“I just wanted to tell you how important what you’re doing is,” the young cardiology resident at Oregon Health Sciences University said to me in a quiet voice. “Your husband’s lucky to have you.” I could barely swallow the lump in my throat. My husband and I had spent the past 11 days in the cardiac ICU, surrounded by heart patients who were all 20 or 30 years older than we were. He’d just undergone heart surgery, which left him shaky and vomiting. My husband was 48 years old, fit and athletic, so we were pretty shocked when he started having tachycardia and even more surprised when the doctors diagnosed him with an exceedingly rare heart condition. I was at his side the entire time, sleeping on a back-breaking cot in his hospital room, while our four children spent the winter holidays without us. My husband’s sudden illness catapulted me …