Our son Kieran has a lot to live up to. After all, he wasn’t even born yet when he performed a miraculous feat – he saved his mother’s life.
At the age of about 13, I started having what the doctors’ could only diagnose as panic attacks. I suppose it makes the most logical sense; how many 13 year olds could possibly have something wrong with their heart? As the years passed, I continuously complained about my ‘heart issue’ only to have it swept under the rug by parents, teachers, doctors and all other all-knowing adults.
At the age of 21, while at my annual visit to my doctor, I finally got lucky enough to have an episode while talking to my doctor. She promptly put me on an EKG and ran a multitude of tests. Over the years, I was shifted from one cardiologist to another as more tests were performed. The diagnosis was: mitral valve regurgitation (when your mitral valve doesn’t completely close and therefore it ‘leaks’), junctional tachycardia (rapid heartbeat) and mitral valve fibrillation (sort of a vibration of your heart). As I got older, it all got worse and I was put on heart drugs. I lived with this for many years, taking new drugs here and there, having to put my head between my legs while smack in the middle of a conversation with someone, etc. As I got older it got a bit worse.
When my husband and I decided we wanted to have a child, we found out that I had an ovarian cyst for which I had to have surgery. While in the operating room, as they were just giving me the anasthetic, my blood pressure jumped to a staggering 200+/186. They quickly stopped the surgery and called in my cardiologist. The surgery was rescheduled with new instructions from my cardiologist. I came through the surgery just fine and…
At the ripe ‘old’ age of 37, I finally got pregnant. Knowing about my heart beforehand, we were already busy talking to my cardiologist about what pregnancy would mean for me, whether I could go off the drugs (yes) and how my body would react. Obviously, I was paired with a high risk obgyn group. At my age, it is a common thing to do, but coupled with the heart, it was necessary. As my pregnancy progressed, my heart became more and more erratic, but because I had been so used to it my whole life, I didn’t think much of it. My co-workers would walk by my desk only to see my lying on the floor trying to get my heart to stop racing. I was required to visit my obgyn every other day for them to monitor the baby’s movements and my blood pressure. As most of my appointments were in the morning, I always came away with flying colors. But then…I had an afternoon appointment. Afternoons were always the hardest for me and it became very common to see me laying on my office cubicle floor. Why this didn’t strike me as concerning is beyond me. This particular afternoon, the monitor caught me at a rapid heartbeat moment and my blood pressure spiked to another staggering number. The doctor on duty wasn’t my usual ob, he was the doctor I liked to refer to as “Dr. Worry Wart”. Dr. Worry Wart promptly admitted me to the hospital. I stayed in the hospital without knowing exactly why for the next three days (very upsetting at the time because I really wanted to go swiming while pregant – we’re not always the most logical in these moments). I was poked, prodded, hooked up to many wires with many needles poking into me and was required to pee into a large plastic container that looked suspiciously like a Minute Maid OJ container. On the 3rd day, Dr. Worry Wart came to see us. He explained that he had a hunch that I may have a very rare condition called a pheochromocytoma, i.e. a tumor on my adrenal gland. This tumor causes all sorts of chaos including, but not limited to rapid heart beat and high blood pressure. The many tests confirmed it. After 25 years of diagnosis and preparing to schedule heart surgery after I had my son, I was officially diagnosed.
I would go on to spend the next 2 weeks in the ICU of the hospital being closely monitored while my son ‘baked’ in the oven a bit longer. At 37 weeks, I was scheduled for a c-section in the hospital OR where, usually, only doctors are allowed. Meaning no husbands like they allow in the Mommy Giving Birth ORs. They made an exception for us, I had a fantastic anasthesiologist and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. I was high as a kite, but can remember everything.
Two weeks later, I went in for an adrenalectomy. If not for my son, I would have had a heart surgery that would have been useless and may still be trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with me. And that my friends, is how my unborn son saved and changed my life forever!
Okay, okay, Doctor Worry Wart deserves some credit here I know;) I have since admitted that he doesn’t deserve the name Dr. Worry Wart, but for this post, we’ll keep his identity to ourselves. **unless you’re looking for a great high-risk ob in the San Diego area, then I’ll give you his name if you email me**
2 thoughts on “Kids: How My Unborn Son Saved My Life”