On having heart surgery at 32

Author’s note: this is a departure from topics that I usually write about. It’s not related to tech, learning, or anything I’ve written about before; it’s my personal experience going through heart surgery at 32.

Reader, be warned that there are personal and real details. There won’t be any gory images, but I won’t be sanitizing the experience or pretending it was just sunshine and rainbows and not incredibly difficult. I’m writing this for myself, and though it might be difficult at parts, you’ll find it to be true.

This is my website, after all.

With that said, enjoy!

In June 2025, at 32 years of age, I had to have open heart surgery. I had an aortic aneurysm, which means that my aorta (the big tube that transports blood pumped from your heart to the rest of your body) was wider than it should have been in one critical section. This can be an important problem to fix, because it can grow larger and tear, at which point you have a very, very big problem.¹

I’m incredibly fortunate that we caught it, met some wonderful doctors and surgeons, and were able to have it fixed. Everything went extremely well, and my recovery has been tremendous. I’m fully fixed, and life is returning to normal.

This was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever gone through in my life, and as you can imagine, I’ve gone through the entire spectrum of emotions, from deep grief from facing death to deep gratitude for having found it in the first place and joy at having had everything go as well as it has.

I’ve found that writing is one of the best methods I have for processing things, and in the months since my surgery, I’ve been filled with a desire to write about my experience. I’m largely doing this for myself, but I’ve found joy sharing my experience with others, especially if I can spread some humor at the same time (one of my key coping mechanisms!). On top of that, if this helps at least one other person dealing with a similar situation, then that’ll just be the cherry on top.

I’m likely going to approach it by writing little vignettes about various parts of the experience. There may some day be some chronological order to it, but for now, I’m just going to write about whatever I feel like for that day. I’ll be adding them here over time so they don’t take up my entire landing page post list, since I’ll likely be continuing with regular programming as well. ²

Cathy

Let’s start it off with a bang, remembering my dear friend Cathy the catheter — I’ll never forget the time we spent close together, for better or for worse.

I warned you about it being personal!