Two of Hearts

My munchkin eating a munchkin in the morning

It’s a bit of a monumental week in the Tepper household, and, as in the past, I felt the ideal way to tackle it was by expressing my ruminations in a blog entry.

First things first, Marty had a significant appointment with his cardiologist on Monday. Shortly after being born, it was determined that Marty had what is called an atrial septal defect, meaning he had a small hole in the wall between the two upper chambers of his heart. While this was nothing critical or endangering his life, it was nonetheless cause for concern. The doctors had said that it would likely close on its own, but if it didn’t, he may have to undergo surgery later in life. Long story short, we found out at his appointment this week that the hole has closed up. Marty was officially discharged with no issues whatsoever. Thank goodness. He was a wonderful and cooperative patient, staying perfectly still and allowing the technician and physician to conduct their exams. I’m so incredibly proud of my boy and absolutely thrilled to document that wonderful news.

One heart issue down, one to go.

Now, it’s Anne’s turn. Ever since she was pregnant with Trudi, she’s had occasional situations in which her heart rate would suddenly escalate to 200+ beats per minute. These “episodes” were completely random in nature. We could be sitting on the couch watching TV, she could be driving her car — and, boom, she’d feel her heart racing as if she was in the middle of a 400-meter dash. Typically, her heartbeat would normalize in a matter of minutes, but she had a doctor’s visit earlier this year and was prescribed a medication to treat it.

More recently, there have been a few times where it lasted upwards of an hour. There was a night in particular where the medication wasn’t slowing it down, and she had to go to the emergency room around midnight. Though these flareups were occurring once every couple of months or so, they stated to happen more frequently. Sometimes having multiple episodes in a single week. When she was finally able to see a specialist, the condition was identified as supraventricular tachycardia, or SVT for short. Evidently this is a fairly common abnormality that often develops during pregnancy.

While SVT is generally not life-threatening, it may potentially result in a heart attack at some point if not treated. The thought of anything happening to Anne is so astonishingly devastating that I hate even contemplating it for a second. Long-time readers of this blog might recall that she passed out from excessive blood loss on the night that Marty was born. That’s basically the last time I had to envision a nightmarish scenario of “what if.” With our amazing life together, and our two beautiful babies, I absolutely need her to stick around for the next several decades. So on Wednesday, she’s going to have a cardiac ablation. No, it’s not open-heart surgery. However, it’s still surgery on her heart, and she will have to spend the night in the hospital. Fortunately, this is a rather low-risk procedure and one that is believed to be curative. 

For those of you reading this, please just keep us in your thoughts. I desperately want this week to be over and for everything to return to normal. I recognize this is not necessarily the most perilous situation, especially given the challenges and uncertainty facing so many. It’s just that my family is my world, and thus I felt obligated to ventilate some of my emotions here. 

Marty’s got a clean bill of health, and, if all goes as anticipated, Anne’s heart will be better than ever in a matter of days.

Thanks for reading and for any positive energy you can send our way — I’m certainly sending some right back to you.