"An Interesting ASD" November 2,  2016  8:51pm EST

I was born in 1951 with an ASD Atrial Septal Defect, a hole in my heart but it was not found until I was about six and then it took nearly four years for the doctors to decide what to do about it. The doctor told my parents that it was "an interesting ASD with an unusually large hole." and that they were amazed that I had not had any more problems than I did. I was just weeks from turning ten years old when they finally got around to "fixing" it. They did open heart surgery and put some sort of "patch" over the hole. I went home and went on with my life. I knew my heart was enlarged and that I had a slight murmer but I had no time for worrying about it. I lived decades and had five children. and a very "normal" life without any more contact with a cardiologist. Then about fifteen years ago I began experiencing some heart racing episodes and found a cardiologist to check into it. I was told that the patch seemed to still be in place but that there seemed to be a tiny bit of leakage from somewhere. The docotr said it didn't appear life threatening at all and that I didn't have any blockages anywhere so I went another decade and a half ignoring the problem for the most part. I checked in with doctors from time to time but they weren't really concerned about much. Then this past Spring I began feeling a noticable change in my energy level, and I had some chest pains from time to time. I also noticed that it was getting harder to go for walks without getting out of breath. I decided it was time to check with a cardiologist again. Upon doing so he ran me through all the tests and concluded that the "patch" was not doing it's job anymore and that I had an unusually large hole in my heart. They tried to go through the artery to plug up the hole with a relatively new kind of umberella plug of sorts but it would not stay put so they decided I would need to undergo open heart surgery again. Needless to say I was not happy with the idea. While it had been over five decades since the first time I had not really forgotten the trauma. I did have the surgery done though at the end of August 2016. The cardiologist said the old patch had broken loose and calcified. He could not remove it completely as it was still attached somehow. He said he had never seen anything like it and didn't know how I managed to not have more serious problems because of it. He assured me that he did close the hole. I am now trying to be patient with the recovery process but I think I will not be allowing any more heart surgery in this life time.