Imagine having a life-threatening emergency happen to you while you’re in another state, far from your family. This was the reality for my dad, Mathew, and nobody had expected it.
In 2020, while working in Wickenburg, Arizona, Mathew Valeska was away from his family, who were in Kansas. While at the laundromat, he began feeling unwell. “I started sweating profusely, and my heart started beating super fast,” he described it. He called my mom, Vada Valeska, who advised him to put his head under cold water in the bathroom. He did as she suggested, but it didn’t help. So, he left the laundromat and drove himself to the emergency room.
At the hospital, he underwent a CT scan and was told he had an aortic aneurysm. He would need to be transported to a larger hospital for further care. Two helicopter pilots soon arrived to life-flight him from Wickenburg to Phoenix, where he would undergo surgery.
When my mom explained what happened, she said, “He had an aortic aneurysm that ruptured, causing his aorta to detach and his aortic valve to need replacing.” Before this, my dad had no symptoms and no family history of similar issues.
When the doctors put him under with anesthesia, he drifted off immediately. “The next thing I know, I’m in a room, surrounded by light, and then they put the mask on me,” he recalled. “They told me to count down, but I don’t even remember doing that. I was out.” When he woke up, he still didn’t know exactly what they had done. “They just told me there was a problem with an artery or something. My whole chest hurt, and I looked down and saw tape on my chest.” He spent three to four days in the ICU, followed by two days in a regular cardiac room. Finally, he was discharged to go home, where he had to walk daily as part of his recovery.
My dad said, “What I was told is that one out of ten people make it to the hospital after something like this happens, and one out of ten people survive the surgery. I made it.” According to Wikipedia, “Up to 81% of people with a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm will die, with 32% dying before reaching a hospital.”
Today, my dad is expected to live a normal life, as long as he continues taking blood pressure medication, follows weight restrictions, and undergoes CT scans yearly and EKGs every three months to be monitored by his doctor.
This experience had a huge impact on our family. My mom had to travel to Arizona to be with my dad, while my grandparents watched my little brothers and me. My dad used to travel often for work, but after we moved here, he was home every day, and we didn’t have to worry about him as much.
