Heart beat

love will cost you everything

“I heard Sammy’s heart. It sounds like thump, thump, thump,” my four-year old daughter Lu tells me today, holding her stethoscope.

I smile and tell her that’s great, and ask her if I can check her heart, too. I listen with the best kiddie stethoscope around.

“Is there a heart in there?” She asks curiously. After all, she is usually the one checking her little brother.

“Yes, baby, there is,” I tell her.

Happy with that response, she bounces back to Sammy, and checks him again, to be sure he’s okay.

“Sounds good,” she says finally.

When you have to watch your baby brother have heart surgery twice before you are two, you easily become the world’s youngest cardiologist.

She grins from ear to ear when I say this to her. Because she knows who cardiologists are.

They saved her best friend, her brother.

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“Your baby’s heart is so beautiful!” Our dear cardiologist said when I was around 20 weeks pregnant.

To understand the gravity of this enthusiasm, you have to know a few things.

Sammy’s cardiologist is his longest running doctor. At age two (almost three!), he has had more doctors than most people will have in their entire lives.

Our daughter started calling him “Dr. Tel” when she was very young.

We met him during a dark time early on in my pregnancy after we had been presented with more fears than hope.

We learned Butternut (as we called Sammy in utero) had a hole in his heart that would require open-heart surgery. At the first of many echocardiogram appointments, we expected more medical jargon and to leave weary again, but instead we were met with love and care and joy.

He knew it would be a hard journey, but Dr. Tel gave us hope.

Hope for this Beautiful Heart.

(This pic of him on the day of his first heart surgery ended up gigantic, but is also fitting)

Here are some pieces of something I once wrote about our beloved heart doc:

He found a way to make every hard situation brighter and it wasn’t syrupy sweetness or unwanted optimism. He showed us a pure joy and could see what we couldn’t in some new and frightening situations.

Even though we always saw beauty and love and joy with Sammy, the first several months were filled with scares and crises and surgeries, which made us grateful to have someone who could see past it all, someone who believed it would get better. Someone who told us when we didn’t have words that Sammy’s heart was beautiful and that we would make it through, that he would make it through.

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When seven-month-old Sammy’s heart failed again shortly after the first surgery, I think it’s safe to say both my husband and I had one of the hardest calls of our lives. I cried on a video call with Dr. Tel and another doctor as I heard the news that we would have to go back into surgery when we thought we were finally in the clear.

I never forget someone’s words that make me feel seen during a scary moment.

“I’ve known them since utero…”Dr. Tel told the other doctor. As if to say, I understand. He let the doc go out of the room (a mom’s sobbing has no timetable), but he stayed on the call to talk to us. To be sad with us for this unfortunate turn of events.

On the dreaded day of the operation, we had another surprise. This time a sweet one. Dr. Tel had rearranged his schedule to be in the OR with our surgeon. Comfort in the midst of a storm. Plot twist for everyone. The first person to show us Sammy’s heart when he was still growing inside me saw the actual insides of his heart for himself.

His beautiful heart.

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Update on where we are now:

By God’s grace, his heart was repaired, and I think we even managed to get off of his (seven or so!) heart meds a few months later.

Two years later, Sammy is now RUNNING after life. Even though there’s still many other medical issues we face, sometimes daily, it helps to remember how far this warrior has come. How far his brave sister has come. How far we’ve all come.

There’s much more I could say, but I have doggies and butterflies (aka two toddlers) chasing after my computer and so I will catch you all on the flip side.

But I couldn’t let Heart Month close without saying thanks to all the medical staff who kept Sammy’s heart beating when he was but an infant. Sammy is the Turtle King that makes us all come to life. And to use the words of our two-time surgeon about Sammy, “I love this guy.” Sorry you’re only getting a small cameo in this essay, Dr. B, but owe you so much, too, and love you right back.

There’s a lyric by my fave, Ellie Holcomb, which says:

“The best things in life aren’t always free. Love will cost you everything.”

It’s true (he’s our literal million dollar baby:). It’s still so worth it.

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