We frame our lives with routine – the bracing first cup of tea in the morning, the hot shower, the voice of my favorite DJ, the same seat on the train to the office, the glass of wine at the end of the day – the better to soothe ourselves from the bumps and abrasions of everyday life. Life feels predictable.
But it's a lot sketchier than that.
On one ordinary day a piece of my heart broke. A replacement valve on the left side of the heart just popped right out of place. It's been bumping around in the roiling torrent of blood spewing from the left atrium sometimes quite painfully.
My first clue that something was amiss, aside from a nasty bit of crushing pain while doing my left lifts, was an odd rhythmic pulsing sound. It seemed like a squeak. I thought the neighbors must have a new electronic gizmo. But then I realized I heard it in the bath room, the bedroom and the living room. Then I realized it was coming from me. I listened for my pulse over the lower left part of my rib cage and felt a whooshing instead of a bup-bup-bup of a heart beating.
I listened to this strange sound emanating from my body for several days as it grew louder, sometimes even downright vociferous. Denial sapped the paralyzing effects of fear. After four days I finally made the call that sent me slipping and sliding out of time and place. I entered the time zone of modern medicine.
Three weeks have passed, five days of hospital observation and a cardiac cath, plus 10 days of pre-op prep. Three weeks since this "urgent but not emergent" issue emerged. Ten days of knowing where the mitral valve is and it's not in its proper passage. At some point, probably around Memorial Day, the valve just popped right out of its spot in the left atrium. There have been days of uncomfortable pain, fatigue, short of breath and increasing fragility. And there have been days when I felt fine and walked 4.5 miles. (I paid for that.) My hard-won muscle tone evaporates. Some of the pain could be from the rigid valve bouncing around in the roiling movement of blood spewing full out of the high pressure atrium into the ventricle. I am deeply weary. Every movement takes energy and planning. The pulsating sound has become more urgent sounding. I wonder about the ragged edge on the distorted atrium where the valve once sat, now distorted into a funny ha-ha contorting tube shape. What if the tissue can't hold or support a new valve? I think of my attempt to mend a hole in a pair of pants, a rough-hewn patch of embroidery. This surgeon's got to be a finer sewer than I. Will it hold?
'Take it easy'
Three weeks have passed, five days of hospital observation and a cardiac cath, plus 10 days of pre-op prep. Three weeks since this "urgent but not emergent" issue emerged. Ten days of knowing where the mitral valve is and it's not in its proper passage. At some point, probably around Memorial Day, the valve just popped right out of its spot in the left atrium. There have been days of uncomfortable pain, fatigue, short of breath and increasing fragility. And there have been days when I felt fine and walked 4.5 miles. (I paid for that.) My hard-won muscle tone evaporates. Some of the pain could be from the rigid valve bouncing around in the roiling movement of blood spewing full out of the high pressure atrium into the ventricle. I am deeply weary. Every movement takes energy and planning. The pulsating sound has become more urgent sounding. I wonder about the ragged edge on the distorted atrium where the valve once sat, now distorted into a funny ha-ha contorting tube shape. What if the tissue can't hold or support a new valve? I think of my attempt to mend a hole in a pair of pants, a rough-hewn patch of embroidery. This surgeon's got to be a finer sewer than I. Will it hold?
