As a hematologist and oncologist, Dr. Christopher Benton, MD specializes in leukemia and uses personalized medicine to treat each unique cancer. The way he sees it, it’s important to come up with a treatment plan specific to each individual patient; there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s a perspective that has served him well as a provider, but it’s one he never expected to have to use for his own well-being.
Dr. Benton was in medical school when he discovered he had a bicuspid aortic valve, which is a congenital heart defect. The aortic valve is a critical, one-way gate to the heart and ensures that oxygen-rich blood flows through the body while preventing backward flow (referred to as regurgitation). A normal aortic valve has three flaps, or cusps. These flaps open and close to control blood flow. A bicuspid aortic valve, like Dr. Benton’s, has only two flaps.
Related: 'I'm a Cardiologist—This Is the Sleep Position That's Hardest On Your Heart'
For the most part, Dr. Benton’s heart defect didn’t impact him too much. But that changed when he was 50 and needed an urgent (and complicated) heart surgery. Parade talked to Dr. Benton about how he knew he needed heart surgery, and how he decided which doctor to trust with his life.
?SIGN UP for tips to stay healthy & fit with the top moves, clean eats, health trends & more delivered right to your inbox twice a week?
Dr. Chris Benton
Though Dr. Benton was born with a congenital heart defect, he didn’t know about it until 2003, when he was a medical student. He was doing an internal medicine rotation when medical students were offered to do a pulmonary function test, which is a noninvasive breathing test used to diagnose certain conditions such as lung disease. He volunteered, not thinking much of it.
“My pulmonary function tests weren’t great. In fact, they were bad in some ways,” Dr. Benton says, admitting that he was surprised. He was young, exercised regularly and ate a healthy diet. Confused, Dr. Benton brought his test results to his primary care doctor, who ordered an echocardiogram, which is a sonogram of the heart. He and the cardiologist could see from the echocardiogram that he had a bicuspid aortic valve, which is how he was diagnosed.
This specific type of heart defect is underdiagnosed. Dr. Benton says that between 1% and 2% of the U.S. population have it, and many people live their whole lives without even knowing they have it.
Related: 'I'm a Cardiologist—Here's How Many Weeks You Need To Walk for To See a Difference In Heart Health'
While Dr. Benton didn’t notice any obvious symptoms that prompted him to go to the doctor, looking back, he says that he has always had less endurance than most other people his age. “In second grade, my mile time was one of the worst ones,” he says. Now, he knew why.
Since Dr. Benton was generally in good health, his doctors said that his heart defect should be monitored through yearly echocardiograms, but nothing else needed to be done—at least for the time being. So, for 20 years, Dr. Benton diligently got an annual echo.
In 2018, his cardiologist noticed a problem. Dr. Benton was experiencing regurgitation, which is backward blood flow. Instead of flowing forward to the body and lungs, blood was leaking backward, which was causing the heart to work harder. While it wasn’t a pressing issue yet, Dr. Benton’s doctor told him he would need surgery in the future. “I figured it would be when I was in my 60s, 70s or 80s,” Dr. Benton says. But that isn’t what ended up happening.
Related: The Heart-Healthy Habit Cardiologists Say People Quit Way Too Soon
Deciding Who To Trust With His Life
It was the fall of 2025 when Dr. Benton first started noticing heart palpitations. “I first noticed it after I did a yoga sculpt workout,” he says. Instead of brushing it off, he decided to see his cardiologist and get another echocardiogram, even though he’d been getting them every year.
The echo showed that the regurgitation had gotten worse. To allow his doctor to get a better look at his heart, Dr. Benton underwent a transesophageal echo, which is when a flexible probe is put down the esophagus. Since the esophagus is directly behind the heart, this provides a clearer image of the heart than an echocardiogram. The transesophageal echo showed that Dr. Benton had ruptured his mitral valve.
This meant that he now had an issue with two of his valves. “My doctor told me I would need surgery within the next couple of months,” Dr. Benton says. If he didn’t get it, he would die.
Repairing two of his valves would be a major operation—and a pretty complicated one too. Dr. Benton literally had to put his life in someone’s hands. Who would he trust? He spent a few weeks meeting with three different cardiologists, who all had different approaches. Ultimately, Dr. Benton decided to work with Dr. Lars Svensson, MD, PhD, a cardiac surgeon at Cleveland Clinic.
Only Dr. Lars Svensson felt confident the valves could be repaired, rather than replaced with mechanical or biological (animal or human tissue) valves. He also believed the aortic root could be repaired instead of replaced with a synthetic graft.
Dr. Svensson explained to Dr. Benton and his wife, Florencia, that he planned to use the less invasive J incision approach rather than conventional open-heart surgery. This technique reduces pain and accelerates recovery. Pioneered at Cleveland Clinic, it has been further refined by Dr. Svensson for complex heart repair.
Dr. Benton had the surgery on December 8, 2025. Recovery has been bumpy. Two weeks after his surgery, Dr. Benton experienced atrial fibrillation, which is when the heart’s upper chambers beat irregularly, failing to coordinate with the lower chambers. It’s common for this to happen after a heart surgery like Dr. Benton’s, but it required him to be hospitalized for 36 hours. Fortunately, his heart reverted to regular heartbeats after Dr. Benton was given medication. Otherwise, his heart would have had to be shocked back to a normal rhythm.
For his recovery plan, Dr. Benton has to complete 36 sessions of cardiac rehab; three sessions a week for three months. Currently, he’s done 30 of them, which means he’s almost at the end of his heart surgery journey. “It’s been really helpful in terms of seeing how hard I can safely push myself,” he says. Dr. Benton is already back to coaching his son’s baseball team and back at work. Soon, all his follow-up care will require is staying on top of his yearly echos, just like before.
Dr. Benton is married and has five kids, and he credits his family and faith for getting him through his challenging health journey. “Having a support network is a critical part of recovery,” he says. He tells Parade that his experience has made him a more compassionate doctor too. “I know what it’s like to be on the other side of things a little more,” he shares.
His experience shows the importance of listening to your body (he took his post-workout heart palpitations seriously) and going the extra step of researching the best healthcare providers you can trust with your health. Both cases require listening to your gut—or in Dr. Benton’s case, heart.
Up Next:
Related: ‘I’m a Cardiologist—This Is the First Thing I Always Look at in a Patient’s Lab Results'
Sources:
Bicuspid Aortic Valve. Cleveland Clinic.Aortic Valve. Cleveland Clinic.Problem: Heart Valve Regurgitation. American Heart Association.Transesophageal Echocardiogram. Johns Hopkins Medicine.Mitral Valve. Cleveland Clinic.About Atrial Fibrillation. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Hence then, the article about i thought i was perfectly healthy then i needed emergency heart surgery at 50 was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( 'I Thought I Was Perfectly Healthy—Then I Needed Emergency Heart Surgery at 50' )
Also on site :
- Ukraine-Russia war latest: Xi reportedly told Trump that Putin might ‘regret’ invading Ukraine
- Clarivate Selected By Czech National Library of Technology to Develop Unified National Library Platform
- Jell-O Just Introduced a Modern New Dessert Line—and It’s Here To Stay