Katherine needed open heart surgery at the height of the covid-19 pandemic. Before the surgery she’d been unable to walk for more than 10 minutes. But after recovering she was inspired to take on a mammoth 5,000-mile cycling challenge in Scotland and where the team only had five days to complete it.
“I felt like it was a
bombshell diagnosis”
Katherine McIsaac, based in Kirkbean, Scotland, learned about her heart valve issue in 2015. She’d been down with the flu for a few months, and finally saw a cardiologist who diagnosed her with a heart valve issue.
“I felt like it was a bombshell diagnosis as I knew nothing about it at all,” Katherine says.
The condition had caused aortic stenosis, which is when the valve becomes stiff, obstructing the flow of blood, but at that point it was still mild, and Katherine was asked to come back once a year for check-ups.
By September 2019, her aortic stenosis had progressed to a severe state, but when the pandemic hit a few months later, all her check-ups got cancelled.
It was during this time Katherine finally started experiencing symptoms, and she had no doubts as to what was causing them.
“I was very fatigued, short of breath and dizzy. I could only take my dogs out for 10-minute walks and then I’d have to sleep,” she says.
“I could only take my
dogs out for 10-minute
walks and then I’d
have to sleep.”
It was time for an intervention to get her faulty heart valve replaced. Later in November 2020, Katherine was called in for a pre-op assessment at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Glasgow. The surgery was finally going ahead, but a few days later she was devastated to learn that her father passed away.
“All cardiac care was cancelled at my local hospital.”
“My surgeon, the wonderful Prof Nawwar Al-Attar, called me to say he would delay my surgery until after my father’s funeral and after I’d had time to grieve for a month or so.
“It was a shock when Scotland then went into another lockdown. Again, all cardiac care was cancelled at my local hospital. Prof Al Attar had requested a scan of my aorta, but nothing was being done. It was a frightening time,” Katherine explains.
In January 2021, Katherine describes how she was working from home when her whole chest filled with pain.
“It was pain like I’d never had before. I dialled 999, the ambulance arrived, and the paramedics couldn’t rule out a heart attack, so I was blue lighted to hospital,” she recalls.
“It was pain like
I’d never had before.”
“I took off my
wedding ring and
gave it to him.”
A week later, Katherine finally got booked in for open heart surgery to get her valve replaced. Because of covid restrictions, her husband couldn’t come with her into the hospital.
“He just had to drop me at the door and say goodbye. It was awful, truly awful. I took off my wedding ring and gave it to him, not knowing if I’d ever see him again. Just hoping it would be all right,” Katherine says.
Throughout the surgery, the nurses kept in touch with her husband. Katherine did really well, and the surgery was a success.
“It’s true that you feel like you’ve been run over by a train, but I felt so lucky and relieved to be through it,” she says.
“You feel like you’ve
been run over
by a train.”
Inspired by her experience and only a year later, in May 2022, Katherine took part in a cycling challenge in Scotland, raising money for Heart Research UK.
For the challenge her team each cycled a staggering 20 miles a day for five days. After she completed the 5,000-mile challenge she wanted to share the good news with her heart surgeon, and sent him this:
“Using my total minutes cycled over the five days, multiplied by my average heart rate while cycling, my new valve ticked 69,174 times! Isn’t that amazing! I will never be able to thank you enough for fixing me.”
