Into the heart, a medical odyssey

Little Pamela Schmidt with her parents, Ronald and Mary

Chapter 6:
The King of Hearts

Baby Pamela Schmidt's hold on life was so tenuous that one of her doctors once suggested her parents waste no time in having another child. But, somehow, Pamela survived. She was 4 1/2 when she arrived at Minneapolis's Variety Club Heart Hospital, on April 3, 1954, for her latest evaluation.

The Schmidts knew about little Gregory Glidden, whose room was near Pamela's. And they soon heard about Dr. Lillehei, the surgeon who had fixed the hole between the lower chambers of Gregory's heart. Pamela had the same defect: a ventricular septal defect (VSD).

Gregory's death, three days later, seemed like one more cruel stroke to the Schmidts.

And yet, Walt Lillehei was curiously encouraging when he talked to them after Gregory had gone home in a hearse. Surgery hadn't killed the boy, Lillehei said. He'd died of Pneumonia. Lillehei was so confident of his new method of open-heart surgery that he was ready to try again, and Pamela seemed a good candidate.

Lillehei described cross-circulation, in which a parent and a child were connected by tubing and a pump. During the surgery, blood was detoured around the child's heart and into the parent for reoxygenation — allowing the surgeon to work inside the child's heart. Lillehei explained the risks that existed for both patient and donor. And then he told Ronald and Mary Schmidt to go home and think it over. Pamela was sick, but not yet at death's door.

What a tempest of emotions! One minute, the Schmidts wanted to rush back and give Lillehei their permission... and the next, they thought of poor little Gregory, cold inside a coffin.

In the end, they decided they had no choice. With or without surgery, their little girl was sliding toward the grave.