Helga was born with an aortic heart valve stenosis. After the first femoral catheter they decided to do another femoral catheter intervention where they used a balloon catheter to expand her aortic valve. But the surgery failed and so she had a valve with a serious insufficiency. It became so bad that they decided to implant me a donor valve.…
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In 1993 when Rebecca was a sophomore in high school she was in the middle of field hockey summer sessions when she started having dizzy spells, tunnel vision, blackouts, and fainting. Her parents took her to her family doctor who ordered a holter monitor, which showed an irregular heart beat and she was diagnosed with a cardiac arrhythmia, supra ventricular tachycardia…
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Amanda Dejesus was born with Congenital Heart Disease. She had her first heart surgery at 14 days old, a pacemaker implanted when she was 13 and a heart transplant at 15 years old. She thought her ordeal was over but at age 22 her body started to reject her new heart. Luckily, Amanda survived….. read more
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I didnt know I had heart disease and it almost killed me while I was pregnant. This is my story of how it all unfolded and luckily for me I was in the right place at the right time when my heart almost gave out. My heart story is similar to a lot of women who find out they have…
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What You Don’t Know About the Flu May Hurt You According to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of flu related hospitalizations so far in the 2018 flu season is the “highest they have ever seen, even higher than the 2014-2015 flu season.” What’s equally as alarming is the number of children who have…
How High Blood Pressure Affects Your Heart In late 2017 the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) published new guidelines for what constitutes high blood pressure (hypertension). The new guidelines effectively put a number of Americans above the threshold for what was considered a “safe” blood pressure reading. Before the new guidelines, only 1…
Amanda was born August 23, 1988, with Congenital Heart Disease. At 14 days old she had her first surgery. I interviewed Amanda, wanting to know her story and to share it with others who are just like us, heart-disease survivors. Here is her story…. Amanda had to repair a VSD and a Coarctation of the Aorta.(VSD- is a hole in…
My Heart Story My heart story is similar to a lot of women who find out they have cardiovascular issues while pregnant…luckily for me, I found out before it was too late. I was unaware of my rheumatic heart disease until I was 29 years old, pregnant and experiencing congestive heart failure (CHF). The unfortunate thing is that I…