But Wait...There's More

We arrived at the hospital in Atlanta at 6:00 am on December 20, 1995. The Labor and Delivery Team was prepped and ready for action. My husband and I had the standard "Go Bag" with us, that we'd carefully prepared during the previous month. It had all of the crucial items meant to make our delivery room experience as rel axing as possible. You know, creature comforts. Soothing music for the delivery room, a camera for catching the highlights (waist up only, cause nobody needs to see that). Snacks to sustain the expectant father while he's trying to play coach and avoid fainting. The hand-picked, "going home" outfit for baby and mama. They were Santa inspired, because Christmas was less than a week away.

Now here's where the story gets interesting. I have a hereditary connective tissue disorder known as Marfan syndrome. I'd known this since age fourteen. However, one thing nobody told me about when I was diagnosed, was that is not recommended that I ever get pregnant, much less carry a baby to full term and go through labor and delivery. This was problematic for two reasons. One, that I had already had two children with my first husband; and two, that it put me into an extremely high risk category. This is why my OB-GYN had a team of twenty-seven medical professionals on stand-by, just in case delivering our baby caused my aorta to rupture.

Marfan Syndrome patients have connective tissue that basically loses its elasticity and can begin to tear, resulting in aneurysms that can burst and kill the affected patient. In my case, this meant that delivering early was a danger to both me and my baby (not just because the baby was premature). So there was a team of neonatal medical professionals that would attend to our baby, and a separate team of cardio thoracic specialists who would be ready to whisk me into an operating room if my aorta began to tear.

My labor was assisted as soon as we could see the baby's head. The ceiling of the delivery room opened up, revealing a cascade of technological tools, that descended from above. Then my doctor applied gentle suction to guide the baby's head and shoulders out of the birth canal. That Casie Lynn made her holiday debut. I was so happy she was healthy and big for a being born three weeks premature. She weighed in at almost seven pounds! I was weak and my blood pressure was high, but it seemed that I had dodged a bullet. My enlarged aortic root had not ruptured, as they'd feared it might. The hospital kept me and Casie Lynn for a couple of nights for observation. My husband was able to return home for a shower and some much needed, first time father, rest. When he returned with our three year old, the baby and I had been given the "all clear" and we all headed home. Casie, in her tiny, Santa pajamas, and me in the big man’s hat.

We all spent that first day back home just enjoying one another's company and looking forward to Christmas. That evening, just as we had tucked our kids in all snug in their beds and we settled in to watch the eleven o'clock news; it happened. I felt a massive tearing pain in the middle of my chest. It felt like I had suddenly swallowed a flaming bowling ball that was trying to rip my chest apart from the inside. I knew from what my cardiothoracic surgeon had said, that this was how an aortic dissection would feel. He explained that I would not be able to mistake it for anything else, and that the pain would be off the charts, if I survived. He also warned me that the worst thing I could do if it happened, would be to panic, because this could make the aneurysm burst and I could die instantly.

I could barely breathe; the pain was so intense, but I managed to turn to my husband and say "call 9-1-1". He looked at me incredulously and asked if I was kidding. I assured him that I was not and that he needed to call 9-1-1 and also my parents, so that they could come and stay with our three year old who was asleep in her bedroom. My parents lived just around the corner from us so we knew it was the quickest solution. He called 9-1-1, and an ambulance was on it's way, but when he tried calling my parents, their phone line was busy! He had to ask the operator to break into their phone call to let them know that their only child was at risk of dying and was being transported to St. Joseph's Hospital in Atlanta and they needed to please come care for our three year old.

When the paramedics arrived, I was writhing in pain and in shock. They administered nitroglycerin and morphine which was not even touching the pain. It was as though the syringe was filled with placebo as far as I could tell. My husband and my parents were not far behind, because my husband's parents came to be with our three year old, so that my folks could be there at St. Joe's when I went I for surgery. When I arrived at the hospital, the ER doctors performed a CT scan of my chest, but it wasn't showing the dissection. But a quick thinking technician did an echo cardiogram and an EKG and they were able to see it.

I handed my wedding rings to my husband and asked if he would please keep them safe until I was out of surgery, because we have some beautiful kids to raise together. He agreed and we kissed as they wheeled me into the operating room. The anesthesiologist told me that they were going to administer the anesthesia and I jokingly threatened that he better make sure that I would wake up after the procedure because if I didn't, I was going to make sure to haunt him.

Once fully anesthetized, the surgical team iced my body down to drop my core temperature. (This helps to protect the vital organs during extended surgical procedures). I won't get into a detailed explanation of the surgery itself, but when they were performing the open heart procedure, they discovered that the aorta had indeed dissected. Actually, it was just moments away from catastrophic failure, that no surgeon would have been able to fix. The aorta had grown so large that it had blown apart the aortic valve and they were going to replace it with a prosthetic mechanical valve made of titanium.

The entire procedure took several hours and recovery was long and especially excruciating. This was due to the fact that I had just had a baby a couple of days earlier, and I had intended to breast feed her. So imagine the pain of having engorged breasts, combined with having had your sternum sawed open and surgeons working inside your heart. The whole chest was involved because I had to have it wrapped tightly so that the incision could heal but that only put pressure on the area. But I was just so thankful to be alive.

My husband's parents were gracious enough to take care of our new baby for the first couple of months because of my tender incisions and recovery process that made it impossible to lift anything for at least six weeks. Moreover, since my new heart valve is made from titanium, I now would need to take blood thinners for the rest of my life. This prevents clots from forming and finding their way to my lungs and forming a pulmonary embolism or ending up in my brain and causing a stroke. Let's just say that although it had come and gone, the holiday was the last thing on our minds. For the moment, Christmas would have to wait.

Don't Miss Part Four (of this true story) - Coming Soon