Resurrection (or Easter) Sunday, which my family along with millions of Christians around the world celebrated recently, was and always is special for our family and for all believers. For me, however, the day rekindled memories of long ago when the relentless work of a tireless and innovative physician, the availability of a nearby hospital dedicated to the health of children, and the bravery of parents who, fearing the worst, put their faith in others and God, saved my life from a heart defect.
By way of background, in utero, a baby’s blood is oxygenated by its mother and does not travel to the lungs. The ductus arteriosus is the opening that permits the baby’s blood to bypass its lungs; however, on birth, the blood must pass through its lungs to be oxygenated so the hole closes within a few days of birth. If the ductus arteriosus remains open, that is, patent, blood does not circulate properly, hence a patent ductus arteriosus, which must be closed or the child dies.
That was my unhappy state in 1945. I was sickly, weak, and not likely to survive in that frail condition into my teens.
Early in the second century, Galen of Pergamon, a Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher, initially described the patent ductus arteriosus. It was not until 1888, however, that Boston surgeon John Cummings Munro first considered surgery to repair the defect after an autopsy on a newborn whose death he attributed to a patent ductus arteriosus. Finally, in 1938, at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, Robert Edward Gross, in a “legendary operation,” successfully ligated the patent ductus arteriosus of 7-year old Lorraine Sweeney who, as of this writing, remains with us.
Sadly, within a year, Gross’ patients suffered his first two fatalities and thus, using the work of other surgeons, he modified his methods. By 1952, he had performed 525 patent ductus arteriosus surgeries with a mortality rate of a scant 2%.
Meanwhile, two thousand miles west in Denver, at the Children’s Hospital, John Benson Grow was pioneering heart surgery. Born in Fulton, Mo., he attended Westminster College in his hometown but graduated from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. During World War II, he was chief of surgical services at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver where he performed some 5,000 chest surgeries on wounded soldiers. He learned the latest heart techniques, brought them to his practice in Denver, and thus became the “father of cardiac surgery and vascular surgery in the whole Rocky Mountain region.” He worked until he was 80, and died at 89, “a legend.”
In 1950, during Lent, my parents drove me through a blizzard from Cheyenne, Wyo., to put my life in the hands of this kindly and gentle man, a scant two years older than my father. That they were fearful is an understatement. My mother, who left her Kentucky home at 15, was a nurse’s aide at Memorial Hospital in Wyoming’s capital city and had seen enough death to last a lifetime. My father, a working man since he was 12 and now a railroader, had been warned off surgery as a youth.
“A single drop of sweat from my brow into an incision,” warned the benign small-town Arkansan doctor, “could be fatal.” Nonetheless, they signed the consent form, the hour-long surgery was a success, and after days of recovery, I left Denver clasping a plastic Easter Bunny from my parents that, filled with luminescent materials, cast a cheery greenish glow across my hospital bed.
That my life had been redeemed was beyond question. I was a hale, hardy, and healthy 5-year old, and virtually unrecognizable to parents who worried over me.
My brother Barry and I played rambunctiously on the five acres where our home sat, I competed in sports, and I won a state swimming championship with a time that stood until a few years ago. I served in the U.S. Marine Corps here and overseas. When my wife gave birth to our older son Perry, who too had a patent ductus arteriosus (it is not congenital), it was worrisome but not devastating. When it failed to close by the time he was 9 months old, it was repaired in less than 15 minutes in a procedure that, by 1980, was just short of humdrum.
He became a cross-country runner with a heart rate so slow the U.S. Navy nearly barred him from his ROTC scholarship. Today, he is a Marine JAG Officer, with a black belt in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, a strength training regime that is the pride of any weight room and certainly his parents, and father of Perry IV, who had no patent ductus arteriosus.
A belated Happy Easter, and thank you to Drs. Munro, Gross, and Grow and, as it became known in 2011, Children’s Hospital Colorado.
William Perry Pendley (@Sagebrush_Rebel) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an attorney and the author of Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle with Environmental Extremists and Why It Matters Today.
