At 41, David Pinto saw a doctor for the first time in a dozen years. Before then, the high school health and PE teacher and coach from Paterson, New Jersey, hadn't felt like he needed to. After all, he was a lifelong athlete who lifted weights and rarely felt sick.
When he did, he took cold medicine or maybe a day off work, and mostly just "dealt with it." But this time, a winter cold had settled in Pinto's chest, leaving him with a "horrendous" cough and trouble breathing. Even getting out of bed felt like too much.
So finally, at his wife's urging, Pinto visited an internist. The doctor listened to his chest and ordered an X-ray, which confirmed pneumonia. But what the doctor said next – "Have you ever had any issues with your heart?" – really made Pinto's breath catch.
In addition to the lung infection, the doctor told Pinto he had a heart murmur that needed checking as soon as possible. After his lungs cleared, Pinto saw a cardiologist. An ultrasound and CT scan revealed a congenital heart defect known as a bicuspid aortic valve.
Rather than the usual three flaps opening and closing across the valve of the main artery, Pinto's heart had only two; this restricted blood flow to the body and created the murmur. Worse yet, it had caused an aortic aneurysm, a weak spot where the wall of his heart's main artery bulged. A rupture would be life-threatening.
Pinto was stunned. During all his preseason athletic physicals as a child and teenager, no one had ever mentioned a hear.