December 4, 2024

A Diagnosis Without Warning

The first sign of trouble came in the summer of 2023.

During a routine checkup with my cardiologist, Dr. Christopher Wulff, in Walnut Creek, California, he asked me to stay silent as he listened to my heart. I’d been seeing a cardiologist yearly since 1997 due to neurocardiogenic syncope, a fainting disorder diagnosed after a tonic-clonic seizure.

That condition had been manageable with lifestyle adjustments, and my cardiology visits had become so routine I’d considered skipping them. Thank goodness I didn’t—this is a reminder of the importance of annual checkups.

Dr. Wulff detected a “clicking” sound in my heart, signaling that one of the two flaps in my mitral valve wasn’t closing properly. This caused about 50% of the blood pumped out of my heart to flow back into the chamber, forcing my heart to work harder. Left untreated, it could lead to heart disease.

Despite this, I felt perfectly fine—no symptoms, no shortness of breath, and no chest pains. I was even taking two-hour hikes up Mount Diablo every Sunday.

An echocardiogram performed on Halloween confirmed the problem: the left atrium in my heart was “severely increased,” likely due to the mitral valve regurgitation. My diagnosis was “non-rheumatic mitral regurgitation.”

Dr. Wulff assured me the condition was fixable but cautioned that open-heart surgery should only be done when absolutely necessary.