Where It All Began

James Edward Murrell was born March 12, 1975. He was born with a rare heart condition called transposition of the great vessels. He also had two holes in his heart. The doctors performed open heart surgery on him when he was 6 months old and only weighed 9 lbs. His parents were told that his chances of survival were only 10%. Well, he survived. Dr. Pacifico later told us that he operated on 8 patients that day and Jim was the only one who made it through. Dr. Pacifico was the only one with the nerve to do this surgery on such a little baby. Jim has always beaten the odds. The doctors then told his parents that he would not make it to adulthood. Well, Jim thrived and grew and became like most little boys. He had to restrict his physical activity but other than that he was free to go and do.
   

Through the years, Jim accompanied by his parents would have checkups. All seemed great. He was doing wonderful. One of the original doctors from the surgery even called on his 18^th birthday to see if he was still alive. Of course, he was and he was doing great.

 

Well, then he met me shortly thereafter on May 15, 1994. He was 19 years old. He looked healthy and was working a full-time job. We fell in love quickly. It was meant to be. He only told me about his heart after I had already fallen for him. I thought nothing of it. Jim looked great and he did anything he wanted to. He was working for Legacy Cabinets.

 

Fast forward several years to 2006. Jim was the new full-time preacher for the Philadelphia church of Christ in Philadelphia, MS. By now we had Julianna who was four years old. She is a daddy’s girl in every since of the word. We also had a wonderful surprise, James Cameron who was almost 6 months old. In October, we were cleaning up the yard and preparing for a cook out. We were going to have the Tingles over (elder from church). Jim started looking funny. He became white as a ghost. I saw him but thought he would tell me if anything was going on. Then I saw him grab his neck. I asked him what was going on. He said that his heart was stopping. I immediately started to cry. We rushed to the local hospital and soon to UAB. He was right. He kept flat lining. He was so calm. He would be sitting there talking and then the machine would sound off that his heart wasn’t beating anymore. He would look over at it and then his heart would kick real hard and start beating again. He went through several tests and eventually we were sent home. The doctors stated that they wasn’t anything they could really do it was really just PVCs.

 

From then on, I started noticing little things which eventually became normal and then scary. He would turn grey, he would tire out easy, he would be dizzy, he had to take a lot of extra breaths…etc. I tried to get him to go to the doctor but he dismissed it time and time again. Then in Feb 2009 he told me that he wanted to go to the doctor. We had an appointment made in March with his doctor.

 

The following is email updates that I sent to our family and friends to let them know what was happening.