14 February 2004
It all started when I was only 24 years young. I was playing basketball with some friends the night before my life was shook up. In the following morning I was lying in bed when I felt a sharp pain shoot down my back from neck to the lower back. If it weren't for the fact that I was in bed I would have thought nothing of it. So just after the shooting pain I got out of bed and had my mother bring me to the nearest hospital to be looked at. In the emergency room the doctor told me it was nothing and to go follow up with my family physician.
Later that night, I went to see the doc because the pain was unbearable. I convinced him to admit me to the hospital for some test. I finally got admitted around 10 o'clock at night. Around midnight the cardiologist on duty came in. He said it sounded like I have something call Marfan Syndrome. He needed to run a cardiac catheterization (angiogram) to see what the pain was.
He found out that the aorta right outside my heart was dissecting. I was air lifted via helicopter (Lifestar) to Loyola University Medical Center. There they performed open-heart surgery to repair the dissection along with replacing my aortic valve. Three months later the mechanical valve they put it had gotten infected. Here I go again another surgery to replaced the infected valve was needed.
During my second stay I was in for about 20 days due to the amount of antibiotics I had to be given. Everything was going well, I'm feeling great back to work living a normal life like anyone else. I was very thankful for being alive and thankful for all the doctors, nurses and GOD for pulling me through this ordeal.
Twelve years later I started feeling pains in my stomach. I proceeded to go to the emergency room to see what was wrong. I finally get to see the doc and he tells me I have gastritis. He gives me medicine and I go about my life. One week later I'm back in the same emergency room I get a different doctor. I tell her my health history and that I was in here one week ago. X-rays are taken and nothing is found so it diagnosed as anxiety attack. I'm thinking to myself whatever and go about my life.
Two weeks after that I'm at work in a local casino when the shooting pain from twelve years ago happens again. I'm thinking I was about to die. I get taken to the local hospital were I tell the ER doctor my health history and I think it's an aneurysm. They run a CAT scan just to find that I do have one. The cardio-vascular surgeon told the ER doc to have me sent to Loyola University Medical Center. The following morning during my operation the surgeon finds two abdominal aneurysm. One was 10.5 centimeters in diameter, the other one wasn't that bad but figured to repair it.
The next day I'm recovery when I start to bleed out my rectum so they do tests and find out that I have a blood clot in my colon. The surgeon removes 2 feet of my large intestine immediately. I'm now blessed with a temporary colostomy. Besides all of this my aortic valve needs to be replaced again due to wear and tear over the years. They doctor said it has become little calcified with aortic stenosis.
Life hasn't been that easy for me health wise, but I have a lot of love and support from my family, friends and God. All I have to say is "GOD has me here for a reason, I don't know what it is but I'm going to find out".