“You have Aortic Stenosis,” said my doctor.  As an eleven year-old, I sat in the doctor’s office impatiently waiting for the doctor to sign off on the physical for this year’s sports season. Finally, the doctor, a short man in a white lab coat wearing a gold chain and a fun-loving smile that radiates happiness through a crowd of people, walked in.  Usually, he as a smart comment or a little joke after he shakes my hand; however, there were no jokes this day only bad news.  His benevolent smile has faded and was replaced by a compassionate voice saying, “I think you have a heart murmur in your atrial valve,” he describes, “but I’m not sure, so you’ll have to have more testing.”

This only added to the suspense of this disturbing diagnosis.  “So instead of playing football and wrestling, now I can only play basketball?” I asked.

He urged, “Even though there is no cure, with your help I can manage you heart and delay surgery for as long as possible, and, yes, you can play basketball; but you have to be cautious.”

“Great! ‘Now every morning I’ll have to take a mouthful of pills, and have to monitor blood pressure.’ I thought. ‘At least I get to play the sport I love most.’

Fast forward a few years to my freshman year in high school.  At the beginning of basketball season, I played and ran with my friends, trying to win games and have fun at the same time.  During sprints at the end of practice a bitter taste crept up in my mouth, and the wood-grain of the gym floor blurs and the blue and gold colors in the room begin to darken. Eventually, the hammering pain in my chest, which I could hear throbbing, and the lack of vision overtook my will to press on and my body gave in. I was consumed by my shame because the team continued running, and my rising back to my feet was near impossible. ‘They must feel let down to see me having to do less than they do.  ‘Even though they understand why, they will never fully feel the breathlessness and the pain and the shame of not being able to improve the team when they don’t quit while I give into this shadow-like disease that will one day overtake life itself. I am not strong enough to continue and not strong enough to beat this monster that lurks behind waiting for a slip up, so it can finally force the doctor’s hand to cut me open and replace the defective heart with that of a stranger that through the end of his life saves mine.

It's like I’m walking on the high wire, teetering between playing basketball and preserving my heart and keeping my most needed organ at its best.  The discouraging thought echoed in my head that eventually I won’t be able to play, and I’ll have to quit the sport I love.  It’s like I’m playing with a time limit other than that of the scoreboard or the game wining shot that doesn’t quiet make it off before the clock of life, of my life, expires.