It certainly wasn’t my plan to not post something here on the new Leapology blog for a month after launch, but to quote my favorite joke, “How do you make God laugh? Make a plan.” Just like the rest of the world, I had a very interesting few weeks - but not just because of a hurricane, the economy, and election drama. My step-father (I call him Dave, everyone else calls him David) went in for a planned bypass surgery. He’s a very healthy guy whose only vice is gadget collecting, but sometimes your DNA doesn’t care if your cholesterol is low.

Mom and I waited out the very routine surgery (bypasses are performed over 600,000 times a year) in a windowless waiting room that became a defacto hotel in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Much to our surprise, halfway into the surgery the surgeons discovered an aneurysm on his ascending aorta. They had to proceed with a dacron replacement of the offending vital artery or risk a probably fatal rupture in the near future. On one hand, this was terrible news. Dave just had his descending aorta replaced in an amazing and cutting edge surgery last Christmas with a long recovery. On the other hand, it was another miracle. Ruptured aortas kill thousands each year and they’re rarely caught in time (this is what killed John Ritter a few years back). Dave had TWO, they caught them BOTH, and now he has a complete shiny new space age aorta. Hooray for luck, and science!

The night before I left for Houston to camp out during the hospital stay, I happened upon the HBO movie “Something the Lord Made” about the dawn of cardiac surgery. Vivian Thomas and Alfred Blalock’s partnership caused much controversy in Jim Crow America. It was also unheard of to operate on the human heart, to even touch it since it was considered God’s domain. In the film, a priest admonishes Blalock as being vain, playing god. This exchange reminded me of the stem cell controversy today, that there are some things we simply can’t do because they’re akin to eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. I don’t believe religion and science need to be at odds, and will get into in future posts. Overall, it was novel to feel a personal connection to a docudrama about science - to watch the amazing and controversial leap these guys made not so long ago; a leap that directly lead to saving the lives of a few of my family members.

That connection turned out to be more direct than I thought. Dave was lucky to have his latest surgery at the Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center. Alfred Blalock was a contemporary of Michael E. DeBakey (and in fact trained DeBakey’s protege and rival Denton Cooley). It would be difficult to conceive of the state of modern cardiac surgery without DeBakey. He revolutionized the field, including inventing the pump that makes open heart procedures possible, MASH units to save troops on the frontlines, and dacron grafts to repair blood vessels like Dave’s. DeBakey actually received the surgery he pioneered. The same one Dave had last year.

Mom and I are very thankful to the current generation of amazing surgeons, including Joseph Coselli and Michael Reardon who performed Dave’s operations and continue to innovate with new life-saving techniques. The future looks bright for cardiac surgery. One group of doctors is even growing new hearts!