When Congress members, family fall ill, medical legislation often follows.

Byline: Sumana Chatterjee

WASHINGTON _ For Shelly Dorgan-Gravos, life was getting very interesting. She had just gotten married and was about to start a new job. There was one thing, though, that needed fixing: her heart.

Since birth, the 23-year-old had been living with a nagging, irregular heartbeat. Her doctors told her that she could be cured with open-heart surgery _ a serious, but fairly routine, operation.

Her father, U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., described what happened next.

"It wasn't supposed to be a complicated surgery," he said. The doctors "felt certain they could fix the problem but it cascaded into a horror of problems. It got worse day by day and she eventually died."

Dorgan rarely talks publicly about Shelly's unexpected death but it profoundly changed him, he said. Since then, Dorgan has authored legislation to expand Medicare coverage for heart disease screening tests and pushed for greater funding for cardiovascular research.

"As public official you have the opportunity and in many ways the responsibility to do something," he said.