It still feels like this happened yesterday. The column I wrote in college years ago, “Just One Season,” was inspired by this event.
My high school track career was cut short my junior year of high school. It was the evening of Friday, March 6, 1992. I was upstairs in my room. I miss that room, by the way: The peach curtains, the peach-and-mint green color scheme, the peach eyelet comforter that covered my cream-and-brass daybed…everything was so eighties/early nineties, and I loved it. And having my own bathroom? The best! I could grab my peach-colored phone, drag the long cord into the dressing room, slide the door closed, lean against the linen closet door, and have almost-private conversations with my best friend Kelly, and my other best friend, Kelly the Guy. Those were special days. But anyway, I recall just chilling in my room. I was likely either watching TV on my 16-inch white Sony TV which I’d received as a sixteenth birthday present six months earlier, or I was reading the latest edition of ‘TEEN magazine. I was a shy, awkward teenager with a mouthful of braces, and Kelly and I had just started to get to know each other. We'd actually met while I was on the "DL" from track practice as I hung out near the water fountain across from the gym. Kelly was an office aide, and we'd chat while she was on her route. Still, I was that kid who didn’t ever go to parties or on dates. I was that kid who stayed home in her room all weekend, doing homework, writing a story in a spiral-bound notebook, reading a book, talking to a friend on the phone, or watching TV. The phone rang, and my mom had already picked up the line downstairs. “Mmm…lo” was the way my mom said hello, and I heard Dr. W, my pediatric cardiologist's distinctive Texas drawl on the other end. I quickly put the phone on mute so my mom wouldn’t know I was listening. I heard everything. Dr. W had read my echo and reviewed my treadmill test results. I was hoping he’d sign my athletic clearance form to continue running track. A few weeks earlier, I had sprained my ankle at practice and I couldn’t run for a couple weeks until my ankle healed. When I was able to resume running, my tolerance changed. I had a hard time recovering from our practice running drills when Coach would start off really loud and then mumble, “OK, GUYS, I WANT YOU TO SPRINT AROUND THE CORNERS and then jog nice and easy down the length of the track…” Before my injury, I could recover quickly in a minute or two, but now I was huffing and puffing for about five minutes. Even though I was sixteen years old, I chalked up my shortness of breath to being out of shape. Then, I had my echo and treadmill test, a stress echo. A couple years earlier when Dr. W had given me his blessing to start running track, I blew past the twelve-minute requirement/expectation and ran for twenty minutes. I impressed myself as well as the nurses who were monitoring my progress as I ran. But a couple weeks before this call, I grew tired at seven minutes and asked the nurse to stop the test. I was expected to run for twelve minutes, but I just couldn’t. I thought nothing of it; I assumed that my ankle injury had affected my tolerance and it was going to take some time to build my exercise tolerance again. Dr. W spoke: “I don’t want Debbie running track anymore. It’s making her valve worse.” His words hit me like a UPS truck. Not the delivery truck, I mean the BIG truck that takes all the packages to the distribution center. Thank goodness I was still on mute because I burst into sobbing, gulping tears. I might as well have had a boyfriend call me to tell me he wanted to break up. That’s exactly how I felt. Granted, I was not a talented runner. I always came in dead last at track meets. But I loved running. I loved the freedom I felt, the “runner’s high.” It was one thing I could do that made me feel normal, not like the weirdo kid with a weak right side and speech impediment. Learning that I couldn’t do this anymore was more than a slap in the face. I grabbed one of the decorative peach eyelet pillows—the heart-shaped one—and I cried myself to sleep. Thirty years ago tonight, I learned for the first time that my life was limited by my valve defect. It would take another fourteen years for the full impact to take fruition, and if you had told me on that March night thirty years ago that in another thirty years exactly to the month that I would be having my fourth heart valve replacement, I’d likely believe you, because the reality of the situation was fresh and new and realized. My mom had saved my athletic clearance forms along with a bunch of other random heart tests and even my oral surgery documents from my teen years. Recently, I went through the file again, and in Dr. W’s loopy handwriting in blue ink he wrote: “Restricted from competitive and non-competitive full exertion running.” Dated March 9, 1992, with the additional information that I have congenital mitral regurgitation, I was five feet six and a quarter (I'm now close to 5'8", so I did grow another inch after that), and I weighed 127 pounds! (Yeah, I’m never going to be 127 pounds again. I’ll be happy staying around 145-150 pounds). The following week when I saw my cardiologist for my follow-up, I challenged him. I still remember this conversation as much as I will always remember the fact that Dr. W had red hair and always wore cowboy boots with his scrubs (well, he was a Texan!). But his matter-of-fact demeanor, warm personality, and caring bedside manner are qualities that I see and appreciate in Doc V (even though Doc can be grumpy as heck, even as recently as when we did my TEE and he was ticked off that we had to do it. Obviously, we all know how that turned out!). And similar to Doc (thirteen years before my conversation with Doc), he challenged me back. This is how I recall our conversation: Dr. W: “Debbie, I don’t want you to run track anymore. It’s making your valve worse.” Me: “Please let me run, Dr. W! I love running, you have no idea!” (typical teenager, trying to cajole an adult to get her way, dangit!) Dr. W, clearly annoyed: “Debbie, do you want a valve replacement?” Me, probably shaking my head no. Dr. W: “I’m not going to put a new valve in a healthy sixteen year old.” Me, realizing the gravity of the situation: “OK.” In 2005: Me, calling Dr. V on the phone at his office a few weeks before my 30th birthday: “Dr. V, can I get a tattoo for my birthday?” Even though at this point in my life, valve surgery was not quite a possibility in my life at the time, I knew to ask for permission to get a tattoo because of needles going deep into my skin. Dr. V: “What do you want to do something stupid like that for?” (Seriously, these were his exact words!) Me, rambling, trying to justify: “ Um, I’m turning thirty soon, and I wanted to get a small one on my ankle…” Dr. V: “I can load you up with antibiotics first, but you’re putting yourself at risk of endocarditis. Do you want to take a bunch of antibiotics?” Me: “No thanks.” Dr. V: “I don’t want to put a new valve in a healthy young lady like you.” Yup, Doc went to the school of “Threaten Deb with a Valve Replacement and She Will Relent.” Well, seven months later and my valve was failing (I’m glad we didn’t expedite the situation by a 30th birthday tattoo…). Anyway, here I am on March 6, 2022, starting to write my memoir and of course mulling over my mortality because in seventeen days I will be having valve job number four. And I’m having a lot of regrets, because I think about what if I don’t survive. I wish I’d gotten back into running. I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time. I wish I had spent more time with friends. I wish I’d started my memoir earlier. Aside from this blog, I just started writing my memoir a couple weeks ago, and I gotta tell you, I've been feeling so many emotions as I've been recalling and writing about the events as they unfolded in my valve journey. I can’t change these things, and if I don’t survive this next valve surgery, none of these regrets will matter anymore. Even attending a virtual conference with the Adult Congenital Heart Association (ACHA) yesterday, two pediatric cardiologists were talking about risks of surgery with subsequent surgeries, and although there are risks, many can be mitigated now, thanks to advancements in medical technology. Still, if I don’t survive surgery, I want to be in Heaven with Jesus. If I do die during this surgery, I’m going to be all, “YAY JESUS!!!” when I see Him. For reals. ♥ As Chris August sings, Jesus is in the center of it all. He knows what's up. |