A heart of gold

It’s been nearly a year since Anne-Marie Torp woke up Thanksgiving morning with the right side of her body numb – she had suffered a stroke.

And what a year it has been since then.

Between a stroke, open-heart surgery and a collapsed lung, 21-year-old Torp has been working hard to come back out on the court again.

“Everyone is asking me, ‘I can’t believe you’re still trying to do this,'” Torp, a member of the USU women’s basketball team, said. “It’s not even a question to me. It’s just something that I’ve always loved and done. It’s just kind of what kept me going. Instead of sitting on the couch all day, [I tell myself,] ‘well, I better go to the gym and walk on the treadmill or something.'”

After her stroke, Torp found out she had a heart condition called patent foramen ovale – a hole in her heart. She underwent surgery that put a device in her heart that closed the hole.

She spent the next semester working on her schoolwork and trying to get back in shape for basketball.

“[My coaches] told me that I always had this spot here,” she said. “I always knew that I could come back. And they always told me that if I can’t ever play again, they would find a place for me.

“But it really wasn’t an option for me.”

Because the device wasn’t working out for Torp, she had to have open-heart surgery in May.

She said for about six weeks while she was recovering, the couch was her best friend. There wasn’t much she could do.

“It was a lot tougher than I thought it would be coming back,” she said. “It knocked a lot out of me, the surgery and everything.”

She was on the mend and starting to play basketball again near the end of June when her lung collapsed. She spent another week in the hospital with a tube in her chest.

Then it was back to the couch.

“After that point, I had to start all over again,” Torp said. “I started working out after the six-week mark, working on the treadmill and doing little things. But I had to take another step back.”

She said last season it was hard for her to sit on the bench and watch her teammates play. It was hard not to be involved, she said, especially when the Aggies lost.

But she did make it back – all the way.

Thursday night, Torp was able to play three minutes in Utah State’s exhibition basketball game against the Utah Pride.

“I really wasn’t expecting much when I got out there. I knew I wasn’t going to play much,” she said. “It wasn’t until I got on the floor – the lights just seem to be brighter during a game or something. It’s an awesome adrenaline feeling.

“It just reminds me of why I’ve been working myself so hard.”

Torp said one thing that has come out of her surgery and struggles over the past year is that people are calling here now that have PFO and are asking for her advice.

She said she tells them to make sure they do their research and know what they are getting into.

“My problem was, when you get put in that situation after a stroke and everything, you just kind of jump into anything,” Torp said. “After talking to people, I think I’m more apt to say, ‘make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into. Don’t take the easy way out with the device.'”

The heart surgery was something she is glad she went through. She said she knows it’s the true way to make sure everything is OK and that there is nothing foreign in her body.

In the future, Torp said she doesn’t forsee any other complications.

“The doctor said my heart is as good as new. I think I’ve taken care of my heart problems for the next 40 years,” she said.

-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu