Help Me Celebrate World Heart Day

Many of you may be aware that over the last year, my family has been going through a journey that began with some words that I never thought I would hear from a doctor which were, "We need to do surgery on Ashley, and I we need to admit her tomorrow, so you two need to go home and get your house in order." My wife runs our household, so I got a major download over the next few hours. It was some pretty scary and sad moments to work through with my wife. We started with an Acute diagnosis, and then moved to Chronic, to hopefully almost resolved (her last surgery was last week).

Since that time, we have gotten to know the American Heart Association, researchers in the NIH, Mayo, and other Academic hospitals, and discover many amazing medical professionals around the globe. All of that has led to a couple of key learnings:

1. The problem is massive - One in three adults have some form of cardiovascular disease and there is a heart attack every 40 seconds in the US.

2. The professionals are amazing – I was in awe the last year to learn how big the body of knowledge is regarding cardiac care and how much care and passion these professionals have in order to keep appraised of the newest research, medical techniques, and potential solutions (pharmaceutical, bio-mechanical, etc.).

3. The research need is still massive – In Ashley’s case, we learned to get familiar with the term Idiopathic – which is used to define a situation where they know “what” is happening, but they don’t know “why”. We’ve poured through countless journals and research, while working with numerous medical professions to discover the “why”.

Ironically, this spring – we had the opportunity to attend the American Heart Association Ball two nights before one of Ashley’s procedures – and we got to see how the AHA brings a multi-pronged approach to attacking this critical issue.

So, in honor of World Heart Day, I would like to ask that you consider three things:

1.    If you don’t know what your own cardiac health is, please go find out! Get the tests and know your results! Ashley uses a wearable ECG reader on her wrist. It helps us share her data with her medical team in between visits.

2.    Help me honor all of the amazing professionals in this field ranging from the policy makers, educators, researchers, and medical professionals that are advancing the cause every day. An easy way to do this is to share this article.

3.    And if you would like, here is a way to help and contribute to the cause.