Life-Saving Implants: One Woman’s Story of a “Misplaced Heart”
April Pinkard is not the typical candidate to receive breast implants. In fact, she probably has very little interest in such a procedure, but surgeons at the Mayo Clinic gave her implants for a very good reason. Ms. Pinkard’s harrowing story was told to a small Florida newspaper last August.
Because she was was born with a congenital lung disease, one of her lungs had to be removed at the age of four. She’s lived most of her life with an empty cavity in her chest where that lung had once been.
One day, a medical examination by Dr. Mohammed Choudhury revealed something disturbing. Mrs. Pinkard said, “he listened [for] my heartbeat one day and it just wasn’t there.” Upon closer examination, Dr. Choudhury revealed that her heart had been shifting, or “floating”; an unforeseen consequence of her childhood lung removal. The movement of the heart posed an imminent threat to her life. It also was making her very sick. Something had to be done, and right quick.
Textbook solutions to this problem don’t exist. Mrs. Pinkard is the first to suffer from such a complication. Her heart was literally mobile and the procedure to correct it would have to possess a certain improvisational character. She describes the risky procedure, saying, “they filled my chest cavity with water and floated it into the correct position.” To secure the heart in place, surgeons positioned breast implants inside her chest. Lightheartedly, Pinkard describes the feeling; “you can hear it move. If I push on my chest you can feel the squishes.”
While Mrs. Pinkard still faces some health related challenges, like a possible lung transplant, she’s a strong willed woman with an incredible attitude. She strongly asserts, “I don’t allow myself to dwell on pity. That’s not an acceptable emotion”
