Photo credit: imelenchon from morguefile.com
Have you, or do you know anyone who has ever had life-saving heart surgery? I have known two people in my lifetime, my nephew and my Mom.
My nephew, at the age of 6 months, started turning blue when he would cry really hard. Seeing that, was not only alarming, but we all knew it wasn’t normal. A 6-month-old couldn’t possibly be holding his breath, right? Sure enough, when my sister took him to the Doctor’s they did some testing and discovered that he had several tiny holes in his heart and open heart surgery would have to be performed.
They managed to close some of them up, and band most of the others, but he was in for another round of surgery once he was older. So this meant that they would have to go in through the breastbone to perform the operation. Now, at 20, he has a horrible scar down the middle of his chest, which of course as a young man, he is self-conscious of, who wouldn’t be?
My Mom was diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure and she had to have a stent and a defibrillator put it, and of course, this was a serious operation, but she didn’t have to be opened up like traditional heart surgery. The stent was performed with angioplasty and the defibrillator was placed under the skin.
These days, Doctors can perform minimally invasive heart surgery, where they can access the heart without the use of the large breastbone incision. I’m sure if this was around when my nephew had his surgeries, he wouldn’t have to deal with the scar he has now.
This is what is amazing about modern medicine; the way it has progressed in just 20 years is amazing. Sadly, I lost my Mom to the disease, so she won’t benefit from this new technology, but if my nephew should have to go through another surgery (His last check-up showed the holes were closing on their own, yay), perhaps he won’t have to go through such an invasive procedure.
Disclosure: I am participating in a blogger campaign by Bucks2Blog and was compensated. However, the views and opinions are my own.
Dianna Ranere