Gail

Here is my story.

My story begins back on Easter 2002. I didn’t know it started that day, but later found out it did. I had just had my second beautiful baby girl by c-section 7 weeks prior. I was sitting down to breakfast before going to church and I had this very strange sensation start under my left arm, radiate around my back and shoulder blades, under my right arm and then around the front of my chest. It was kind of a burning pain sensation. I didn’t feel dizzy or short of breath or anything. I had my husband call 911 and went to the hospital. The ER doctor said that my chest x-ray, EKG and oxygen levels were just fine. The pain I was then experiencing was a very sore type feeling and it went up into my collarbone. The pain seemed to only hurt when I would breath deeply or move around. The ER doc said that it sounded like Costrochondritis (non-specific chest wall pain), nothing was wrong with my heart or lungs. Later that night I awoke in bed with a weird tingling sensation in my right elbow. I followed up with a doctor at my family doctor’s office (not my doc), and he also said that the pain seemed to him to be muscular. He told me to go about my normal routine and start exercising again. I started up with my cardiovascular workouts again and noticed a pinching sensation between my shoulder blades. That pain eventually stopped and I continued to exercise on a regular basis.

I went about my life as usual and one day, in July, I decided to go back to work part-time evenings. There was an opening, in the kind of work that I have done in the past, at my local hospital. They offered me the job immediately. I went for my pre-employment physical and the doc told me that I had a heart murmur. I have never had one before and I didn’t have one when I was in the ER or during my post-partum follow-ups. I was told it was probably nothing, but to have it checked out. I went to my family doctor, who did an EKG and Chest X-ray. Everything was fine. He then told me he wanted to do an echo. He didn’t think it was anything serious, just wanted to check it out. I had my echo done and it showed moderate to severe aortic regurgitation. Boy, was I floored. I found out the echo results in August and I couldn’t get in to see a Cardiologist until October. I suffer from an anxiety disorder and could not sit around and wait 2 months to find out what was going on. I pushed for my family doc to get me into UVA Hospital. They were able to see me in two weeks rather than two months. The doctor there really didn’t do much. He said that he didn’t have much information on me except for the paper echo report. He said he needed the actual films. I told him they could have been there for him if he wanted them, but he didn’t seem concerned. He just went by the report and told me to come back in January for another baseline echo and stress test. I asked him if the episode on Easter could have possibly been related. He said no, that it was just a coincidence. He told me to continue exercising and that I may need to have a valve replacement in 6 months or 20 years. Every time I went to ask him a question, he kept telling me to wait and let him finish first. He never answered my questions to my satisfaction. Another Cardiologist came in and acted like the whole thing was no big deal, he was more interested in giving my 3-year-old a lollipop. Needless to say, I left there a mess not knowing much more than when I went in.

I decided to get another opinion at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia (I am originally from that area). I went to Philadelphia in September, where the Cardiologist there said that the Easter episode did not sound like Chest Wall Pain to him. He was very suspicious and decided to do his own echo right there in the office. He did an echo and found that I had a tear in my aorta that caused bleeding in the walls of the aorta. He felt that the tear is what happened to me on Easter. He said I was very lucky the anuerysm didn’t rupture. He and his nursing assistant wanted me to go to the best aortic surgeon they knew. His assistant had worked with a Dr. Svennson years before and she set it up for me to go to Cleveland Clinic Foundation for him to do my surgery right away. So I was flown out to Cleveland.

I had my surgery done and was told that the original problem was the tear, which then caused the valve to prolapse. They found nothing that led them to believe there was any disease or anything that caused this. They believe that I may have had a congenital weakness that my pregnancies made worse. The doctors said that they see a lot of young women who tear their aortas while delivering. They said that I was lucky that I had had two c-sections. The docs repaired the tear (dissection) with a graft and had to replace the aortic valve with a St. Jude mechanical valve. I am now tick tick ticking away...lol!

I have since found a new Cardiologist at UVA Hospital that I can trust and who will listen to me. He also said that the Easter episode didn’t sound right to him. I am now on Coumadin, Toprol and a Baby Aspirin daily. I know that God has been watching over me and that I’m lucky to still be here.