My name is Cesar Zuniga, I’m excited to participate in the 2024 Bay Area Heart Walk with the American Heart Association. I have never shared my story publicly, and this year I am verry proud to introduce myself as a survivor of heart disease. I choose to walk for the sick people who are unable to walk for themselves and are sitting in their hospital rooms and at home fighting heart disease.
My story started, August 2005 at eighteen years old. Unfortunately, I was forced to drop out of my first semester of community college because of my continuous visits to the ER for shortness of breath and fatigue. At the ER I was repeatedly misdiagnosed with Asthma and Bronchitis while my heart was in Cardiomyopathy and Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) and to doctors’ disbelief I was drug and alcohol free. Luckily, in mid-December 2005, during another visit to the ER, I coughed up blood indicating my heart was ill. Although, I was treated for CHF, my heart was found to have irreversible tissue damage and commenced developing chronic tachycardias. By this time, it was too late for medicinal intervention and received a Heart Transplant on January 9, 2006 just 7 days before my nineteenth birthday on January 15th.
In 2015, thanks to research I was diagnosed with Lupus, which Rheumatologists believe was the reason for the initial heart deterioration and need for a transplant.
I was told that as a Transplant’s I would only live 5-10 years, so I spent the entire first century of my “new” life catching up with friends, loved ones and working full time to pay for it. Around the 10-year mark, I decided to go back to school, and I have recently graduated summer of 2024 with my associate’s in management and a GPA of 3.8. I am now continuing with my management credentials, and I hope to one day help lead a kitchen for Sutter Heath.
I, Cesar Zuniga, am a survivor. I was transplanted 18 years ago. I want to thank God, my friends and family for the support I receive as well as Sutter Health and my amazing coworkers. I accept this Bay Area Heart Walk challenge and I hope to be able to raise $500 in donations for the American Heart Association. I often volunteer for heart transplant research and trials. I really love being able to give back. I hope my story inspires those who may need it and I hope you the reader are able to help me help others in need.
Thank you all from the bottom of my transplanted heart for hearing my story.
