Living with
Heart Disease
Heart disease has many faces and touches many lives. Read here for some patient stories that not only detail the impact of heart disease on daily life but also shed light on the many different ways in which patients are working to drive more awareness around heart disease and educate their own communities.
The idea that there is potentially a cure gives me hope for my girls. My biggest fear is that I’ve passed on this stupid gene to them, and everything that I’ve gone through, they would have to go through.
With this disease, no rules apply to us. Up is down. Right is left. A lot of the time there is just no rhyme or reason.
It’s no secret. He’s going to have a heart transplant someday. It’s just a matter of when. We know it’s coming.
I want to show young people, or anyone else, that heart disease is not the end of the road. It’s not the end of your life.
If my parents wouldn’t have fought for me, I would be dead. I can never pay them back for that. I’m okay. I have ARVC. I have an ICD, but I’m still me.
This is the fourth generation in my family diagnosed with HCM, though we think it goes back much further.
I know a lot of people who have not come out with their kids still alive. We’re very fortunate. We still have all five kids, and we treasure every moment we have with them.
I don’t know what a normal heart feels like, all I know is what I have.
It is very difficult not being able to do the things that I love like surgery, photography, and travel. I am trying to regain some sort of purpose in my life.
I didn’t want to ask for too much. I prayed that I live long enough to see my son become a man. I didn’t ask to grow old or to be an elder.