This article appeared in the September/October 2021 issue of Discover magazine as "Heart Ache." Become a subscriber for unlimited access to the archive.
Chloe looked miserable. She was curled up on the hospital bed, sweaty and shaking, wracked with waves of nausea, her heart racing. I gave her a cool washcloth and a basin as the nurse started her IV. I had cared for her before; though only 16, she’d been in the hospital a dozen times already.
“I think it may be another heart valve infection,” I told her. She nodded, familiar with the diagnosis, and the treatment that followed. She was at particular risk for a type of infection called endocarditis, where bacteria invade and infect the valves of the heart.
Chloe was born with an aortic valve that had only two parts, instead of its normal three, and was unusually small and stiff. As she grew older, ...
