Friday, June 11th is St. Mary’s RedDAY!

Heart Disease is a leading cause of death for Canadians.  Yet, most are unaware they may be at risk or when to seek care.

RedDAY is an opportunity to come together as a community to raise awareness of this serious health risk and how it can be prevented.

You can make a difference.

Wear RED in support, post images with #RedDayFriday, and visit redday.ca to register and support St. Mary’s Regional Cardiac Care Centre.

 

Denise’s Story

 

“When I was 24, I was diagnosed with a heart murmur and didn’t think anything of it. I had young children just carrying on with life and really had no symptoms at all.”

My name is Denise Case. I’m 56 years old. I’ve been married 37 years and have three daughters and six grandchildren. When I was 24, I was diagnosed with a heart murmur and didn’t think anything of it. I was very active. I was swimming and dancing. I had young children just carrying on with life and really had no symptoms at all.

 

My father died of heart failure when I was 26.  He had been diagnosed with a heart murmur early on, and the doctor had apparently said to him, this will one day and your life. So we did wonder if perhaps I had inherited what he had.

 

At 52, a routine physical revealed cause for concern.  So I  went to the cardiologist, had my echocardiogram, went for a stress test, saw the cardiologist afterward. And he asked me if I knew why I was there. And I said, no, not really, no. I have a heart murmur. He said, “you have a bicuspid aortic valve, and it’s stiffening, and it will need to be replaced likely by the time you’re 60.” And that was like hitting a brick wall for me. I walked out of there kind of shell-shocked and didn’t ask a lot of questions.

 

Then in 2018, I had an episode I’d walked up a flight of stairs from the beach and had become very dizzy and thought I was going to pass out.  I’m speaking for myself, and, and maybe people I know, but you brush it off because you have life going on and, and you have things to do, and you have work and everything else. So I just, I thought, okay, well, if it happens again, I’ll go to the doctor. It doesn’t happen again. It was nothing, right? So I carried on.

 

It was when the cardiologist said to me, “have you been limiting your activities?” that I stopped and thought, yeah, I think I have been.  I wasn’t doing as much. You know, not taking the stairs, taking the elevator. I mean, I just attack everything. That’s kind of my nature. And I didn’t attack anything anymore.  And that was just strictly out of fear of it happening again. I stopped doing strenuous things pretty much. I didn’t take those stairs again. I would walk around, or I would drive down to the beach and then drive back. It really frightened me. So I did not want a repeat of that.

 

I saw the cardiologist in February, and I guess the fact I was limiting my activities, along with some other test results, pointed to the fact that surgery was needed. And when I was walking out of his office, I was going to the elevator in the cardiopulmonary building, and he stopped me, and he said, “I just need a little bit more information” because I guess he realized that there was a bit of an urgency that I still wasn’t aware of. Denial is deep.  And so, I saw Dr. Ash three weeks after that. And where he gave me the three options, the first option was a tissue valve. So that was either a cow valve or a pig valve. The second option was the mechanical. And then the third option was this Ross procedure which was a longer surgery.

 

The aortic valve is removed, and it’s replaced with your pulmonary valve, which is a three-flap valve, just like the aortic valve is, so you have your own valve there. Then with the pulmonary valve section, they give you a cadaver or a donor valve. And I made the decision to go with that if I were a candidate, and Dr. Ash also indicated that if they get in there and they feel that I’m not a good candidate for it, I needed to have a plan B. So, and I chose a tissue valve for plan B. But thankfully, they were able to give me plan A.

When I got out of the hospital, I was sent home with a document saying “How to live with heart failure,” which was daunting. That was probably the worst part.

 

Recovery has been very gradual, but I never felt like it was too daunting to proceed. I don’t want to stop doing what I’m doing because I feel like I’ve been given a second chance.

 

I say to my friends and my sisters, don’t ignore your symptoms. We tend to brush things off, brush them under the table. Saying, who knows what that was. That was nothing serious. Because I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to perform, to be there for our kids, to be there for our grandchildren or our spouses, our friends, whatever the case may be. And we don’t want to let anybody down.