Recap of why we're talking about hearts & caretaking and all that

In summer/fall of ‘08, after some odd health blips in past few years, Michael went for a check-up and the docs found what they thought was a mild heart murmur and said probably not to worry, no rush. But, based on advice of well-knowing family, he went to cardiologist for a work-up anyway. Initial tests (stress echo) were not good and indicated one kind of serious problem for which they ordered a near immediate cardiac catheterization, causing much panic around here. But it was a false positive - no blockages, no heart attack imminent- but bad news was it confirmed he had an uncommon, genetic based heart disease.

This condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (or go here) has messed up the muscles of his heart and the left side is enlarged, the whole thing is stiff and doesn't flex or pump well, with blood getting obstructed and not pumping out to the body like it should. Always short of breath, palpitations sometimes, near fainting others, and is generally miserable and no longer to be active like he wants or needs. We've seen tons of docs and he was under care of specialists in this condition in Boston since January ‘09 -- with thought that medicine could control his symptoms and give him back some better quality of life -- that's true for most of patients with HCM.

But not for him. By late this summer it was still bad, maybe worse, and there were really no more medicine options for him. So it’s now January ’10 and we’re at the preeminent heart center in the country, maybe the world, for him to have open heart surgery to do a myectomy and cut out the obstructing part of the inner heart muscle and give him back a better working heart and better life.

Peace.