The internal medicine doctor said there was not much he could do because Suzanne was being transferred to Medical City Heart Hospital in Dallas.
“ I said,‘ No, I’ m going home.’ He said,‘ Oh no, you’ re not.’ That’ s when Dr. Belbel came in, and I told him,‘ I’ m going home.’”
“ Well, you have a 6.23 centimeter aortic aneurysm so you are not going home,” Dr. Belbel countered in a convincing tone.“ That aneurysm could break at any time. You were lucky we found it now. Otherwise, you could die.”
Hearing the doctor’ s words convinced Suzanne she had to follow the his orders. She traveled to Medical City Heart Hospital in an ambulance.
“ I realized what a serious situation I was in but I hadn’ t been worried,” Suzanne said with a laugh.“ Of course,
that might have been the Prozac that I was on at the time. I’ ve had the most fantastic life and I thought,‘ If this is it, so be it.’”
“ Dr. Belbel told me that I was in good hands because he had worked with the cardiothoracic surgeon. Things got more tricky when they found out that when I swallow, it is the opposite as to how everyone else swallows. My father was a doctor and my mother was a nurse, and they recognized that I had a congenital condition. I’ ve always just lived with it. But then I found out before this surgery that the organs in my chest cavity were not where they are supposed to be.
“ They went up through my leg with a catheter to see if there was any blockage. Fortunately, there was no blockage.”
Several days later, Dr. J. C. MacHannaford performed Suzanne’ s open heart surgery.
“ According to the doctors, my surgery was quite involved,” she said.“ I don’ t know for certain how long it lasted but I think it was nine or 10 hours because of all the complications caused by the unusual alignment within my upper body.”
Suzanne spent a day in the ICU and then I went to a room before going home a week after the surgery. She said that so far, so good. The good times gal was back.
Suzanne met Al on a blind date after an LSU football game in 1960. They will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary this summer.
They have three children, four grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, with the latest being 17-month old great-granddaughter, Austin Rose.
24 GREENVILLE LIFE