Marc Malkin: Зүрхний нээлттэй хагалгаа түүний амьдралыг хэрхэн аварсан тухай

I had just finished interviewing Ariana Grande on this year’s Oscars red carpet when someone from her team asked me, “Are you going to get away after all this, take a little vacation?”

I nodded my head and smiled.

The “all this” was awards season. In the past, I spent my post-Academy Awards days and nights getting much needed rest and relaxation after a seemingly endless cycle of red carpets, FYC panels and events and parties.

I did take time off again this year. But it wasn’t a vacation.

On March 19, I underwent open-heart surgery.

It all began three years ago when my brother, Kevin, my only sibling, died of a heart attack at age 54. He collapsed while shoveling snow for a neighbor. He was rushed to a hospital. He never woke up. It was during COVID, so my mother and I said goodbye to Kevin via a video call before he was taken off life support.

Until then I was seeing my cardiologist, Dr. Erika Jones at Cedars-Sinai, on a regular basis to treat and monitor high blood pressure and cholesterol (you know, the usual middle-age things). I called her after my brother’s death. She ordered an intensive workup of my heart, which included genetic testing and a lot of imaging.

The good news was the genetic tests came back negative, meaning I had no genetic mutation or abnormality.

The bad news? Doctors discovered I had an aortic root aneurysm.

An aneurysm causes the aortic wall — the aorta is the largest artery in the body — to weaken or bulge. A severe aortic dissection (also known as a tear) or rupture is often fatal. It’s what killed John Ritter and “Rent” writer and composer Jonathan Larson.

Jones referred me to cardiac surgeon Dr. Dominick Megna Jr. I learned the diameter of my aortic root was about 4.8 cm because of the aneurysm. A normal diameter is between 2.9 cm and 4.0 cm for men and 2.0 cm to 3.0 cm for women. Surgery is required at 5.0.

Megna suggested I consider having the David procedure, an open-heart surgery in which the aneurysm is cut out and the aortic root is reinforced with a synthetic graft. It was better to be preventative than risk an emergency situation.

When I tell people about the aneurysm, most ask if I had symptoms like chest pains, shortness of breath or decreased energy. The scary answer is I, like most people who develop an aneurysm, had no symptoms. Aneurysms are usually discovered through imaging or when someone suffers a dissection or rupture.

In January, the diameter of my aorta had reached 4.9 cm.

I was scared, but I was assured that not only is the operation lifesaving, but I would go on to live a normal and active life.

“You can powerlift if you want,” Megna said.

I have no intention of powerlifting, but that was nice to hear.

Megna also told me I didn’t need the surgery right away, that it was OK to wait until after the Oscars. I made it through awards season with no problems, although I was very mindful not to lift heavy things and I gave up any sort of exercise.

I checked into Cedars the morning of my surgery.

Before being rolled into the operating room, I asked Megna if he would say a prayer before opening me up. “Yes, I like to do that,” he said.

On the operating table — before the anesthesia kicked in — I looked up at the bright overhead lights. I began to repeat the serenity prayer in my head.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The hourslong procedure ended at about 8 p.m. I woke up the next morning in the ICU. A handful of friends were already there. These friends would be my support group and biggest cheerleaders throughout my hospital stay and weekslong recovery.

Just hours after the surgery, my ICU nurse had me out of bed and walking for a few minutes.

I was transferred to a room on the cardiac floor the following day. In my postop haze of painkillers and exhaustion, I began texting friends and Variety colleagues that a certain Oscar winner was in the room next to me. Later, I had to explain it wasn’t who I thought it was, that the drugs had gotten the best of me.

One night, I was convinced Tupac Shakur was sitting at the foot of my bed. Then there was the time that I woke up screaming, “Antoni! Antoni!” I was dreaming that “Queer Eye” star Antoni Porowski was teaching me how to make a frittata. I adamantly declared to my friend who was sitting bedside, “I don’t like frittatas,” before immediately falling back to sleep.

Celebrity-filled dreams — especially when under the influence — tend to happen after 30 years in entertainment journalism.

Over the next eight days in the hospital, it felt as if I’d never return to normal. One of my biggest fears going into the surgery was that it would make me weak, cause me to look old and frail.

It’s exactly how I felt as I lay in the hospital bed unable to do the most basic of things, like sit up on my own or pour a cup of water. I was on oxygen 24/7. I couldn’t walk or go to the bathroom on my own. Thank God for my nurses, who I now refer to as “angels walking among us.”

I worried that my life on camera could come to an end. I remembered the powers at be at E! News telling me when I was 47 that they preferred that I work behind the scenes as a producer. I ended up leaving E! News after 11 years because then, as now, I know I have a lot more to give. 

Even so, I wondered if people would look at me — especially the seven-inch scar on my chest — and treat me differently because I was now 55 and had undergone open-heart surgery.

I am writing this about nine weeks since the surgery. I returned to red carpets last week, first covering the premiere of Benito Skinner’s new comedy series “Overcompensating” (it’s only fitting that my first carpet back was a big queer celebration), and the following night I was chatting with Nicole Kidman, Christine Baranski and Henry Golding at an event for the second season of “Nine Perfect Strangers.”

I am in a cardio rehab program at Cedars three days a week. For one hour, I walk on a treadmill and ride a stationary bike while hooked up to a heart monitor. On the other days, I log about 30 minutes on my Peloton. I think of this as my “Bionic Man” era. I’m not a cyborg, but as Oscar Goldman said about Steve Austin (aka the Six Million Dollar Man), “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him; we have the technology.”

I revealed I had undergone the surgery on social media. Jean Smart similarly announced on social media in 2023 that she had to take time off from filming “Hacks” to undergo a heart procedure. She didn’t detail what she had done, but she wrote on Instagram, “Please listen to your body and talk to your doctor — I’m very glad I did!”

About a week ago, I was in my apartment being photographed shirtless. I couldn’t look at my scar for at least a month after the surgery. Today, I show it to anyone who asks because I am proud of where I’ve been and what I’ve survived. If I can get through this, I believe most anyone else can. (I no longer have to wear the temporary heart monitor seen in the photos.)

Today, my mission is to bring awareness to heart health. On June 3, I will be the featured speaker at the American Heart Association’s A Lunch With Heart, an afternoon at the London West Hollywood hotel to mark CPR Awareness Week. I didn’t have a heart attack or ever need CPR, but more than 350,000 cardiac arrests occur outside the hospital in the U.S. each year. With CPR Awareness Week, AHA hopes to double the survival rates by 2030.

In Hollywood, most of us are running around on fumes. We’re busy with one thing after another. Medical checkups are often postponed or never scheduled at all.

But if something is feeling off in your body or you have heart disease in your family, please talk to your doctor. Meet with a cardiologist. Before my genetic testing and heart workup, I told Dr. Jones I was scared. “Knowledge is power,” she said.

Knowledge, as I am now well aware, can be lifesaving.

I’m already planning my time off after next year’s Oscars. I’ll probably be on a beach somewhere, where I’ll look down at my scar and know it’s not a marker of weakness, but one of survival and strength.

Until then, see you on the red carpet.