Born with a Broken Heart
On September 10, 1983, six weeks before she was due to arrive, a baby girl was born in Newellton, Louisiana. This baby was different. The six-pound infant was born with a broken heart. Though her heart would not stay broken, it would take four agonizing weeks of enduring sickness for her young parents to decide to take her to West Monroe, Louisiana, for further testing.
It was there that a pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Terry King, discovered Vonnie was born with a boot-shaped heart. Along with the initial diagnosis, he found she had a murmur and Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), which is a combination of four heart defects present at birth that affect infants and children. The defects occur together and change the way blood flows through the heart and lungs. TOF occurs in about one out of every 2,518 babies born in the United States each year. The doctors also discovered Vonnie to have pulmonary valve stenosis. This is a narrowing of the valve between the lower right heart chamber and the lung arteries, which can cause the heart valve flaps to become thick or stiff and reduce blood flow through the valve.
“I had my first heart surgery to temporarily repair the holes that were in my heart. However, the pediatric cardiologists were unable to do the balloon surgery necessary for repairing my pulmonary stenosis when I was nine because my veins were too tiny to get through. I eventually had the surgery I needed at Ochsner Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, when I was 11. From then on, I had six-month follow-ups and eventually annual follow-ups,” said Vonnie.
A vivacious child, Vonnie was no different from most little girls growing up in the late 80s and early 90s. She loved caring for her baby dolls and being outside in her imaginary playground, where she built houses of pine straw and created new worlds with her sisters and neighbors. “I was a very sensitive kid, but always had a love for people and never let my heart stop me,” she said. Growing up, she found her way to the stage, where she enjoyed singing for her church and school. “I was fortunate enough to be asked to be a part of the Louisiana Allstate Choir,” she said, “and that is an experience I will never forget.”
In 2005, Vonnie moved to West Monroe, Louisiana, for college, where she joined the youth staff at The Pentecostals of West Monroe church, where Seth Hale also attended on Wednesday nights. His cousin, Shay, was determined to set up the pair and slipped Vonnie’s phone number to Seth. “He called me later and asked me out for the following Tuesday,” recalled Vonnie. They didn’t realize it at the time, but their first date was providentially set for Valentine’s Day. “I got super nervous, not knowing what the expectation was for a first date on Valentine’s Day,” she said. However, they more than survived those first-date jitters and quickly knew they were destined to be together.
At the start of college, Seth planned to follow in the footsteps of his “Uncle Doc” and become a chiropractor. “Uncle Doc offered to pay my way through college and give me his very lucrative chiropractor practice,” said Seth. It wasn’t until a professor challenged that thought. “You could be a chiropractor, but I think you could do more,” he said. With those crucial words, Seth shifted his thinking and made his way to medical school.
After deciding to become a doctor, choosing a specialty is rarely straightforward. Seth compares the intense challenge of trying to get your bearings in the first year of medical school to drinking from a fire hydrant through a straw. In his second year of medical school, he was in a cardiology module, learning about the heart and cardiovascular system. Bringing school home, he practiced what he was learning by listening to Vonnie’s heart. “I felt a whirlwind of emotion hearing the murmur, and it spurred me to speak to the dean of my college about what I heard,” explained Seth. The dean of his medical school set Vonnie up with the head of cardiology the next day. Upon further review, the echocardiogram, a noninvasive procedure that uses sound waves to create images of the heart and blood vessels, revealed severe aortic insufficiency. It was decided Vonnie would need a transesophageal echo to get a better look.
“Fortunately, being at a medical school with a loved one who is sick affords you great access to world class doctors quickly, and when Vonnie became short of breath, I knew it was time to take her to the hospital,” said Seth. At the time, the Hales happened to be in San Antonio, and found Dr. John Calhoun, acclaimed as the best cardiothoracic surgeon in the world. “He was awesome, and I know he saved my wife’s life through the surgeries he performed,” said Seth.
Vonnie’s first open heart surgery came in September 2010, when Dr. Calhoun performed the Bentall procedure on Vonnie. The Bentall procedure is a cardiac surgery that treats aortic conditions by replacing the aortic valve and ascending aorta with a synthetic graft and prosthetic valve. It’s considered the gold standard for aortic root replacement. It was then Vonnie’s heart valve was replaced with the heart valve of a pig.
“I had not considered cardiology until I watched Vonnie come out of surgery and into the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). She was in the ICU for three days and intubated for one. I remember sitting there thinking how barbaric this entire process had been and thinking there must be a better way,” recalled Seth. So, while sitting in Vonnie’s hospital room, Seth pored over medical journals.
“One of the ways I deal with the fear of the unknown, basically my mental defense mechanism, is learning everything I can and overcoming it with knowledge,” he said. That’s where he first read about replacing heart valves through the leg using a procedure called transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), which is a minimally invasive procedure that replaces a diseased aortic valve with a man-made valve. “I realized, in an altruistic light, that there was a different way to replace aortic valves… less invasive ways. That’s when I was certain of what I wanted to do. This is the future,” recalled Seth.
So, when Seth moved on to The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for his Internal Medicine Residency, his focus was clear. Subsequently, in every rotation, be it pediatrics or obstetrics, he was encouraged to keep an open mind and consider other specializations. But there was never any further doubt in his mind. “When I’m driven to do something, just like that professor who motivated me to consider something more, I knew I would stop at nothing to do it.”
Another motivating factor for Seth choosing cardiology was knowing Vonnie would have to have surgery again. The best way he could think of to care for his wife was to be prepared and know exactly what to do when the time came. “If anything ever happened to her, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself,” he said. “I couldn’t stand thinking there was some way I could’ve done it better…. I just didn’t want to be in a conundrum of not knowing which way to go.”
Vonnie recalls the moment from early Fall 2023 when she was pulling out her fall decorations. “My Apple watch was alerting me that my heart rate was jumping up to 150+ (beats per minute) for no reason. I love to decorate, but after each crate, I would have to stop and catch my breath. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was actually deteriorating right there,” she said.
Seth remembers it like it was yesterday. Vonnie called and explained she was short of breath and described the precordial thrill or a buzzing sensation in her heart. “It felt like a cell phone vibrating in my pocket, except it was in my chest,” described Vonnie. That’s when he told her, “It’s time.”
At the hospital, her blood pressure frightened the nurses, being 80/30, and Seth was ready to speak up on Vonnie’s behalf, knowing the only thing that could help at this point was surgery. “It felt pretty cool to be able to advocate for my wife in this way,” he said. But no matter how well acquainted you are with a topic, nothing can fully prepare you when it comes to the health of someone you love. “When you are a cardiologist, and your wife is the patient going through it, being scared is still being scared. There’s nothing different about that,” he explained.
Finally, on September 25, 2023, at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, the time had come to face their fears and move forward with surgery. “After I experienced rapid decompensation with new onset heart failure,” explained Vonnie, “I was directly admitted to the Congenital Cardiology service at UT Southwestern Medical Center under Dr. Beth Brickner. After seven days on her service trying to improve my pre-surgical state, I underwent a very complicated surgery to fix my aortic aneurysm, replace my aortic valve, and fix my leaking pulmonary valve. This required a team of four specialized cardiothoracic surgeons led by Dr. Michael Jessen. Though “Seth did not do (the surgery), he was there every second until I went under, and he was there after,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been blessed enough to be in a position to care for her and also blessed to be her husband, and it has been the greatest honor of my life, short of being a father,” said Seth. “Every day I have with her is a gift. I try my best not to ever take her for granted because there have been two real times when I thought I was going to lose her. It definitely turned our relationship into something that is hard to explain… Luckily for me, I married the woman of my dreams, and it has been a blessing ever since.”
“I am human, so of course, there are dark, scary times,” said Vonnie. “There was a time right before my surgery that it really hit me that there was a huge possibility that I might not wake up… It felt like a darkness I couldn’t overcome. My faith and knowing that I was surrounded by friends and family who were continually praying and thinking of me really meant a lot, and I believe that delivered me from the darkness.”
On a daily and weekly basis, Vonnie remains on blood thinners, so there is the realization that there are many things she won’t do again. “I’m happy to adjust my lifestyle based on my medication and needs,” she said. “Now, knowing how close I was to death, the statement that rings most true for me is… ‘I’m just happy to be here,’” she said.
Vonnie is a person you would describe as a walking ray of sunshine, typically dressed in a colorful outfit, greeting people with a sugary sweet smile and a bubbly “hello.” “If there’s one thing I could leave to this world when it is my time—hopefully many, many years from now—is that I always spread happiness and radiate joy.”
