Missouri woman has new lease on life

“It was only when I was up and moving that I was symptomatic, so one of the cardiologists said, ‘Let’s do a standing echocardiogram.’ It was interesting. I had four doctors in the room and two students. Laying down I was a normal person and had a normal echocardiogram, but as soon as I stood up, they could see that my right ventricle got pinched off and I would lose 60 percent of blood flow. Only when I stood up did I have a hole in my heart with the de-oxygenated blood flowing the wrong way.

“I felt like a science experiment in the room. It was crazy. They had never done a standing echo. This is Barnes Jewish we’re talking about. I mean, they were amazed! Literally, all the doctors were pointing at the screen saying, ‘Did you see this? Did you see that?’ It was very cool because we’d been through so much the last couple of months, but now we had answers. It was a really cool day.”