MY STORY 

 I have lived with a primary cardiomyopathy and heart arrhythmia issues since my early 30s. At 44 I had open heart surgery to repair my mitral valve. The severely leaking valve made it impossible for my heart to adequately pump blood to the rest of my body, causing it to be overworked, and leading to damage of some of the heart muscle itself. Since then I have had numerous cardiac ablations, and a pacemaker implanted - all attempting to correct or better control abnormal rhythmns. 6 years ago I went into acute congestive heart failure and my heart's ejection fraction (function) dropped to 20%. At that point, my pacemaker was replaced with a pacemaker/ defibrillator device. My current device is set to pace all 4 sections of my heart 100% of the time and can provide" shock" treatment should I go into cardiac arrest. Most recently, in July of this year, I had a cardioversion performed to shock my heart back into normal rhythm.

I have personally benefitted from the technological advances in cardiac devices  and the drugs needed to treat heart conditions. Please help others to do the same.

I apologize for the long message but hope that it can help you better understand the life altering impact the AHA can have on many people like me whose personal story you will never hear.

Please help me reach my goal today.

Thanks, Sheri