Lisa Kirkland

Lisa Kirkland today. She is a physician at Saint Marys Hospital.

I was born with a hole between the two ventricles of my heart , a condition which was diagnosed within weeks of my birth. When I was 4 years old, my parents took me from our home in Richmond, Va., to Rochester to see Dr. John Kirklin, who was a pioneer in pediatric heart surgery. The doctors wanted to wait to see if the defect would close on its own. But I had had a long bout of endocarditis (a heart infection) and would cry for hours at night, probably because I couldn't breathe well from congestive heart failure, so surgery was scheduled. (One sleepless night, my sister remembers thinking, "I love her a lot, but can you take her back? She must not be quite done" — like I was a pizza!)

I am told that when my parents gently explained to me that I needed an operation on my heart, I chirped, "Ok, can I go play now?" I remember bouncing in the back seat of the car on the way to Rochester, asking, "Are we there yet?" I have a fuzzy memory of being in an oxygen tent, seeing my stuffed dog on a shelf, and believing I could see my heart and bones through the open wound on my chest, left open due to an infection. I could see my parents' shadowy outlines through the tent, and knew that they loved me very much, but they could not take this away; I had to get through this myself. Pretty heavy thoughts for a 4- year-old.

Lisa Kirkland when she was a patient at Saint Marys Hospital.

When I was better, I roomed with an older girl named Mona; the nurses called our room the Mona-Lisa room! On the day of my discharge from the hospital, my parents were late. Mona told me that she had overheard the nurses saying that my parents had died in an accident. I tried hard not to believe her, but I was pretty shaken when my parents finally arrived.

I was worried that Santa Claus wouldn't know where I was, so far from home. By this time we were staying in a motel near Saint Marys so I could go for checkups. I got up one morning, and there were sleigh tracks outside our window, and early Christmas presents for me. Santa found me! I was ecstatic!

My sister tells me when I got back home, I shuddered when she came to hug me, which was not at all like me. She says I seemed to know that the world could be pretty scary and painful for a little girl. But good things soon followed; I went from smallest to tallest in my class in one year, remained active and, best of all for my family, could sleep at night!

I grew up knowing I had a heart defect and proud of myself for what I had gone through so well. Thanks to my wise parents and my pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Carolyn McCue, I had no sense of limitations. I played intramural sports through high school, college and medical school, obtained a brown belt in karate, and still try to lift heavier weights than other women at the YMCA today! I wore two piece bikinis and when people stared at my scars, I didn't care — they are my battle scars!

Most amazing to me is that I now have the honor of being a member of the medical staff (along with my husband Warren Thompson, M.D.) at the place that has always been magical in my thoughts, the place my parents trusted enough to bring me to 40 years ago. I cannot describe how deeply I feel about being part of Mayo Clinic; it saved my life.

Now, as a board member of the Adult Congenital Heart Association, I have the opportunity to help others the way Mayo helped me, to bring them hope for a new life.

By Lisa Kirkland, M.D.