Page 155 of Unspoken Words
“What’s my condition?”
No one would answer, so I stared at my brother, his expression noticeably different from everyone else’s. Nose scrunched, teeth gritting together.
“Chris?”
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Dr Webb entered the room.
“Hello, Eloise. I’m Dr Webb, a cardiologist here at South West.” He picked up my chart, glanced at it briefly then tucked it under his arm while moving to the side of my bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a tack,” I croaked out.
He chuckled, his blue eyes sparkling like ice crystals. “Flat?”
“Yes. And weak.”
“Well, that’s to be expected after suffering cardiac arrest.”
My heart pulsed in my chest as if to punctuate that it was still there and beating.
“What?”
He slid a nearby chair underneath him and sat beside my bed, his head face level with mine. “You suffered a cardiac arrest due to Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. Have you heard of that condition before?”
My body stiffened, but I did manage to shake my head.
“Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, also known as HCM, is an inherited disease of the heart, which leads to abnormal thickening of the heart muscle, most often of the left ventricle—the main pumping chamber of your heart.” He flipped the pages of my chart to a blank sheet of paper at the back and quickly sketched a diagram. “This is a poorly drawn example of your heart, but see this side?” he asked, circling one half of the heart. “This side pumps blood out of the heart to the rest of the body bar the lungs.” He coloured a thick outline on part of the heart. “The walls of your left ventricle are much thicker than normal, which is problematic because it causes the heart to work less efficiently, thus pumping much less blood out of the heart and into the body than what is required. As a result, you can experience chest pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, fainting, palpitations and, sudden cardiac arrest.”
“You died, Elliephant.”
My eyes widened at my brother’s statement, and Mum whacked him on the arm.
“I died?”
“Unfortunately, your brother is correct; you were clinically dead for what we estimate to be four minutes before paramedics at the scene revived you.”
Connor’s grip tightened on my hand, and I noticed the whites of his knuckles.
“Your heart stopped, and the reason for that is because sufferers of HCM have an ejection fraction of less than 40%.”
“What’s an ejection fraction?” I asked, confused.
“It’s the measurement of how much blood inside your left ventricle is pumped out with each contraction. As I said, sufferers of HCM tend to have an ejection rate of 40% or less. A normal person would sustain between 55-65%. Your measurement, Eloise, is 25%, which is dangerously low in your condition.”
“My condition?”
“Yes, I’ll get to that in a minute.” He patted my hand again and then continued. “After consulting with your parents while you were in an induced coma, we’ve discovered a history of the disease on your paternal side of the family.”
“Wait!” I croaked. My throat was getting sorer by the second. “I’ve been in an induced coma?”
“Yes. We’ve been safely and slowly bringing you out of it for a couple of days now.”
Tears stung my eyes and trailed down the sides of my face toward my ears. I tried again to raise my arm, but Connor wiped them for me.
“Can we fix this HCM thing? Is there a cure?” he asked.
“Other than a heart transplant, there’s no cure nor reversal of the thickened ventricle wall; however, there are some treatments both surgical and with medication that can prevent it from getting worse.”
“I need heart surgery?”
