At 6, she was a pioneering heart patient. Nearly 7 decades later, she fully appreciates it.

从20世纪50年代他的女儿辛迪被诊断出患有心脏缺陷开始，直到半个多世纪后他去世的那一天, Kenneth Winn carried in his wallet a special piece of paper.

As the years passed, the paper grew tattered; the sketch on it, more faded. But he held on to what her cardiologist had drawn for him – a way to understand, 即使是最基本的, why his little girl's heart beat so quickly, why she sometimes turned blue, why even non-exertive playing wore her out.

为什么开创性的手术——全国第一个为她这个年龄的孩子做的手术之一——能挽救她的生命.

For the early part of her childhood, 辛迪·艾伦-斯塔基(Cindy Allen-Stuckey)在医院进进出出，医生试图找到她症状的原因. They ruled out pneumonia and cystic fibrosis. 最后, 她3岁的时候, doctors at a children's hospital in Indianapolis recognized her heart issues. The first was a heart murmur.

不久之后，她被诊断为房间隔缺损和肺静脉引流异常. Or, as her dad told her: "You have arteries on one side but none on the other, and a hole between the chambers."

然后，他向她展示了她的心脏病专家精心绘制的草图，以便她的父母能够理解他们的小女孩正在经历什么. Cindy had surgery when she was 6. 医生说，如果他们再等一段线上电子游戏飞禽走兽，她很可能在12岁时就卧床不起了.

手术进行得很顺利. 接下来的几个月甚至几年的记录(辛迪在几年前意外的心脏病发作后找到了这些记录)告诉我们，她没有任何症状，生长正常. But in the hospital immediately after surgery, recovery played out quite differently than it would have today.

In 2024, her parents would be able to stay with her. 1956年，探视线上电子游戏飞禽走兽限制为每周日1小时，每周三20分钟.

这对她来说很艰难. When she came home after nine days in the hospital, she didn't want to talk about that or anything else about the surgery.

“六年来，我一直和别人不一样，我不想再和别人不一样了,她说.

So, her parents didn't speak of it either. 在小学, 当健康课上提到循环系统，老师谈到心脏时，她畏缩了. She avoided the topic as best she could.

她长大了, married for the first time at age 19, 有了孩子, got her undergraduate and master's degrees, and taught first grade – not coincidentally, to children the same age she was when she had surgery.

她把手术的事告诉了第一任丈夫一次，但他们再也没谈过. 当她的儿子, 布兰登·艾伦, 出生, 她让医生检查了他可能患有的每一种心脏问题. (他没有.)

She's been married 36 years to her second husband, Tim Stuckey. "Somewhere along the way I told him I'd had heart surgery,她说, "and that was probably the whole conversation."

A few years ago, Cindy's heart began racing. Tim took her to her physician, who gave her the all-clear, which a precautionary electrocardiogram confirmed. 一个技术人员, seeking as much background information as possible on her heart, tracked down the notes from her surgery decades earlier.

辛迪自己的研究让她看到了一部纪录片，讲述了1944年在约翰霍普金斯大学对儿童进行的最早的心脏手术. 原来她的外科医生. 哈里斯B. Shumacker小., 1956年，在这位外科医生的指导下，她在莱利儿童医院进行了第一次心脏手术，也就是辛迪的心脏手术.

“这让我意识到这对我和莱利医院来说都是一件大事，”她说. "I truly feel like a walking miracle."

然后周围, 辛迪还学到了另一条重要的信息:手术后她感到被父母抛弃的那几次, 其中包括有一天他们根本没有出现——伴随她进入成年的空虚感——难道不是因为他们不在乎吗.

"I finally asked my mother why they weren't there," Cindy said. “她哭了起来，告诉我医生说她和爸爸离开的时候我很难过，所以他觉得他们最好不要来."

这是一个突破, 她和凯西·亚当斯分享了许多其他的想法和经历, 她1988年以来的朋友. They discovered that each had surgery as children in the mid-1950s; Adams' surgery was on her eye.

“我们讨论了‘受伤的治疗师’这个短语，用来描述那些经历了很多事情，现在觉得自己的使命是帮助别人的人,亚当斯说. “那是辛迪。. 她是一个受伤的治疗者. She helps others reach their highest potential."

辛迪写了一本书，内容包括她小时候的心脏挑战如何帮助塑造了她. 她也是一位励志演说家，讲述她所经历的一切如何帮助她成为今天的自己.

She ends her talks by asking audience members to reach under their seats.

"I've placed a sketch of my dad there,她说, "holding the piece of paper with my heart drawn on it."

发自内心的故事 记录心脏病和中风幸存者、护理人员和倡导者的鼓舞人心的旅程.