GLMS EVENTS
A BLESSING IN DISGUISE Kathryn Vance
On Feb . 8 , 2022 , the Cato Seniors Group held their February meeting . Dr . Charles Oberst , Chair of the Cato committee , welcomed speaker Regan Judd , a Louisville native , Assumption High School and University of Kentucky graduate and former member of the UK dance team .
Regan was born with what was thought to be a heart murmur . At the age of 3 , she put on her dancing shoes and soon started dancing competitively . She was unstoppable ; dance became her life . She joined the Assumption dance team , where training was intense - sometimes dancing until 9:00 p . m . on school nights and twice a day on the weekends during competition season . After being admitted to UK for undergrad , her next dream came true when she made their dance team . “ Dance was my life , but dance also saved my life .”
In 2009 heading into her junior year of college , their football team was doing great , and John Calipari had just made it to town . Big things were happening in Lexington . At a practice that summer , she noticed she was more tired than normal and had chest pain and shortness of breath . She felt like things were moving in slow motion . Nevertheless , she powered on .
She called her mom that night to tell her that it felt like a brick was on her chest and her mother encouraged her to go to the ER . In true 19-year-old fashion , Regan didn ’ t listen to her mom ’ s advice ; she thought it wasn ’ t an emergency . Morning came and she wasn ’ t feeling any better , so she took her parent ’ s advice and headed in .
The doctor told her that her chest walls were inflamed and mentioned her heart murmur . She told the physician it was nothing to worry about , but he wanted her to get it checked out properly . Within a few days , she had an appointment at the Gill Heart & Vascular Institute . The appointment started with just one person in the room , then another , then the Chief of Cardiology . After finishing her echo , her cardiologist came back and told her there was good news and bad news . The good news was that it could be fixed , but the bad news was that there was no medication to fix it - open heart surgery was the only solution .
She was diagnosed with Ebstein anomaly , a rare , congenital heart defect . In this condition , the tricuspid valve is in the wrong position and the leaflets are malformed ; as a result , the valve does not work properly . About 1 in 20,000 infants are born with Ebstein anomaly and it accounts for less than 1 % of congenital heart defects .
The surgery lasted about six hours ; her condition was a lot more severe than they had originally thought and they said she was living on borrowed time . Recovering from open heart surgery , Regan had to withdraw from all classes at UK and was limited physically - she wasn ’ t able to go up a flight of stairs , much less be on the dance team . She felt alone and like she had no one to share the experience with . “ I couldn ’ t really talk to my friends because the thought of heart disease was foreign to them . It was an abstract idea at our age . After all , heart disease only impacted older people , right ?”
After seven days of recovery in the hospital , she was able to go home . The weeks and months after the surgery were tough mentally and emotionally . “ The surgery was the easy part .” She lost all independence and felt defeated . While she saw her friends having the time of their lives at college , she was stuck at home . After starting rehab , her doctors told her they thought she would be a great spokeswoman for the American Heart Association .
She started with smaller speaking engagements and next thing she knew , she was chosen to become a national spokeswoman for the Go Red for Women campaign . She was featured on ESPNU , Woman ’ s Day magazine , Huffington Post , even going to the state and U . S . Capitols . “ What I once thought was a horrible event in my life started to become an ongoing journey . It started to become a passion . I wanted to tell everyone that heart disease does not discriminate .”
She became such a strong advocate that she soon became employed by the American Heart Association . She was with them for about three years and in her final year , she was the senior lead on their largest fundraising campaign , the Heart Walk . She led the team in raising a record-breaking $ 1.1 million to help fund cardiovascular and stroke research in the Kentuckiana area .
She then landed a position with Medtronic , the world ’ s largest medical device company , and the manufacturer of the device currently in her own tricuspid valve . She now serves as a Sales Representative in their Cardiac Monitoring and Diagnostic Division . She was recently able to serve on a case with the physician who performed her surgery 12 years ago .
“ The journey continues . If you told me 12 years ago that that one event would transpire to what it is today , I would not believe you . I truly am able to look back and say that it was a blessing in disguise .”
Kathryn Vance is the Communication Specialist at the Greater Louisville Medical Society .
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