It was ten years ago that I first discovered I had an aortic aneurysm. My GP sent me for a scan to investigate if my back pain was possibly a clot on my lung. It ended up being a muscular injury from my work in childcare, but because of her diligence, I discovered my aneurysm. So started my journey that felt like travelling down a stream towards a waterfall. It began with worry, then, over time, it became something I learned to live with, the fact that there was an inevitable conclusion, my waterfall was to be open heart surgery.

My GP referred me to what she described as a ‘highly recommended’ cardiologist, Prof Richmond Jeremy at the Sydney Heart Centre in RPA, and she was certainly correct with that appraisal. From that moment, life changed. After the initial shock and having to confront this reality, I then had to give up my work in childcare (due to the limits on my lifting capacity). More worrying still, I had to ask my three children to have scans, to ensure that they did not have my bicuspid aortic valve and aneurysm.

The diagnosis sat quietly in the background of my life and everyday routines. However, as the years went by it simply became an annual checkup that was the reminder that one day the waterfall would come. Living with that knowledge meant learning to manage uncertainty while placing your trust in the team watching, measuring and guiding each next step.

Through that journey, you bond with your clinical and surgical teams. It is hard to describe to anyone who has not lived it. Possibly like Stockholm syndrome, in the gentlest sense: you become connected to the very system you fear, because it is also the system keeping you safe. Each scan, appointment and conversation becomes part of a relationship built on trust.

Then I heard the words I had been fearing, the sound of the waterfall up close: “I recommend that you now see a surgeon.”

Suddenly, the journey my family and I had been on began to quicken. What had once felt distant became immediate.

We met Prof Paul Bannon, our surgeon, and his very professional office team to begin the preparation for surgery. Decisions had to be made on dates and valve options, conversations became more serious, and the reality of surgery moved to the centre of daily life. You cannot truly prepare for open heart surgery. You can only try to be as fit and healthy as possible to aid your recovery and hold on to the power you do have: choosing the best surgical team and asking every question you can to ease your fears and worries.

I went searching online for information on the surgery and joined an aortic support group. On reflection, I should have limited this and spoken more to my surgical team. The stories that you find online raise your fears without knowing the full details and circumstances behind these cases.

All discussions I had with Paul Bannnon put me at ease and made me feel reassured. Advances in surgery offer your best chance of coming through safely. Those advances are made possible by research, training and innovation – the work that Paul Bannon and the Baird Institute commit to every year.

There is no simple way to face open heart surgery. There is fear, love, gratitude and the strange courage that comes from having no choice but to move forward. Families carry the journey too, waiting through appointments, absorbing information and finding strength for one another.