I'm Not Dead... Yet! (23 page)
I looked at the pamphlets and wondered how Dr. Laks likes his toast...
Well Done
‘Oh my god—my career!’
I had to call my agent.
In Hollywood, this phone call usually came before the phone call to the parents. I did call my parents’ first, then stayed at the pay phone and dialed my agent as I searched for more coins (no cell phones then…). My agent at the time was very, very powerful. We had grown up together in the business, I was his first ‘big’ client, and Rick Nicita was like a brother to me. When I finally got him on the phone, I began to laugh. It was a nervous laugh, a strange release of tension.
The perception of me had been ‘the athletic, boy-next-door,’ and as a young movie star who could never take his shirt off again, I would now be ‘the athletic, boy-next-door-who-had-open-heart-surgery.’ I realized I was screwed. I wanted to fight it—but I didn’t know whom or what I could fight. I was fighting perception. And once they sawed me open, there was absolutely nothing I could do about the perception. Except never wear V-neck collars.
As all of this ran through my mind, I heard Rick struggle for words. I knew he cared about me, but there was a sense of ruin in his voice. “Robby, you may want to keep this quiet.” By the time he circled back for a pep talk about how things would be ‘okay,’ Karla walked over, and I said good-bye, hung up the phone—and had the torrent rush of realization that my acting career was finished. Dead before the operation.
Was there a morgue for dead careers at UCLA Hospital?
(Probably…)
I suddenly became energized! I would somehow put up a good fight. I would harness this energy and turn it into something positive. Karla deserved that. Our baby Lyric deserved that.
Vivienne quickly flew in from Illinois to take care of her little best friend Lyric while Karla and I dealt with making new kinds of decisions—not career choices (which now felt ridiculously unimportant) or new parent simple choices like which baby car seat to buy? We were in uncharted territory, and we needed a guide.
Karla and I went to meet Dr. Hillel Laks, the head of Thoracic Surgery at UCLA. Within the first few minutes in his office we knew we were in the right place. Not only a brilliant man, he was attentive, caring, confident, and had more quiet charisma than any movie star I had known. Dr. Laks said I would need a few more diagnostic tests prior to surgery, then proceeded to ask me questions unanswered by medical tests alone. He wanted to understand my temperament and life style. Dr. Laks saw me as a whole human being. No jokes or non-sequiturs from me in the presence of this man I would gladly have touch my heart. I held Karla’s hand and listened intently as he showed us a model of the heart and gave us details of our options.
Mechanical Valve
The downside: a mechanical valve would mean having to take Coumadin (a blood thinner) every day for the rest of my life, as an artificial valve throws off blood clots. Monitoring blood levels weekly. Dietary restrictions. No more stunts or contact sports.
The upside: less of a chance of needing a re-operation. If perfect, the mechanical valve may last a lifetime.
Bio Prosthesis Valve
The downside: either made from pig or cow tissue, they have a limited life time and you will need another open-heart surgery to replace the valve when it begins to fail.
The upside: The body ‘recognizes’ the processed tissue and coats it like a real valve. No blood thinner needed. I would only have to take one aspirin a day.
Then Dr. Laks leaned in and said: “Robby, if I needed a valve replacement today at 40 I would want a bio prosthesis valve. At your age, knowing your athleticism and the nature of your work, I would advise the bio prosthesis—most preferably a bovine valve. Hopefully the size will be right for us to put in a large valve, offering you the biggest opening to accommodate your peak activity.”
‘Bovine,’ I thought. ‘Cow? Pink slime?’ I returned my attention to his wisdom. He said if all went well my heart function would be better than it had ever been in my lifetime, and I could continue to be as physically active as I desired.
Then he broke my heart: “But no more marathons.” He didn’t think the stress of running 26.2 miles was good for anyone’s heart, particularly someone with a repaired aortic valve.
“And no rowing. Studies of collegiate rowing teams show more cases of enlarged hearts than any other competitive sport.”
Luckily rowing had never been high on my ‘sports to conquer’ list, but knowing I will never have a chance to shave 5 minutes and 15 seconds off my NY Marathon run and break 3 hours haunts me to this day. Karla, who understands me better than anyone, still doesn’t quite get it. But 30 years years later, she knows why I have the blues come November.
We left Dr. Laks’ office knowing I would have open-heart surgery in a little over a week and an animal tissue valve in my heart. It brought weird images to mind:
I had been the guy fighting to save the leatherback turtles and the baby seals...and then I remembered the word
bovine
:
a cow has
died
so I can live.
From that moment on, it has been very hard for me to eat red meat.
We were sent into the bowels of UCLA Hospital
to the Nuclear Medicine department. Karla had to wait outside behind a lead door, and I was shot up with radioactive gunk (not a medical term),
then asked to lie in a small tube while pictures were taken to see how this radioactive stuff was flowing through my cardiovascular system.
My twisted comic imagination was running wild. I was a human China Syndrome. A walking Three-Mile Island.
Karla didn’t want our baby anywhere near the phantom rays of the microwave oven, but after this I’d be afraid to kiss her. Kiss her—would our next baby have two heads?! I shared my thoughts aloud with the nurses and technicians. Getting laughs from them for my real life black comedy was comforting. The technicians assuaged my fears immediately telling me I received more potent X-rays at a dentist office. (I later found out that this was not exactly true…) The only discomfort I felt was from lying in one position without moving, for 3 hours, which caused my back muscles to spasm. Time consuming, but otherwise completely painless.
I needed the biggie– Mr. Big—the “Rolls Royce” of all tests for the heart: The Heart Catheterization, also known as a Coronary Angiogram. It is the best way to ‘see’ inside the heart, test exact pressures, and make sure I did not have any problem other than my congenital valve defect. Karla and I knew this was the last test before my scheduled open heart surgery with Dr. Laks, so I was in my ‘nothing can possibly go wrong/whatever it takes/bring it on so I can have the surgery and start healing’ mode.
A nurse handed me a paper to sign which stated I understood there was a 4 percent chance I could die during this procedure. I was slightly spooked. (Today, with over a million heart caths performed every year in America, the odds of major problems now are less than one percent.) Naturally, as a responsible husband and father, I wanted to get all my ducks in a row.
