Chris Deback holds up his heart pillow, showing where his heart was operated on during his open-heart surgery in January. DeBack was born with Shones Syndrome, a rare congenital heart disease consisting of multiple left heart obstructive defects. (Megan Molseed photo)
On the road to recovery, DeBack's open-heart valve surgery goes well
By Megan Molseed
mmolseed@thefayettecountyunion.com
“The support and well wishes from the community have been amazing,” smiled Chris DeBack of the many messages he received before, during, and after his January open-heart surgery.
“All of the thoughts and prayers made the healing go quicker,” continued the West Union man. “I could really feel the support.”
DeBack was diagnosed with Shone’s Syndrome, a rare congenital heart disease, shortly after birth.
With this syndrome, the patient experiences a variety of left-sided heart obstructions and lesions.
“There is the coarctation of the aorta, where a portion of the artery is narrow,” explained DeBack. “My mitrovalve just didn’t open very well.”
At six-weeks old, the New York State native had his first open-heart operation to repair the coarctation.
“There was a fifty-fifty chance that this surgery would last my lifetime,” said DeBack. “It was also just as likely that it would, overtime, become narrow again.”
Over the years, DeBack had multiple small surgeries to help with the symptoms including a stent put in his aorta
when he was 16.
“I met with a cardiologist once a year to monitor everything,” he explained.
“The surgery I had when I was 6 weeks old was to correct the coarctation, but I still had a bicuspid aortic valve and mitral valve stenosis. A ballooning surgery helped by temporarily widening the narrow portion of my aorta after it recoarced,” said DeBack, noting that this portion of Shone’s Syndrome didn’t create too big of a deal if monitored regularly.
“When I was that little, it really didn’t create any problems,” he explained. “As I got older, though, it became something I did have to watch.”