Meghan's Story
I remember so clearly the week when I first heard I had a heart murmur. It was the middle of May, and I was nearing the end of the 8th grade. I had just finished up a successful season on the local swim team. For the past six months, swimming had become my life aside from friends, family, and school. It was now the off-season. The New Hampshire State Championships had just ended. I came away with some great wins and was excited and proud that I might continue to become better in a sport that I had stayed with for more than a couple of months! Trying to figure out what I would do for the remaining months of school to stay in shape for summer swim team I began thinking of just swimming independently. Then, some good friends came over and asked me to join the softball team at school. Eventually I gave in and signed up for softball with my new forty-dollar glove.The only other thing I had to do was to get a physical. The swim team was through a local health club, and their programs do not require physicals, but the school does. I had already missed the physical given by the school, so I ended up going to my pediatrician. So I went for the physical, and the doctor found that I had a heart murmur. My pediatrician explained that many people had heart murmurs and there was no reason to worry, but that she wanted me to sign up for an appointment with a cardiologist. The following week my mom brought me to the hospital to see the cardiologist. The appointment was not supposed to take more than an hour and I would be back in time for practice after school.
The day was May 15, 1997. It was my little sister Grace's birthday. The snow was all gone now and trickling muddy puddles replaced them. After my electrocardiogram, I became very fidgety and wanted to leave as soon as possible. The electrocardiogram had taken almost two hours. Not happy and wanting to get home for Grace's birthday, my mom and I waited patiently for the cardiologist to finish reviewing the tapes and to send us home. The doctor soon came out with the results. He said a bunch of mumbo jumbo about my heart and that I could no longer participate in sports. Walking was to be my only form of exercise. Shocked and mad, I stormed out of the hospital exclaiming to my tired-out mother that this doctor was an over-worrier, who was over-thinking the whole heart murmur idea. I would soon realize that this was not something to joke around about, that maybe I did have a serious problem.
I ended up actually having an aortic aneurysm (maybe Marfan's Syndrome), which meant no children, no sports, and no, forces or blows to my chest or body. School soon ended, and my whole summer was spent at the hospital talking it over with doctors and finally coming to terms with the fact that I would be needing open heart surgery as soon as possible. After interviewing and talking to many friends and doctors we concluded that the Cleveland Clinic was the best place to go.
On November 5, 1997, the operation was performed. I had turned 15 years old three days before. The procedure took six hours and in the end I had an inch and a half tube that replaced a part of my aortic root and a St. Jude hemashield aortic valve. Nobody knew how bad this had become. The doctor who performed the procedure said that I probably would not have lived to the end of the year if I had had the operation any later then I did! People at the hospital were extremely kind and there was an immense amount of support from my hometown and beyond. I was fortunate that the disease was detected and that there was time to fix it. Today I take blood thinners and beta-blockers to control my blood levels and heartbeat.
I'm 16 years old now, and although I can no longer participate in any sports I have found other things to do. There is always something to do even when you may think there is nothing. Once in a while, when I take living for granted, I just look to the top of the closet, where the once-used softball glove sits, and realize how lucky I am to be alive.