Episode 18: Emily Tedore’s Heart Attack Changed the Holidays Forever.

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Can't really do much without having good health. I have so much more appreciation for all the parts of me that work well. And I'm just so thankful. And I'm just really focused on eating well and exercising and taking good care of myself now because before it's like, oh, I'm healthy, I'm fine. And you just never know when something's gonna happen big or you're gonna have a heart attack. I enjoy every moment with my kids and every moment outside and doing the things I love. Because when you can't do those for a year, it really puts perspective on everything.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Welcome to Imperfect Heart, a place for you to join me, Jeff Holden, in conversations, discussions, and dialogue about our hearts and the impact myocardial bridges have on them. We'll talk with healthcare professionals, those in related fields that support our condition, and others just like us with stories of their myocardial bridge experiences. It's my intention for this content to inform, educate, entertain, and even motivate or inspire you in your personal journey on dealing with a myocardial bridge. Most importantly is to have you leave each episode with hope, knowing you're not alone and that what you're experiencing is real. I'm really looking forward to the conversation today, as my guest is yet another person residing within a 90-mile range of where I live, and it's likely we'll have an opportunity to meet at some point. She's a 39-year-old mother of two daughters, four and fifteen. She lives with her partner in the beautiful Sierra Nevadas at the base of Lake Tao. And folks, this is a spectacularly beautiful setting, I promise you. She's originally from Iowa, but moved out to the west in the mid-90s, loves most anything outdoors, including mountain biking, hiking, fishing, and snow skiing. Tells me she bakes a mean sourdough loaf and has just started to learn how to can, and I hope I'll get to experience that at some point. She loves the winter and snow, which is exactly why I left the Midwest, and is looking forward to getting back to snow skiing and teaching her four-year-old for the first time, which would not have been possible if she hadn't been recently unroofed. She works full-time and is also currently working toward her master's degree in communications. Emily Tidor, welcome to Imperfect Heart. This is really going to be a fun conversation.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

What was it that began your journey toward an unroofing procedure? What started this whole process for you?

SPEAKER_01 2:42

So I had just recently started back going to the gym and exercising after having had my daughter, of course, is moms. We want to get back in shape after not exercising for a while. And I was at the gym and I was doing just some like weighted lunges at the gym, just something, a normal exercise, nothing crazy. And as soon as I had set down the weights, my entire chest got extremely tight. This is something I had never experienced before. This was something that I had never felt. I thought maybe I pulled a muscle. So I started kind of stretching and like like feeling. And I just was like, nah, this is something more than just a muscle, like something's not right. I had had a friend, a woman who had had another heart issue, and she had had a heart attack. So I thought of her instantly. And I thought maybe, you know, I had damaged my heart or something had happened. So I got very concerned and I walked out of the gym and I called 911. And yeah, the ambulance came and they did an EKG and they said, Well, my EKG looks a little off. They didn't really tell me what it was. And so they were like, Well, we should probably just take you to the ER just to run some more tests to make sure nothing more serious is happening. So off I went to the ER in the ambulance. And while I was in the ambulance, they had given me, I believe it's the nitro, it's the one you put under your tongue. And they said, if this helps, then it probably is something to do with your heart. So it helped. And then I got very concerned because prior to that I had not had any heart issues. I was a relatively healthy person and, you know, nothing big. And so once we got there, of course, I was treated with they did blood work and they said, Oh, your blood work looks fine. Everything's fine, you know, the normal ER response. Are you sure you didn't pull a muscle? Are you sure you're not having anxiety? And I said, No, no, I'm still having this really bad pain. They did an echo and a CT scan and they said everything looks fine. I'm telling them, like, it's not getting better. You know, it's not getting better. And they finally gave me morphine and I think Valium. And slowly it had started to subside. The pain started to subside, and my chest wasn't as tight. And it was funny because right after the pain had kind of subsided, I started having all these heart palpitations. And I knew what those were. You know, they're pretty common in most adults. And so I was like, Well, I'm having a bunch of them right now. And they go, Oh, well, that's normal for adults. You know, that's a normal thing to have. And I'm like, okay, well, they're happening back to back to back. Finally, they kind of just said, Well, we don't know what's wrong with you. Like everything's fine. And so I'm probably at like 2 a.m., they did one last blood work and I came back with elevated troponin levels, which was the indicative of a heart attack. They said it was a moderate level, so not mild, but not severe. Then I got more serious. Then they put me on the blood thinners, and then they decided that they were going to do the heart cast the next morning. So that was a really long anxiety-filled night. The next day they took me into the cath lab. They did the cast through my wrist, and they said, Oh, well, you know, we see a myocardial bridge in there, but those are benign, nothing to worry about. We do see that one wall of your ventricle was ballooning a little bit. So we believe this is tacosubo. This is something that I guess is common in women. So by that time, I had felt better. I felt great. My my heart function was actually a little above average. So my heart function is still really good and strong. So they said, oh, tacosubo, and they they sent me on my way. They gave me metropolol and aspirin and just said, you know, follow up with your cardiologist. So that was kind of where I ended up.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

So not much concern with the troponin level, huh?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, they just kind of said, Oh, yeah, you know, you had a heart attack, and we don't this is kind of what we think actually what it was. And it it really wasn't much answers. It wasn't super reassuring at all for me.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

So that got you through the first incident with a hospital visit. Right. And roughly two days in this. How long ago was this?

SPEAKER_01 6:55

This was in September of 2021.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Okay, so just two years ago.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Relatively recent. Yes. And then they identified the bridge, which is a step in the right direction at least. They gave you something to say, well, maybe we start with that if if anything reoccurs or whatever symptoms you might be experiencing. What happened then? What was the next step? Because it could have been, oh, everything's fine, happy life, I'm all good. Nothing happened to cause me to continue to go down a path of looking for something to address. What what happened next?

SPEAKER_01 7:30

So then I had my follow-up appointment with my cardiologist. And well, it's actually ended up being a nurse practitioner that was there. It wasn't the cardiologist. And she just said, because I was just expressing to her how worried I was and how I was having anxiety about it. And I was, you know, feeling stressed, like I couldn't exercise, I couldn't do anything. And she said, Well, I'm gonna give, I'm gonna refer you over to a different cardiologist within our group. It's a group of cardiologists. She's kind of around your age. She's a nice woman. She works up at the university and they do a lot of different studies. And I think you would just be a better fit with her than the gentleman that I had seen in the ER. And so I went, I scheduled that appointment. And then when that appointment came along, I was like, okay, I had just kind of moved on from it. I had accepted it. I didn't have any other symptoms. I felt back to my normal self. So I went into that appointment and she she came on pretty strong and she said, I don't believe that you had takasubo. She said your troponin levels were much higher than a takasubo event. Your heart function was still really well and strong. And so normally with a takasubo, the heart function will go down. She said, I really want to look at that bridge and I want to make sure that that bridge in your heart was not what caused this and that this isn't something that could happen again in the future. You are a mom, you know, you're still young. I don't want you to have problems. So I want to send you for a series of tests. And so she made appointments for a deather CT scan and an MRI of my heart. And then what was the other? There was one other one I can't remember. So, long story short, everything came back looking good on all those tests, except the MRI did show scar tissue and damage on my heart from that one event. And so that was very alarming to me because after, of course, going down a Google hole, which I never recommend, you know, scar, you know, you get scar tissue on your heart, and your heart doesn't really heal itself, according to my Google search. So I was very concerned and she says, Well, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Your, you know, your heart function is still really well. You're you feel good, and that's all good signs. So they they kept me on the heart medication and she added one additional medication that she thought may help with just lowering my blood pressure. And I think my blood pressure was high because of the anxiety surrounding everything that was going on. I was having a lot of anxiety. So she put me on another medication. I stayed on the metropolis, I stayed on baby aspirin, and she also has me on a statin just for preventative measures. And she said, after all those results came back, she said, I want to go ahead and refer you to Stanford. And this is around the time that I had found the myocardial bridge Facebook group. So I had kind of started looking on there and I had heard Stanford mentioned a few times, but I hadn't gone down researching it significantly on the group yet until she said, I want to refer you. So she sent in my referral, and I didn't hear back for probably like a month or so.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

The novelty of having an episode and then going to a cardiologist who actually recognizes the bridge as something potentially symptomatic in the first step is amazing. Right. You may be the only person on the entire Facebook group that was connected post-incidentally your first three steps were symptom, major symptom, as you find out after the fact, because it did cause a little bit of damage, to a cardiologist who recognizes a bridge as symptomatic directly to the next step of Stanford, which in so many cases takes three, four, five different steps and months, in some cases years for people.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yes, I I was very lucky and I will happily share her name. Her name is Dr. Toft, Dr. Laurel Toft out of Carson Tahoe Cardiology, but she is also a professor at the medical school at the University of Nevada Reno. So she only sees patients one day a week at Carson Tahoe, and then she is actually a teacher up at UNR, which is why I believe she probably knew so much about Stanford. And because we are fairly close to Stanford. So I was very lucky.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

And I'll put her contact information or at least the information from this discussion in the show notes too for anybody that wants to refer.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

That's great. She's a great doctor.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

So the next thing you know, you're in the process of referral to Stanford. What happens from there?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

So that was just kind of a big waiting game. I waited about a month or so, and then Joy at Stanford reached out to me and she requested all my medical records, which then I got together, I sent down to Stanford. It was about another week or two. They got back to me and said that you would be a candidate to come down and have further testing done. Of course, they don't tell you right away if you have surgery or not, because everyone is so different. And that was probably in April or May. And she didn't have a date for me until it was probably like mid-summer. She finally gave me a date in December. So it was a pretty good chunk of time until I was actually on their calendar. They're so busy. But once I was on their calendar, they're super responsive, super helpful. Stanford is the most amazing. I mean, I haven't been to a lot of hospitals, but they are extremely, you know, they interact with you, they talk to you. Any questions you have, their app, everything is just, it's great. So they got me on their calendar. And unfortunately for me, it was December 12th, is when I would go down there. So I looked at the calendar and I was like, holy cow, I'm having potentially having heart surgery right before Christmas, which as a mom, any moms know, like, wow, that's not a good time for anything to be scheduled. So that was kind of stressful, but you know, our health comes first.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

So And you have two children in the Santa space at this time too. So you definitely don't want to be missing. We're we're very similar in terms of timing. Mine was January 4th. I was supposed to go. I said, I'll go. And my diagnosis provocative test was the day after Thanksgiving. So I spent Thanksgiving at Stanford in the hospital, so that I was prepped and ready to go on Friday. And they said, Okay, yes, we're gonna schedule you. And I said, Okay, uh when? Next week, I'm ready. Right. And it would have been in that year, it would have been the year in 2020 had we been able to get everybody coordinated. But the one of the doctors was going on vacation and I had a couple of different complications that needed to be taken care of. So it ended up being January 4th. But I was just bringing on. I don't my kids are gone. Right, right. Sooner, sooner's better than later. So yours was roughly was that September to December a year later?

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yes.

unknown 14:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Okay, so a little over a year you had this anxiety, you were on some medication, right? Not really knowing what's going to happen, but you didn't have any other significant episodes over the course of that time.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

No, I didn't. I was very nervous about exercising or pushing myself. And so my doctor said, you know, go ahead and keep your heart rate below 140, if, you know, that way you feel comfortable, which was hard. You know, you know, being someone who was active and having an active family around me to try and monitor my heart rate and keep it low was was really tricky. But ultimately, I think it was good because it helped relieve anxiety, you know, because because this happened while I was exercising, I was very nervous to go out and push myself. And anyone, you know, who mountain bikes or road bikes knows your heart rate can get pretty wild. You know, it can it can spike up there pretty high biking. And so I just was like, I'm not gonna do any of that. I'm just gonna hold off and I'm just gonna sit tight until I can get down to Stanford.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

So you're looking at a date in December. You you actually did have it done in December, did you not?

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yes. So I ended up having surgery December 22nd. And then I was released from the hospital, I believe it was the 26th. It was the day after Christmas Day.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

So Oh my gosh. So we actually did do it. Yeah. What a Christmas present.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah, and it it was just luckily, I have a really good family who so my my kids end up staying up here in Nevada with Marcos, my partner, their dad, and he has a huge family, so everyone just chipped in and took care of the girls. And of course, FaceTime, I FaceTime them all the time. And my mom went down to Stanford with me, and we stayed in Sunnyvale. And we just kind of tried to enjoy ourselves. Did Christmas shopping and and everything else? I brought the Christmas gifts down to Stanford because we thought maybe that they would be able to come down after I had the surgery and was released and do Christmas down there. But unfortunately, they all got sick, and so I said, nah, just stay home. I don't want you here. Santa came on New Year's Eve when I was back, got back home. So so we it it was fine.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

So let me ask you on your you have your heart attack, you go through the process of anxiety, wait, wait, wait, wait. You finally get in for your provocative testing, and they do identify obviously something significant enough to say, even though she's not severely symptomatic, we need to address this and take care of it. Do you know any of the the details, not so much in the specificity of detail, but maybe just the general details of what your bridge was like that they said or thought that it needed to be addressed so quickly?

SPEAKER_01 16:55

I think their concern was that well, so one of their things was like, Well, okay, well, you're not really symptomatic. You know, that was their big thing, is like, well, how do you feel? And I was like, well, besides anxiety, you know, I feel okay, but I haven't been pushing myself. My bridge itself was not that long, but it was so deep that it did go down into the ventricle. And so it was a real tight, tight little bridge there. And so when they did go in and I they did the calf where they go and they increase, I don't know the technical terms, forgive me, but they increase your heart rate up when they when they do that, I got the same extreme pain spasms in my chest. And so when they did that, I, you know, you're sedated, but I was going, oh, you know, it hurt. And so it was the same sensation. And so Dr. Schnitter said, yes, you know, you have severe endothelial dysfunction, and you would definitely be a candidate for surgery. And so, although, you know, it was hard because Dr. Boyd kind of put the ball in my court. He kind of said, Well, you know, you don't suffer with symptoms every day, but you do have, you know, the endothelial dysfunction, you know, what what do you feel like? And it's like, I don't, yeah, I don't know how to make that decision. Like, that's how do you decide? You know, you have heart surgery. And so my mom is like, you know what? She's like, Can you live with the amount of anxiety you've been having for the last year and fear of exercising and fear of this happening again? Can you keep living that way? And I said, no. And we said, okay, let's do it. Let's do the surgery because I knew I couldn't keep living so scared of everything all the time and the anxiety and everything that goes along with this heart issue the rest of my life and just worried all the time. I I, you know, I'm so active and I don't want to be held back.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Well, we just had a conversation with Dr. Cofetis, and one of the things that a lot of the doctors will tell you is that stress causes even more complications, especially if you have a bridge, and no bridge gets better over time.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

The fact that you were able to get it done at this young age before you became either debilitated by symptoms or caused even more damage as a result of some of the symptoms that the bridge would cause to the rest of the heart and the surrounding arteries. I think that was a wise decision.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Yeah. And it like I like you said, I mean, it doesn't go away. It doesn't get better. It can only potentially get worse over time. And we went for it when like we were down there. We don't want to have to do this again if I continue to have problems or I develop more problems line the line. We just want to get it taken care of and and and get it done and get back to to live in life. And, you know, my blood pressure had crept up so much just from the stress of everything. You know, am I having surgery? Am I not having surgery? What's going to happen? When am I having it? Am I going to have another heart attack? You know, it's like I just wanted to get better and get past it.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

And it's so true. That heart attack concern, I think we all experience it. Once something happens, I I had a heart attack, you had a heart attack. Many of the people had some sort of a myocardial infarction on the Facebook group, knowing they have a bridge. The question becomes, is the next one going to be devastating? I mean, we're gonna am I gonna get severe damage? Am I gonna die? You just don't know. And that uncertainty, if you didn't have anxiety before, the uncertainty of it will create the anxiety that is again a stressor which causes problems in the long run over the grand scheme of things. So I'm happy to hear that somebody had enough uh wherewithal to say this is pretty significant. Yes, we should take care of it. You have a choice, your symptoms aren't that bad, you're not getting it every day, but you know in two, three, four years, then it becomes every day. Now you're back to where you started, and now you may have some further damage because you waited. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So post-surgery, tell us what that was like. You get home, it's New Year's, happy new year.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

So so actually, really, you know, right after you have surgery, you're really like you're in the hospital, and of course, I think a lot of people have like the low blood pressure issue right out of surgery. So we dealt with that. But and then there was a lot of you get breathless, you know, and you get tired. And like once they kind of figure out your pain levels, I think they put me on like an oxycodocodin or oxycotton pill, and that helped, but it made me feel so groggy. So as soon as I could stop taking that, I did because I hated the drunken yucky feel of just couldn't text on my phone because I couldn't see my phone. Like it was just, it wasn't very much fun, but it helped with the pain. And so anyone, if you know, you have the option too to get the epidural in your back, I definitely recommend that because it really helps you pain wise to be able to kind of take your deep breaths to get oxygen into your lungs. And if you go to Stanford, they tell you all that. But I felt like even when I wasn't using my little machine that they give you to breathe, I was always trying to take really deep breaths and always trying to like cough out any junk that was in there. So I got. Even though I would, you know, I would breathe in until the point of where like it was painful. And then I would let my breath out. And I would do it all the time, even when I wasn't using the machine. And I felt like that helped a lot with not getting a lot of fluid buildup. I was always kind of doing that in the hospital. Getting up, walking. You're still very breathless. Even when you're released from the hospital, it was, it was hard to even like, you know, I couldn't hold a conversation for very long because I couldn't catch my breath. I was like, you know, so um talking on the phone wasn't great. And but every single day it would get better and better. So it's like every day you'd feel a little bit better, every day a little bit better. We did our walking exercises that Stanford gives you. They're very specific on okay, every day you need to go out and walk. And being someone who uses a Strava app, I was like striving my walk around the hotel room because I was just trying to get myself feeling better and getting in a mindset of getting better. And so then when we so then when we get back home, we actually came home. Anyone who lives kind of on the West Coast, there was a horrible storm that hit on New Year's Eve this year in Nevadas. And we almost did not make it back over the past driving home. They actually were slowly shutting down. There's three different highways to get over the mountain, and we saw them shut down and we're already on our way. I mean, we checked out of the hotel. My mom's driving my car home, and finally the last highway we see that it gets shut down, the one we're on, and they're shutting it down for avalanche control. And so my mom is says, We're going for it. You know, we're not gonna, we're not letting this stop us. We're getting home. Cause at that point, we had been down there for three and a half weeks or whatnot, and we were just ready to be home. And so we this was probably not the smartest, but we just went for it and we let them clear avalanches and we made it home in a pretty hairy snowstorm. And once I was home, I wasn't sure how I would be able to help with my little one because at that point she was three. And so I still had family help that would come over and help do the harder things like bath time and those things. I can't lift her. Luckily, she she was really good and she was very sweet and very patient with me and lots of family help. But, you know, I could do a lot of things. I could wash dishes, I could sort of make dinner, as long as I was, you know, doing the sternal percussions where you kind of keep your elbows in. Yes, you're kind of like in the tube. You know, as long as I could, I wasn't reaching out and lifting heavy things, I could do mostly anything. You know, I wasn't. There was, of course, times where I would get that zing through my sternum, and I'm like, okay, listen to my body, you know, back off. But I didn't want to just sit there like a lump on a log and do nothing. I wanted to stay moving, keep I wanted to get better.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

So I think what you just said is really, really important for anybody that's in the process of about to have the surgery with a sort of sternotomy, is that post-surgery is be active. And I'm not talking about go out and try to run or something. Just be active, do something, get up, don't sit on the couch and take oxy because it hurts. Right. Work your body to an improvement every day over whatever number of steps it is. If you do 50, do 100. If you do 100, do 150, but do something and continue to do something. And I do want to go back for a second on the spirometer, the little that little breathing device, which is a pain. We all hate it. They say you gotta use it. You gotta use it. Yes. It's so significant because it's there for two things. It's the prevention of pneumonia, and it's also to get your lung expansion back because during a sternotomy, they collapse the lungs. And it's really important that you do that so that when you come back, you're back to where you were, as opposed to with a diminished lung capacity or you know, worse yet, some sort of bronchial or pneumonia, which is the last thing you want when you have a sternotomy. Right. So you sound like you're doing pretty good. You're into January now, and you're functioning, starting to work your way outside the tube as the months go along. Did you notice anything different that you were so super cautious about pre-surgery that now all of a sudden, just normally you're doing it, and you go, wow, I wouldn't even have done that before because I was so concerned. Here I am doing it. And I it's second nature like it used to be.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Yeah, I mean, really just any movement and exercise that I was I had started to incorporate. So, like I said, we had gotten a huge blizzard and we had snow on the ground for weeks and weeks. And I would just go out and I'd put my Apple Watch on and put a podcast in my ear, and I would just go walk in my snow boots in the snow. That way I was getting my walking in. And it was nice to not constantly be staring at my heart rate on my Apple Watch, like going, where is it? And that was one thing they taught me was so actually after when they released me from the hospital, I had a higher um heart rate. My heart rate was my resting heart rate was probably like in the 90s to 100s. And one of the doctors kind of said, Oh, well, maybe that's just your new resting heart rate. And I was like, that's kind of high, you know, that's kind of weird. And he was like, I don't know. He goes, I wouldn't watch your, don't stare at your Apple Watch. Don't obsess over it. Just go back to kind of just going about your day. Don't look at it and just see what happens. And I did that, and sure enough, it just started to go down. It's like the staring at it just makes you like, you know, and your heart rate starts going up and then you start fixating on it. And so I just started walking. My heart rate came down. You know, I started just being more active. I didn't really do anything outside of walking until I had gone to the cardiac rehab where they pushed me harder. I was kind of waiting to do anything harder than walking until I got and was monitored and did that program.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Tell me a little bit about the emotional part of it for you. Pre-we're always concerned about what the reality of this is going to be. And we don't know. No matter how many people tell you nobody's ever died on the table. It's a pretty safe surgery. We know what we're doing. Yeah, that's good. You're cutting my chest open and mess it with my heart. Right. And so you you go into the surgery and you come out of it. What were your where's your head on that? What were you thinking? What was going through your mind, family, all that? How are you dealing with it? Because I know a lot of people ask the question as they they get concerned or fearful about the surgery to the point that we're almost paralyzes them.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Right. I would definitely say I was in the high anxiety, fear, paralyzed state for a long time. Like I had said, my blood pressure crept up quite a bit from anxiety. My cardiologist even she prescribed me an anti-anxiety medication, but I never ended up taking it because I just was like, I'm gonna deal with this on my own. One of the blood pressure medications that they had given me, though, did help with the anxiety. So I kind of just hung in there with that. Really, like I said, the I think a big part of this too is the emotional stress it takes on people. It's it's hard, even outside of the symptoms you have. I think mentally it's a very stressful thing. And it doesn't help that there isn't a lot of knowledge about it. I think it the Facebook group is amazing. I do want to mention a gal that I met on there. Her name is Casey Dunn, and she was kind of like my saving grace through this whole process. I don't know her outside of the Facebook group that we have, but she started messaging me and we talked almost every single day leading up into my trip to Stanford. When I was down at Stanford, we talked every single day. She is a mom, she has a little toddler, and she was just a huge support system. And so it's hard to talk to family and friends because they don't understand really, they don't understand the issue with the heart a lot of times. They don't understand what you're going through. They don't understand a lot of it. And so it's hard to vent to family and friends. But if you can find someone, you know, within the community of people who have this issue, someone within the Facebook group that you can talk to. I mean, you can message me if you're on the Facebook group, you know, and I can, I feel like that helped a lot. There was another gentleman, I don't remember his name. I spoke to him leading up to surgery. He had surgery at Stanford. And then after the fact, I had spoken to a few other people who went through surgery after me, and I was kind of a support to them. And so having that community of people who've been through it really helped with my anxiety. Casey helped tremendously with me. It was every day I was at Stanford, we were talking, and she was like, Oh, you're fine. You're gonna be fine. It's not a big deal. And that's what I needed to hear because I get I get wound up in my mind easily, and she kind of would just talk me down and be like, Oh, it's not a big deal. You'll be fine. You'll be back home and doing what you want in no time. And that helped with me a lot. Post once I had the surgery, it was like that weight just was completely lifted off my shoulders. It was like, oh, like I made it through surgery. Once you get through the waking up with the breathing tube, which I feel like they should warn you about ahead of time, but that was kind of stressful. But you get through it and you just you look back on it and go, okay, that kind of sucked, but keep moving forward and just stay positive. And once I had surgery, like I said, it was I just felt so much better.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

So all those tubes suck. Yes, the breathing tube, the chest tubes, yes, those those three are three that could do.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Once they take the chest tubes out, you're like a whole new person who was like, all right, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

You know, if there's one thing in your perspective now that you're unroofed and you've been able to exercise, you've got your former self back in terms of capability and things that you're doing. What would you say it is? Is there is there something that you can say this is really different because I've been through this and it's probably the most significant part of it? Not not just the fact that we went through it and and had our chest ripped open and all that, but but the but the emotional part of it, the the thing you look at from life a little bit differently if you do. I mean, is there something that you're left with now that you've had this opportunity, let's let's call it a rebirth, because you don't have to worry about that heart situation.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Yeah, I think with any huge medical issue, you always think in your head, well, you know, I'm healthy, nothing's gonna happen to me. And then when something happens to you, you can get a scary diagnosis. It really changes your perspective on life. Without good health, it's very scary. You can't really do much without having your, you know, your health on track. And so I have so much more appreciation for all the parts of me that work well. And I'm just so thankful. And I'm just really focused on eating well and and exercising and taking good care of myself now because before it's like, oh, I'm healthy, I'm fine. And you just never know when when something's gonna happen big or you're gonna have a heart attack. Nobody's nobody's immune to something, a big life health event happening. So now I just really appreciate, you know, even all the moments kind of cliche to say, but you just enjoy every moment of life because you just don't know when something's gonna happen. I enjoy every moment with my kids and every moment outside and doing the things I love. Because when you can't do those for a year, it really puts perspective on everything. So people who complain about exercising, I'm like, oh, like you don't know what it's like to not be able to exercise. That's huge. Like someone telling you, okay, yeah, you can't exercise when when people complain about exercising. It's you just have a whole new appreciation of being able to get your heart rate up there and sweat and feel good and and do all those things. And that's been huge for me.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

So please, please let me go out and torture myself. I would love to. Yeah. Don't tell me I can't. I want to do that.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Yes, maybe not the level that you did, Jeff, but I and I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

I I'll share that with people, and not so much the death ride, but that's kind of what connected us is I was going for a ride in the Sierras, and Emily, you you had seen it and you said, Well, I live there. I'm actually I volunteer for that ride for the riders coming through. I think it's with your daughter's riding club, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Yes, yeah. My daughter's on a mountain bike team, and they it's you say it's a little ride, but the death ride is in insane. You know, how many feet of climbing? I mean, if you've ever ridden a bike and you know elevation game on a bike, it's it's huge what you did. I'm just like amazed that that you did it so. But yes, my daughter, they volunteer for your ride. We help and do like the bike corral and they help with the nutrition stations of the ride. And so that's kind of how we connected. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

And unfortunately, this is the one year I'm doing the ride and you're on vacation.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Right. We ended up going out of town that yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

But next year, I will tell you, I could have used the motivation at about the the the turn where we start to head back.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Yeah, I bet.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

You've got an anniversary coming up, which I think is really cool. It's it's an anniversary, we call it the second birthday, whatever you want. It happens to be right around Christmas on top of it. Yes. And it it's so cool to think that, you know, last year you were in the hospital. Right. And you didn't get to celebrate Christmas with the family at home. This year it's a whole different deal. You're gonna be home, you're gonna be well, and I just I I feel so good about it that you're going to get to experience it without having the anxiety and the worry of what might be wrong with me. So happy anniversary, Merry Christmas and all that. Thank you. And the the other part of it I think that's really neat is now you have the ability to go out and play with your kids again and do the things that you love to do to teach them that mom can be with them to do it.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Exactly, yes. We're very excited to get back out skiing.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

So now we just have to hope for some snow.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Well, Emily, thank you, thank you so much. I know we've gone back and forth on trying to get this together, but I think it's a great story because it does it indicates that regardless of how the symptoms are presenting, if the opportunity's there and you have proper diagnosis that suggests that surgery is an option, in my opinion, and I think in in many of the uh medical field, the opinion would be yes, probably sooner better than later because you're in good health still. You haven't been very symptomatic, although we know that it has the potential to be severely symptomatic, especially since you did have a you know a heart attack with damage, that it's important to listen and understand what that care team is telling you so that you can make a valid decision. And again, thank you. I think a lot of people are gonna hear this and go, hey, I'm in that space. Maybe I should do something. I'm right. It's not that bad yet, as you mentioned, appreciation to is it Casey Dunn?

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Yes, Casey.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Yeah, and and anybody that's that's interacting with anybody on that Facebook group because it's so helpful to find somebody that's got a similar situation, not these really divergent where you're way over here and I'm over here, but when you find those similarities where they're close to what your symptoms or your situation is, it's wonderful to reach out. And I can't encourage everybody enough to do that. So thank you. Have a wonderful time. We I'm gonna say happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas. Because this episode had come out right before Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Nice. You yes, you too.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

It's a remarkable story. So thank you. Thank you, and God bless your family, and and I will connect with you. I'm sure we'll meet sometime this next season.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yes, sounds good. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Thanks, Emily. Thank you for listening to Imperfect Heart. It's my hope that this information help in some way to improve your situation or will help you better understand this condition. More importantly, that it gives you hope through stories that there is help and you most certainly are not alone. If you've been diagnosed with a myocardial bridge, please be sure to join the private Facebook group, Myocardial Bridge Support Group. For more information about our program or to reach me directly, visit the website, myimperfectheart.com. If you like what you heard today, please give a positive review, thumbs up, high five, whatever your app likes. And be sure to share with everyone important to you so they understand what it is you're dealing with. Please subscribe as well. Welcome each day with gratitude and positivity. Imperfect Heart is a production of Hear Me Now Studio.