Hey, babe. 

Yes, babe. 2000-- 

12. 

12. Yeah, OK. I have a condition called MVP. The blood, as it's flowing into the heart, it actually goes back out. At that time, I was active. I was consistently at the gym, playing racquetball, trail running. That was just how I exercised. I began to notice that my conditions began to change. Exercising was harder. 

As a wife, I wanted to do whatever I could to help him get this fixed. I needed my husband back. I needed their father back. 

I was at the office one day, and I kind of ran up the stairs as I always did. And when I got to the top, I was pretty winded. And I was like, whoa. And I kind of caught my breath. 

I was just exhausted in the evenings. And yeah, there was a change happening. I thought I was sick, had a cold, the flu, something like that. So I did what anyone would do, go to the doctor, right? 

When we found out that it was worse, I had a brand-new baby. He'd gotten to where he couldn't help me with the children. He couldn't really pick them up without getting tired. And he couldn't bathe them anymore. 

So clearly, we knew here at home that something was wrong. And we're so close to UVA that it was such a natural next step. So we made an appointment. And as soon as we could, we got up there. And so happy that we met Dr. Ailawadi our first time in the door. 

At UVA, we offer essentially every approach and treatment to valve disease, ranging from major open surgery and redo surgery to minimally invasive surgery. 

God had put us in a right place at the right time. And he was the only guy in their team of surgeons who did this one procedure, out of 8 or 10 heart guys. So it was a less invasive procedure, where they don't have to do open heart surgery. 

For Eric, this was the best option for a number of reasons. He's young and very healthy, had a very vibrant life, wanted to get back to work, and has small children and wanted to be able to pick them up as quickly as possible. Because of those things, we felt like this approach would be a big benefit for someone like Eric. 

For our marriage, a big way this has impacted it is just being able to be there for each other, conversations and-- I didn't know I was going to get so emotional. 

Are you OK? 

Yeah. 

I'm just grateful for the learning experience and getting to see the man that I married go through something like this. I'm really happy that we have him back. 

I've got a lot of life left to live. And I think I really owe that to the team who did the surgery.