The End.
I'd be surprised if I hadn't already told some version of my story on this blog but there's a reason I'm [potentially] revisiting it today. A few days ago, I had my biannual cardiology checkup. The tech conducting my echo (-cardiogram) started asking me questions about the operation that no one had ever asked me before. One in particular, I didn't know the answer to and that was whether my coarctation of the aorta was ascending or descending. In layman's terms, she was asking me whether I had surgery on the portion of my aorta that comes up from the heart, or the part that goes down from the heart. I got this surgery when I was 4 years old, how the hell was I supposed to know? As far as I was aware, no cardiologist I'd ever seen since we left the Bronx has gotten to access my original medical records. Since I wasn't sure, we embarked on a journey to find out. By viewing the echo and talking through what we were seeing, the tech concluded that the repair was done on the aorta ascending, along with a bit of the aorta arch. She then picked up the model heart that was sitting on the counter and showed me the area - which surprisingly was only about 2 inches or so long - and talked me through what would have been done all those years ago - the doctor had used the lining of a calf's heart to repair the hole in mine. We then looked at the echo again and I understood perfectly why she commended my surgeon so: you couldn't see the work. She said if no one had told her I had had the repair, she would never have known.
Having been walked through what was actually done for me, and having been told how brilliant a job my doctor had actually done, my mind went back to October 1980, Albert Einstein Hospital. There are only a few things I remember clearly about my time in recovery after the surgery but there is one thing I'll never forget. I'll never forget when several days after the operation, the doctor said I needed to get out of bed. He wanted me to spend some time in the play room and, in general, just moving around. I don't think it was my first day out of bed, but my second or third, when I tripped over my IV cord. I managed not to fall to the floor but my mama was TERRIFIED of me hurting something and made me get back in the bed. I was so upset because I hadn't been in the play room more than 10 minutes when that happened and for a 4 year old in a boring hospital, that was a time I looked forward to. I started crying, telling my mom I would be careful if she let me go back and she was not having it. She wasn't having much of that crying either LOL. The doctor came in after a few minutes and let her know that it was nothing to worry about and that there wasn't much of anything I could do to "mess up" the surgery. It was because of him saying it was okay that my mom let me go back to the playroom but despite his assurances, I made super sure to be careful from then on. I can still see it so clearly.
Next year will be 40 years. I've decide I'd really like to track down my surgeon. Problem is, my mom doesn't know his name and we don't have my original records. I think I'm going to try to get them though, or at least make some calls, send some emails and see if I can find out who he was. With any luck, he's still alive and then hey, ya never know - maybe have the chance to shake the man's hand. I'll be honest, I'm not at all optimistic that I'll find him - alive, at least - but I've seen the unlikely occur so many times in my life, I want to at least try. Imagine I find him. How fucking AMAZING would that be...........
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