To its expansive campus Mayo is adding a building devoted to Wellness, where you can go to be told what you already know: eat less, eat better, get regular exercise. But Dr. Will and Dr. Charley weren’t wellness people; they were surgeons and their Clinic pioneered great advances in surgery, which is what brought me here years ago.
I was out of breath, even standing still, and a doctor heard it, listening to me on the radio, and sent me here, and a couple days later I was wheeled into an OR where five intensely serious people in scrubs stood around the table, focused on the job at hand, and Dr. Orszulak sewed up my mitral valve, and ten years later Dr. Dearani replaced it with one from a pig, and so I was given some bonus years beyond what my relatives got who were born with the same heart defect I have. I think of this every single day. When your life is saved you feel an obligation to do something worthwhile with the gift. And so I try.
