Most everyone who reads this blog knows me, but I thought I would go ahead and explain the whole Monkey Heart talk that goes on in my writing. I have a monkey heart. Really, an actual monkey heart. I was born with a bad ticker and through the amazing world of Dr. Frankenstein and Texas Heart Institute, I was given a monkey's heart. I have provided a picture of my scar just to prove how much my heart is that of a monkey's.
Do you believe me? Of course you don't! Haha! Okay, so you got me. I don't REALLY have a monkey heart but it is pretty fun to try and convince strangers of this phenomenon. I was born with a few congenital heart defects. To be more specific, I was born with an atrial septal defect (ASD), a ventricular septal defect (VSD), and a coacrtation of the aorta. Dr. Denton Cooley (he performed the first successful human heart transplant back in 1968) performed both my surgeries at Texas Heart Institute in Houston, TX. My first surgery took place when I was six weeks old and they closed up the holes when I was two.
My life has consisted of numerous trips to a cardiologist, lots of medical students standing in on my exams and listening to my heart, and dentists refusing to clean my teeth until I have "premedicated" (taking antibiotics so I don't get endocarditis and die).
Speaking of endocarditis, "Don't scratch that mosquito bite! You'll catch endocarditis and die!" I heard this and similar statements from my mother my entire life. Heck, she still says this to me on occasion. It's become somewhat of a joke to me now and I often say, "Don't look at that! You'll get endocarditis and die!" Hahaha! Aren't morbid jokes funny? I think so. I know it makes a lot of people uncomfortable, me joking like that but I choose to believe that if you can't laugh about your condition then you are taking your life WAY too seriously. Everyone has to die sometime and according to my early doctors (before my parents were able to take me to Texas Heart), I'm already on borrowed time.
So, here's to living with a monkey heart and taking lots of antibiotics and making funny jokes about my condition. Laugh, because life is too short to be sad about the cards you have been dealt. And look at it this way - I wasn't blessed with a big bosom and Dr. Cooley just drew on some cleavage for me. Thanks, Dr. C!
Good for you in finding humor in your situation. You must realize as you hinted at the end how lucky you have been to get such first rate medical treatment. I am also glad you don't take the monkey heart joke too far. This sort of thing is how internet rumors sprout legs and run rampant. Heart transplantation is a last resort life-saving measure which is not available to most of the folks who need it because of the lack of donor organs. You have a miracle heart is what you have, much as your sacred heart art indicates. Maybe you could find a way to make more folks aware of the need for everyone to choose to be an organ donor instead. In any case, I wish you well in your life's adventure.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ken, for the kind words. I agree with you that more people should be organ donors. Absolutely! Why do you need your organs if you aren't using them? Unfortunately, there is a culture out there that doesn't believe in organ donation and that, I think is part of the problem. I will write more about my heart in the future and will make it a point to include info on organ donation. Thanks for the suggestions!
ReplyDeleteGood for you in finding humor in your situation. You must realize as you hinted at the end how lucky you have been to get such first rate medical treatment. I am also glad you don't take the monkey heart joke too far. This sort of thing is how internet rumors sprout legs and run rampant. Heart transplantation is a last resort life-saving measure which is not available to most of the folks who need it because of the lack of donor organs. You have a miracle heart is what you have, much as your sacred heart art indicates. Maybe you could find a way to make more folks aware of the need for everyone to choose to be an organ donor instead. In any case, I wish you well in your life's adventure.
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