(heartbeat thumping)
(soft music)
- One night, out to dinner, eating chips and salsa,
when I realized that I needed to go see a doctor.
I'd been diagnosed as a kid,
with a heart murmur.
But through all the years of going in
for annual echocardiograms, I never heard
that anything had changed.
And I had missed a couple of years.
And little did I know that the disease was progressing
incredibly fast to the point that one of my ventricles,
a left ventricle had already started to enlarge
because of aortic stenosis, in my bicuspid aortic valve.
And the cardiologist just looked at me and said,
"You need aortic valve replacement.
"And I wouldn't wait more than six months to get this done."
I think I was shocked by the diagnosis,
but I think she was petrified.
I'll never forget when you came over, and...
When I opened the door, she was in tears.
And we were both, we were,
we were very nervous.
Because we didn't know a lot about heart valve disease,
we didn't know a lot about cardiac surgery, and...
It was tough.
So from the time of the initial diagnosis to the time I was
in surgery, was a period of about eight,
very frantic and hectic weeks.
I experienced a lot of emotions.
Personally I can remember fear, uncertainty,
loneliness, but I'm not anything but an optimist.
So I tended to focus on, I have this challenge,
I'm gonna fix it,
and I just went to work doing the research.
And then I educated my family.
I took the time to make sure they knew
what was wrong with me,
and how my five-day trip to the hospital
could hopefully keep me
from ending up six feet under the ground.
(soft music)
- I wasn't prepared.
But he was smiing, and that was kind of reassuring.
You know, he was just so happy to be seeing all of us,
all of his family and.
- If it wasn't for the love that I knew she had for me,
I don't know if I would be able to say, "Help me".
- It was the simplest things, you know,
before I would leave for work.
"Could you unscrew the top of the grape juice?"
Or...
Pull something down from the shelf,
it was the things that you take for granted that you don't
think about, that he just couldn't do by himself.
Or leaving, you know, getting him dressed before
I left for work or--
- Putting on my socks.
- Mm-hmm, putting on your socks.
- It's not easy to do!
It wasn't just hard, it was flat-out difficult to say help.
The one piece of advice that I offer folks is,
develop a recovery plan.
Because odds are, and this is the great part about
heart surgery today, you're going to live.
The statistics are in your favor.
- When you stop and think what we've been through,
which I should probably do more often,
you know, I am very appreciative of,
the relationship that we've created because of this.
It's a bond not very many people share.
Especially at a young age.
We weren't even married, so...
I'm actually, I'm grateful for it.
And I think it's given us, you know,
the life that we've been fortunate to build together.