The following has been adapted from remarks I gave during a Fast and Testimony Meeting in the Bosque Single Adult Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Albuquerque, NM on December 7th, 2025, where I shared my experience with open-heart surgery in 2024 and the miracles that followed.

Heart Surgery Reflections - One Year Later
(The Testimony of Gregory Gene Conrad)

This past Wednesday was December 3rd, and that marked the one-year anniversary of my heart surgery. Two days before that day was a Fast Sunday—December 1st. And pretty much all of you, I'm pretty sure, fasted and prayed for me. 'Cause that's what you do. That's the kind of people you are. But there were many, many other people beyond that. And I had really struggled to come to terms with that day—Fast Sunday.

I had been very depressed for a very long time, and if I hadn't made it through the surgery, I would be totally okay with that—more than okay. And so part of me wanted to ask everyone, "No, don't, don't fast, don't do anything," and then I'm just like, "Well, okay. What I'll do is I'll just say, 'Fast and pray that THE WORST OUTCOME POSSIBLE doesn't happen.'"

And then I kept thinking and came across President Nelson's April 2022 talk “The Power of Spiritual Momentum”, where he said to “seek and expect miracles”. And I just wasn't sure about that. But I kept thinking about it, and it felt more and more right that I should ask for a miracle and ask people to pray for a miracle. And then it was, "Well, what exactly do I want to say the miracle that I want is?" And what we put out—because Elizabeth Madsen-Nichols was the one who really put this stuff out—was, "I was fasting and praying for an end to my long-term, treatment-resistant depression." And that was a nice way of saying, "I just really, at the minimum, could I just wake up and not desperately yearn to be dead like I have for 20-something years?" Still the first thing sounded better, less scary, so we sent that out. But the second was what I was ACTUALLY thinking. 

And then, you know, I was talking to people going up to it, and they're like, "You know what? I’m not just gonna pray for an end to your depression. You deserve an end to your OCD." And I'm like, "Yeah, that's a nice thought. But that's not gonna happen. And I already feel like I'm shooting way high. " But after several people kept saying that, part of me was like, "Well, President Nelson said to seek and expect miracles. Maybe I shouldn't limit that miracle."

(...Now, you all know I HATE chocolate. What you don't know so much is that I exponentially hated myself more than chocolate…)

Having resigned myself to accept that God was not going to let me die, I then began to wish for the next best thing – to have a near-death experience. 'Cause I heard several stories about near-death experiences—that the person dies and goes to heaven, they’re with Christ, and they see their life played out before them. And while they’re watching this “video” of their whole life, they FEEL how their life (their choices and interactions) impacted others. And I thought that the only way possible for me to not have that extreme self-hatred when I woke up…and the only way that I could have my depression or OCD lift was to have this experience where I could see my life and know and feel how I made a difference, IF I made a difference. Had I truly blessed ANYONE’S life? Or was I really the curse to everyone that I believed myself to be?

The other thing that ALWAYS happens in these near-death experiences is that the patient nearly (or temporarily) dies. I know, pretty obvious—it’s in the name. And that means that things aren’t going “splendidly” for the surgeon and their team in the operating room. They’re VERY stressed because their biggest job is to make sure that the patient doesn’t die, and heaven isn’t reaching down to let them know what’s going on UPSTAIRS. They’re not receiving the message “Hey, relax, don’t worry, breathe. Your patient is only TEMPORARILY dead. I’m going to revive them soon.”

But I liked my surgeon and my nurses, and I didn’t want to cause them needless anxiety. So I was wishing for, and really counting on, a near-death experience, but one that wasn’t near-death, which was atypical, sure. But if anyone could do it, it would be God: “for with God all things are possible.”

(Anyway, that's the setup.)

So Wednesday, December 4th, I woke up after my surgery, and I was still here on the Earth—no near-death-like experience. I just woke up, and I had lost ALL of my hearing. For about half an hour, I just repeatedly asked my parents, "Where am I?" 'cause part of me, not being totally lucid yet, was still wondering where I was, and I just kept asking for half an hour because I never heard their answer. And then the heart surgeon appeared. And Mom and Dad said that when he came in, I immediately went like this [outstretched arms, beaming smile]—I was so happy because I FINALLY had the answer to my question. It wasn’t the answer I had hoped for, but I knew where I was and what was going on.

But again, I had lost my hearing, and I was really, really struggling to understand what people were saying. Like, I was on the phone with my nephews, the phone is here [right next to my ear], and I can't hear what they're saying. And when Dawnee and Jesse showed up, I wasn't able to hear anything they said. And one of my vocal cords also had stopped working, and so I wasn't able to speak really, even. And then I had tinnitus. I was hearing sounds that weren't there. And, um, so just all of these elements, it just seemed like this is the worst thing ever.

And so I really struggled, and I went radio silent for a long time because I thought, "Well, people are gonna want an answer. They prayed and fasted, and they'll want to know, did the miracle happen?" And to me, the answer was an avalanche-causing shout of "NO!" And I thought of it as the anti-miracles. (That’s the second setup.)

Now there WERE miracles. But it’s important to understand that the answer to the question was "no" before it was "yes," and how much of a struggle it was. And it's taken me a year to get to this place where I could see the miracles, and not just the anti-miracles. 

And so, some miracles:

Just a few years before that, Bishop Miller suffered a life-altering tragedy, an illness of his own. He had a stroke. And he often spoke with gratitude for that stroke. Because it opened up his very busy schedule and forced him to turn away from a profession that he was very skilled and proficient in, one that he loved. And that, in turn, allowed him to have the time to be the second bishop of our [Mid-Singles] Ward, which he loved (and still does). And that, of course, meant that he was my bishop at the time of my heart surgery.

Well, when I was in the hospital, when the heart surgeon showed up every day to give me (and my parents) the update and see how I was doing, Bishop Miller was right at his side. Why? Because before his stroke, Doctor Miller had consulted with and worked alongside my heart surgeon in the pediatric ICU of that same hospital for many, many years. 

I got the best of both worlds. I had a bishop who was intimately aware of the ins and outs of my care and was still consulting (unofficially) with my heart surgeon on a near-daily basis about my post-operative care. And because he was no longer employed there, he didn't have to make the rounds between dozens of patients, and he was able to be upstairs in the ADULT ICU where he normally wouldn't have been working. Plus, as my bishop, he had a deep, working knowledge of my OCD and could handle my litany of questions about what was going on, which persisted far beyond the narrower time constraints of my on-call heart surgeon. More importantly, he was already on the scene to help give me the spiritual support I needed through my deep “anti-miracle” spiritual crisis.

And the timing of this Bishop Miracle wound up being even greater just a couple of months later when he and his wife unexpectedly moved to be close to family in Utah. So God had, in a very real way, strategically placed Bishop Miller as my bishop at the precise time that I needed heart surgery to replace a replacement aortic valve that had finally begun to deteriorate an inexplicable decade and a half past its expected expiration date.

(Quick related note: I ended up not being the only member of our ward who benefited from the bishop's presence and focus at the hospital. A day or so after my intake, another member of our ward had a heart attack and ended up in the ICU room directly next to mine.)

Rewinding slightly to touch on the surgery itself, it was an obvious success. Even though it lasted for 8½ hours, the surgical team was able to maintain a continuous focus on what they were doing. There weren’t any big mistakes. After touching the rock-hard scar tissue (from my last surgery) impeding access to the aortic valve, it crumbled into a thousand pieces or shards that they carefully had to remove, almost one by one, before sewing my heart back up and reestablishing circulation, as any one of those could have caused a clot or blockage and resulted in a heart attack. There were also no problems switching to and from the heart-lung machine (pioneered by the late President Nelson). The new titanium valve worked as hoped. And all of this was done in an area mostly measured in millimeters!

Another miracle: I experienced almost zero pain connected to the surgery itself. True, I was on nerve blockers in the hospital, but when I left, I wasn’t given any pain medication (beyond the max allowable dose of Acetaminophen that I was already taking for chronic back and neck pain), and I was fine. Not the typical experience of someone who has just had OPEN-heart surgery!

Additionally, due to the ongoing miracle of God providing me with excellent healthcare, I never incurred any costs from the surgery or for any related or subsequent doctor visits, procedures, or resources (such as food and X-rays). Aside from a very small copay for blood thinner, I never received a bill. (Again, not necessarily typical for such large operations and hospital stays.)

Also, there was familial healing that took place. Families are wonderful and complicated, and that complicated side had overwhelmed a certain relationship, but then that person was in the hospital with me almost every day. And, when you added other family members in, there was basically never a time when at least one family member was not there (outside of mandatory non-visiting hours) for the 9 days I was there.

And, all of you, and many others, surrounded me with prayer and in spirit. I knew that I was loved by the members of this ward (even though I couldn’t communicate with you) because Dawnee and Jesse led the way, with the help of Dr. Stein and Bishop Miller, to make Christmas happen for me in the hospital. I wanted to wake up to Christmas, and you guys did that. And you not only lit up my time in the hospital (my world at that point - in the ICU). You lit up the whole ICU because they all saw the Christmas lights, the bright lights, too. So good job– mission accomplished on the Light the World initiative last year!

Then three months later, I was allowed to drive, and about two weeks after that, I got in a car wreck. My car launched across a minor ravine and crashed into a large sign, tree, and fence. And I wasn't hurt. I didn't have a scratch or scrape.  Nothing broken from untoward physical pressure being put on my newly-sewed-up sternum from my seatbelt, steering column, or potential air bag. Plus, no bruising or cuts, which could have been a serious issue from just being put on blood thinner. I'm not even sure I had whiplash. There wasn't any physical harm that came to my body. And that was right after heart surgery!

And the biggest, most meaningful miracle to me was that my dog was okay, 'cause he was sticking his head out the window the last I knew. And then when I looked back, he was just lying down safely on the back seat, shocked for a few seconds, but then acting completely normal and showing no sign of physical harm to his body when checked.

As for the anti-miracles, my voice has fully recovered - both of my vocal cords are in complete working order. The tinnitus hasn't gone away, but I've learned to really just ignore it, and as a result, it doesn't bother me and is as if it has gone away. As for my hearing, it still seems diminished, and I feel like I have to ask people to repeat themselves much more, but I can hear fine(-ish) most of the time, and audiologists have tested it and say that there are a couple of peripheral frequencies that I'm slightly deficient in, but otherwise my hearing is normal.

So many, many miracles!

And while I would not say that my long-term, treatment-resistant depression went away, I can say that I no longer desperately yearn to be dead. (And, as previously stated, that was my ACTUAL hoped-for goal.) And while I still struggle to really carry any love for myself, I’ve spent most of the ensuing months NOT hating myself (more than OR equal to chocolate). So, in the end, I think the answer to the question “did the miracle happen" is "yes”.

And so this IS a testimony and not just a medical log, I want to bear you my witness that through these experiences, I gained a greater appreciation and knowledge that God loves us, that the Savior is there for us, and that our individual lives really do matter. Even when it seems like our life is filled with nothing but great big anti-miracles, there is a MUCH BIGGER, MUCH MORE PLENTIFUL series of ACTUAL miracles enveloping that darkness that you feel and surrounding you in God's infinitely strong and loving embrace.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.