TEXARKANA MONTHLY
really scared me. I was young and healthy and didn’t want a big scar running down the middle of my chest.” After much research, it was determined that an Amplatzer Septal Occluder would be the best course of action for treating Megan’s condition. In this procedure, a catheter is placed in a vein in the leg leading to the heart. The device used to close the hole is then run through the catheter up to the problem area where the procedure can be completed. This was great news to Megan because it would mean no major heart surgery. “I went in for my procedure in April 2010. After I woke, I excitedly asked if everything went ok and if the hole was closed. In my sedated fog, I could tell by the look on my husband’s face and the
stay calm and figure out what was going on.” Through that appointment, it was confirmed that Megan indeed had a heart murmur. Pressing the issue further, Kip reviewed a recent EKG she had gotten as a requirement for gym membership. He found an abnormality, that when combined with a heart murmur, typically indicates an Atrial Septal Defect (ASD), which is a hole in the wall between the heart’s upper chambers. “I was really only looking for sympathy and attention for feeling crummy, and he found something major.” Megan then went to see a local cardiologist. She had an echo with bubble study done, which is used to identify potential problems with blood flow within the heart. For this study, saline mixed with a
21 minutes. “My entire surgery lasted about four hours,” she said. Following one night in the Intensive Care Unit, and then moved to a private room for one additional night, Megan was discharged from the hospital. Follow-up appointments were necessary, but after six weeks Megan was able to return to her normal activity with only five small scars on the right side of her rib cage. “You can hardly see any of them,” she reports. “This experience definitely increased my faith. I can look back and see the path that God put me on and since then have trusted (Him) fully.” Kip and Megan are exceedingly grateful for the way things turned out. “Looking back, had we gotten pregnant before we made this discovery,
small amount of air, creating tiny bubbles, is injected into the patient’s vein. The mixture circulates to the heart. In a normal situation, the bubbles would be filtered out, but if there is a small opening between the chambers of the heart, the bubbles will move through the hole from the right chamber to the left, and this activity shows up on the echocardiogram image. Using this test, they determined the problem was between the upper chambers of Megan’s heart,
the outcome may not have been good. Kip and I did eventually have one son, Asher, who is six now. We continue our annual tradition of snow skiing and this year plan to introduce Asher to the sport. Fingers crossed, he loves it as much as his dad and I do!” The heart can be tricky and turning it over into someone else’s hands can be scary. In Megan’s case, however, things could not have turned out better. The research and development of new
BEFORE Megan’s heart before the surgery.
AFTER Megan’s heart after the surgery to repair the hole.
showing a hole between the right and left atria. It was a very scary realization for her. “Up to this point I had held myself together, but when I saw the bubbles move across and the look on Kip’s face, I knew it was bad and I broke down in tears. This confirmed what Kip had suspected.” Megan could not believe what was happening. Would she really need open-heart surgery? “I was terrified,” she said. Megan slowly came to terms with all the ways her life would be altered. “Kip and I had started talking about starting a family. I was told I absolutely could not get pregnant because I would likely not make it through childbirth. That was scary. The thought of having to have my chest cut open for a sternotomy in order to have heart surgery
cardiologist’s face that it wasn’t good. I was informed the hole was too large and would need to be closed surgically.” Open-heart surgery would be necessary after all, and once again Megan was terrified. Kip and Megan decided to check into the possibility of robotic open-heart surgery. When it was determined that Megan was a candidate, her surgery was scheduled for September 14, 2010. The da Vinci Robot, using its five robotic arms, was placed in the right side of Megan’s chest. “A piece of the pericardium, the sack that surrounds the heart, was cut to fit the size of the hole in my heart,” Megan explains. The ASD was very large and measured about four centimeters. While the heart was being repaired, Megan was placed on cardiopulmonary bypass for
technologies that have occurred since that first National Heart Month in 1964 have made it possible for patients like Megan to experience tremendous outcomes. Without organizations like The American Heart Association and the dedicated medical professionals of this city and others across the nation, these advancements would not have been possible. The unsung heroes of this story and the ones closest to her heart are the members of Megan’s family and her closest friends who supported her and loved her through the hardest of days. Megan had the support she needed, medically and emotionally, and it made all the difference. When it is your heart at stake, it is those closest to you that truly fill all the holes.
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COMMUNITY & CULTURE
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