If you’re wondering what might go through the mind of the average teenager facing the sudden prospect of open-heart surgery, Margaret Van Bruggen won’t hesitate to provide you with that window into her psyche:
“I was planning my own funeral. And having thoughts about planning your own funeral isn’t exactly pleasant.”
This wasn’t long after she’d been felled in November — at age 14, as a freshman at Covenant Day School in Matthews — by a mysterious staph infection that had found its way to her heart’s mitral valve … which as a result was starting to deteriorate rapidly … which meant she would definitely need a repair or a replacement…