Scars

A little girl dies. On a school bus on her way home. She collapses and dies. She was in the fourth grade. A short time later a basketball coach dies. She was twenty-eight and unaware that anything was wrong.

It's December, 1984 and a child is born; a seemingly healthy child. He has blond hair and blue eyes. A couple of years go by and his dad already has him playing catch; he was excited because his son was a lefty like him.

The child fell in love with sports. He played baseball and basketball from an early age. He quit those when he went to high school so he could try his hand at volleyball. His whole life up to that point: countless innings, quarters, matches, wins, and losses. He never had a problem keeping up, pushing himself. He threw, hit, jumped, dove, and ran sprints till he thought he would pass out.

When he started high school he also began to lift weights. Each day he would workout for a couple of hours. Some days he would even run on the treadmill: one mile, three miles, six miles. Soaked in sweat and exhausted, he always pushed. Always tried to lift more. To run farther or faster. The fatigue started to set in a couple years into high school, but he didn't notice it.

He was driving in his car one day when something really startled him. His heart started beating funny, fluttering inside his chest. It seemed to take his breath away. It was hard not to notice it and he told his parents but they didn't think it was anything serious. It was the only time something like had happened. Over the next few years, though, his heart would beat funny at random times. He also had shortness of breath more and more. His fatigue became worse. And he started having some slight chest pain.

After high school he went to college to play volleyball. Sitting on a table in the trainer's office, a doctor listened to his heartbeat. Each player had to be cleared by the doctor before they could play for the team. The doctor told him he had a slight murmur. It was nothing serious but the doctor thought he should get it looked at just to be safe.

Within a month he was on an examining table in the hospital. A technician used an ultrasound to view and listen to his heart. When the test was over the tech sent him away without much of an explanation. He never heard from the hospital or his family physician. Never heard the results from the test. Naturally, he assumed there was nothing wrong. If there had been, they would've called.

Over the next year or so he didn't think about it much but all the symptoms were still there. He didn't understand. He was tired all the time. So much so that it was difficult for him to workout for more than a half hour. And his heart was beating funny more frequently than ever before. He was sitting on the couch one night watching TV and he felt his heart beat funny six times within an hour. It had never happened that often in such a short amount of time. He decided that it was time to get it looked at again.
Within a month he back on an examining table in a different hospital having the same test done again. The doctor saw something was wrong almost instantly. He could see on the screen that the right side of the heart was much larger than it should have been. The doctor told him it could be a few different things but most likely it was a shunt, or a hole. He suggested that they go see a cardiologist who might be able to determine exactly what the problem was. His mom called around over the next few days and found a cardiologist they could see at Barnes.

Just by looking at the results of the ultrasound the cardiologist knew that it was a hole in his heart. The hole was between the left and right atrium. The cardiologist told them there were two ways to fix the problem. One was using a small, umbrella-like device to seal the hole and the other was to have open-heart surgery. Which procedure he would have depended on how large the opening was. If it were larger than 3cm or irregular in shape then he would have to have open-heart surgery.

They put him through one test after another to find out the shape and size of the hole. Surprisingly, he didn't seem too worried about what was going on. He knew either procedure was a big deal but he didn't think much about it. In late November 2005, he went in for one of his last tests. The MRI lasted about an hour. They wanted as many views of his heart as they could get before they made their decision on which procedure they would go with.

That night in bed he thought about it some before falling asleep. He knew it was getting close to the end. He had one more test the next day. It was the one test that would tell them the most. He wasn't looking forward to it. They would have to put a needle in his groin and push a small wire through his veins until it reached his heart. He knew that after the test was done they would tell him which procedure they would go with. He had a feeling in his gut, though, that it would be bad news. That he would have to have the surgery.

The next morning he was in the hospital bed alone with his thoughts. The cardiologist came in to check on him and told him that they were able to see enough from the MRI to make a decision. Open-heart surgery, just like he thought. Even then, it didn't really hit him. Strange, not to be bothered by something like that.

They scheduled the surgery only two weeks after his final test that morning. He wanted to get the surgery done as soon as possible so he wouldn't have to think about it too much. The days flew by and he was back in the hospital saying goodbye to his family and friends. He walked with the anesthesiologist to the operating room. It was cold inside and there were already several people in there preparing the room.

They put him on the table and stretched his arms out. Within a couple of minutes he was out because of the meds. It was like taking a nap. He woke up in a different room. His throat hurt. His chest and shoulders ached. There were tubes and wires everywhere. Beeping from the monitor beside his bed in the intensive care room. The next few hours were a haze. He would pass out and wake up moments later when someone came in to see how he was doing.

It turned out that the hole they repaired was rather large. But that wasn't all they had to fix. He had several smaller holes next to the larger one. He also had two veins that were going to the wrong side of the heart that they had to cut and reroute so he would get the oxygenated blood he needed. Turned out to be something he was born with that they never caught because he was a healthy child that didn't show any symptoms. None of the nurses could believe he was in there with that problem. Some were surprised that he survived that long with those problems, especially with all the sports he played.

Two days after the surgery he was given the ok to go home. They pulled the tubes from his chest, which was the most painful thing he had ever experienced, gave him his clothes and let him leave with his mom. They walked slowly to the parking garage, both amazed that they let him walk out this soon after the surgery. Minutes later they were heading down the highway back home. He looked at the reflection of the hospital in the mirror and it finally hit him. He was overwhelmed with emotion. He couldn't believe what he just went through. He couldn't believe he was alive when he could have collapsed any number of times. On the basketball court. On the baseball field. Working out. Any of those things could have been the death of him because of his heart problem. But it was fixed and he was on his way home. In a month or two he would be back to normal, working out and playing sports again. But at that moment it was all too much for him to think about. Words couldn't express how he was feeling. He'd never felt anything like it before. It was as if all the emotions he should have been feeling in the months leading up to that point finally hit him with incredible force. He stared at the mirror until the hospital faded from view, his sunglasses hiding the tears that filled his tired eyes.

At home that night he stared at himself in the mirror and cried some more. He stared at the long, scabbed scar on his chest. At the cross-like scars below that where the drainage tubes had been. For over a year he dealt with guilt and depression because of the surgery. Each day, after his shower, he is reminded of what happened. He stares at his scar.

To this day it's hard for me to describe what I was feeling during that difficult time in my life. I still think about it everyday. It's hard not to when I have a scar to remind me. Last year was the hardest year of my life because of the surgery. I've heard that most people who go through open-heart surgery have some kind of depression because of it. I was one of them and what made it worse was that I already struggled with depression anyway. When I hear stories about the little girl that died or the basketball coach it's easy for me to feel guilty because I was fortunate enough to have my heart problems found out before it was too late. They each had very similar heart problems and they didn't survive. It's a hard thing to explain, the guilt that I feel because I'm still alive. I've gotten better about not dwelling on things like that and just being thankful for the fact that I'm still alive and I can still do all the things a love. I play basketball a few times a week. I play volleyball and roller hockey when I can and I'm in a softball league with my church. I'm thankful for that experience, as hard as it was. It's something that I have that I can use to relate to someone who might be going through the same kind of problem. It's made me who I am today. My scar is by no means an attractive thing. But for me it's beautiful. It's a part of me. A part of my story. I didn't put any of that cream on that helps scars go away or at least not stand out so much. I didn't want my scar to go away. I want it there as a reminder of what I went through and what I should be thankful for. Life is fragile and beautiful. You don't know when it will end. Be thankful for the time you have and the gifts and talents you have and make the most of them. This is what I'm trying to do. I want to focus on my relationships and putting others first. I want to always think of my heart problems as a good thing. As hard as last year was, I think I'm a better person for having survived it. Let me know what you think of all this. Hopefully you stuck with it. I know it's long.