As my ribs and sternum were healing I would often have terrible muscle spasms and my body couldn’t move. I would be out of order for half a week on a 4 motrin every four hours diet. Things get better though, albeit slowly they are noticeable. Soon I could walk without issue then I could run and even work out. Eventually all these things passed in time though and I was able to return to school the next semester.

• Chapter 5- 8 months later

So here I am eight months later and feeling great. I even took a weight lifting course this summer and although I did have some chest pains, they were minor and am feeling like myself again. I feel like a new cyborg person with various pieces of metal and cow tissue inside of me but Im happy to be alive and well again. I cant say I would ever want to go through that experience again but I think I have become a better person for it. I definitely appreciate life much more than I did now and I often think what would have happened if I lived in another country or my family didn’t have good medical coverage. After the surgery my doctor said that I had about a month left before I could have died by the looks of the width and that if I had not made the spur of the moment decision to go to the cardiologist for a regular checkup I might be dead. My outlook on healthcare has definitely changed after this experience and I believe every human being should have access to it. Im 23 now I have some scars and and lost much of my muscle mass from lifting ( replaced with some fat :( ) but im happy and healthy!

-Calaber24p