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2021

Medical Stuff... 

Mike moved doctors in 2020 and started the evaluation process with Dr. Gonzalez at the Spectrum Health Heart Optimization and Evaluation Clinic. With more detailed testing over the period of 2020 and 2021 we started to see a decline in Mike's heart function and ejection fraction (EF); this measures the amount of blood that is pumped out of the left side of the heart with each heart beat. As time went on Mike's EF got lower and lower and doctors became worried about a sudden death event, which occurs with Cardiomyopathy. Mike's EF was down to 20% (now 18% in Nov of 22) with a normal person's being 50%-70%. To help ensure there is a back up to this event, Mike had an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) (Boston Scientific for the exact brand) put in September of 2021, this would restart his heart if it were to stop. 

There are some fun benefits to having an ICD: He gets to carry around an official card to let everyone know, gets fun pat downs at the airport because he can't go through metal detectors, can't use a chainsaw any longer (we had just bought one), can't go on wooden bumpy roller coasters (don't want it going off and shocking him), has some cool scars, and has to connect to the mothership every Monday - that's what I call it at least. He has this box that sits next to him on his bedside table, it records all events and connects to the monitoring station at the heart clinic. If he feels funny he can click a button and it will send details immediately to the clinic. Mondays are upload day and all the week's info will be sent to the clinic when he connects...to the mothership. 

Now, Mike's heart has always been enlarged and is used to working hard. Imagine his heart is the size of a gallon of milk pumping out 20% liquid, and a normal heart is the size of a water bottle pumping out 20% liquid....there is more liquid coming out of gallon of milk than the water bottle. However, that is still a third less than normal people and a bit to be concerned about. Mike's strength, heart size, and health has kept him doing normal activities and living a normal life, he has great reserves his doctors would say. But of course we were given a list of things to look out for...shortness of breath, sleeping with more than one pillow, not being able to do normal tasks in the same amount of time, and of course the heart attack symptoms as well. 

All was well...until August of 2022

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