I’m sitting across Marleen Bilas. She is 73 years old. In itself her age does not sound remarkable, what is remarkable about her is that she is in better health now than she has ever been. In fact her health has steadily improved as she’s grown older. How can this be?

Marleen was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect which involves four anatomical abnormalities of the heart and is commonly known as blue baby syndrome. Due to various problems with the formation of the heart, the blood is not properly oxygenated resulting in many health problems for the child. ‘Blue baby’ refers to the child’s complexion that appears bluish due to the lack of oxygen – it is oxygen that gives blood its reddish colour. Tetralogy of Fallot can be treated surgically, but remains a serious, lifelong problem and results frequently in early mortality.

Childhood

In 1942, the year Marleen was born, the life expectancy of a blue baby was not promising. Most died as babies or toddlers and a few made it to early adulthood, if they were lucky. Two years later the first procedure was developed at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States by Dr Alfred Blalock (surgeon), his surgical technician Vivien Thomas and pediatric cardiologist Helen Taussig. Born in Benoni, her illness was still untreatable in South Africa. Her family doctor however knew about Dr. Blalock and made contact. In 1948, after various tests were sent to Dr Taussig for diagnosis, Marleen went to the USA for her first operation aged six. At this point she was still being wheeled around in a push-chair.

Marleen says about her experience “I have great regard for the doctors … although they nearly killed me. Even though my mom told them I was allergic to penicillin, they used it anyway and after the operation I ended up in ICU for a long time. Only because my mother kept begging them to take me off the penicillin did they eventually stop giving it to me. So it was quite a terrible experience.”

“Things were very different in those days … I remember waking up in the oxygen tent. I had this plastic sheet over the whole bed and moisture used to drip down, making the outside look quite spooky.”

The first thing she became aware of after the operation was the colour of her nails. “I was so excited because they were pink; they had never been pink before.” Returning home Marleen left her push-chair in the United States, “I was very excited. I could now go to school like other children, although I still didn’t play any sports.”

Unfortunately the ‘Blalock-Taussig shunt’ was only a temporary solution and nine years later Marleen became ill and was admitted to a Durban hospital. At first the doctors thought she had polio until they examined her and saw the scar on her chest. “Oh boy, they were so excited. This is now 1957. They wanted to do open heart surgery on me. In no way was I interested and my parents also didn’t agree to it.” At this time open heart surgery was still in the experimental stages and only a handful of surgeons had any experience. Survival rate was only 50%.

Marleen’s father used to travel regularly and the following year they visited the United States. After some tests the doctors realized that she would need another operation in a year’s time, which meant she would lose another year’s schooling. Thus it was decided not to travel around America as planned, but to remain in Johns Hopkins and have a ‘Potts anastomosis’, which carried her over for another nine years. “However after the operation they gave me penicillin again and I almost died a second time.”

In 1966 Marleen was engaged to be married. Her mother had kept contact with Dr. Tausig and told her Marleen was to be married that year. Dr Taussig then explained that it was not advisable for Marleen to have a child unless the heart defects were corrected as the foetus’ development would be impaired.

Marleen was working as a medical technologist at Natal Blood Transfusion at the time and the director told her he knew Professor Christiaan Barnard, and that he had had good results with open heart surgery.

This encouraged her to contact Professor Barnard and arrangements were made in February to have the preliminary tests done in Cape Town. Marleen’s response on how she found this famous heart surgeon was: “He was amazing. I told him I was getting married in October and he said I should have the operation at least six months before this. Even though he had a very busy schedule, he nevertheless managed to accommodate me. In May I returned to Cape Town for surgery and all went well this time! At last, at 24, I was a normal human being”. Three years later Marleen had a daughter, Tracy, who was born perfectly normal.

Adulthood

As a result of Marleen’s illness, her mother was very protective of her as a child and she had few friends and a limited social life. According to Marleen, this led to her becoming “overly possessive” of her husband, which brought about their split in 1971.

Being alone at this time, however, set the stage for a new path of discovery. A friend introduced her to astrology, which led her to become interested in palmistry, numerology, handwriting analysis as well as the I Ching. “The astrology had opened me up to a whole new world. My parents weren’t religious, my stepfather believed that ‘When you die the worms eat you and that’s it’”. She also met her current husband, Peter, through this network in 1980.

Peter had a Kung Fu exercise book with a description of Tai Chi that portrayed the movements as being circular and like a flowing river. “I thought, wow. This image resonates within me, because when I was little I wanted to do ballet but my heart condition prevented this. My stepmother even bought me some toe shoes which I used to try to dance around in. So, Tai Chi has satisfied this childhood desire to do ballet.”

In the mid-80s, Marleen practised Wu style Tai Chi for two years until her instructor gave up teaching and she had to look for a new person. Her husband did Karate at Kushido, Cape Town, where Denis St John Thomson was also coaching Tai Chi. Marleen joined the organisation and after two years under Denis’ tutelage, she needed more of a challenge and asked to be trained as a teacher. After a while she took over his class in Claremont and remained the instructor for three years.

At this point a friend recommended that Marleen apply to become a student of Dr. Feng-Chao Lin, a highly regarded acupuncturist and Tai Chi grandmaster from Taiwan. For a while she continued teaching at Kushido as well as having lessons with Dr Lin. It didn’t take long for Marleen to see the difference and the value in Dr. Lin’s teaching methods, so once another teacher was found to take over her Kushido class, she left to join Dr Lin’s Tai Chi group.

Marleen’s health remained stabile until 2001 when she started getting severe heart palpitations. Besides medication for the palpitations, the physician also suggested water retention and cholesterol tablets. “He became very cross when I didn’t want to take these two. I was also having acupuncture at the time and Dr. Lin explained that the heart wasn’t creating the problem, but rather the scar tissue from open heart surgery that was interfering with the energy transfer across the chest.” She continued with acupuncture and eventually after regular treatments the problem disappeared.

A few years later, Marleen, now over 60, was concerned about her longevity; “Most blue babies don’t live to beyond 50 years of age and here I was past 60, how long is this going to last?” She now feels that these thoughts set up the conditions for Polymyalgia Rheumatica, an auto immune disease, which was triggered by a dentist administering too many anaesthetics. During the illness Marleen was unable to bend down, turn over in bed or switch the lights on and had to lift her one arm with the other to get it even up to her face. “I shuffled into the rheumatologist’s room like a 90 year old. He gave me a cortisone injection and I was then able to walk out with greater ease. This doctor started me off on 40mg (8 tablets) of cortisone a day. On the second appointment he wanted me to go on to a drug used for cancer patients.” She opted for an alternate route as the suggested medication had too many side-effects. Working with her homoeopath GP, Marleen reduced her cortisone dose over a long period of time to half a tablet every 2 weeks.

“I’ve set myself back a few times by doing things I shouldn’t (like eating chocolate or drinking coffee!). Experiencing the autoimmune disease was an enormous learning experience for me as it taught me valuable lessons: to really appreciate my health and to be very careful how I think: whatever thoughts you constantly keep in your mind will actually become a reality sometime in the future.”

On her current state of health Marleen, now aged 72, says “Even blue babies who underwent corrective surgery and reach old age don’t necessarily experience a good quality of life. There are three things that I think have kept me so healthy. As a result of practising Tai Chi for over 25 years I’m probably stronger than most of my students. I can even hike very slowly up Lion’s Head. Besides Tai Chi, there’s been acupuncture, with which Dr. Lin has helped me enormously. Of course one’s attitude towards life is also a big thing. I’m actually much healthier now than when I met my husband 34 years ago.”

Marleen has kept all her correspondence and medical data from Johns Hopkins and Grootte Schuur Hospitals and would love to be part of a study that can help future generations. Unfortunately both hospitals lost contact with her when she moved from Durban to Cape Town. In 2000, Johns Hopkins Hospital did a study on the first 1000 blue babies, but unfortunately Marleen was not included in the study (she was Dr Blalock’s 56th patient).

Marleen currently teaches Tai Chi Chuan from her home in Diep River. To contact her regarding Tai Chi or a research project phone 021-715-3207 or email her at info.linshan@gmail.com