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Heart failure, then a transplant – for both dad and college-athlete son

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By Deborah Lynn Blumberg, American Heart Association News

When Ryan Scoble was a junior lacrosse player at Mercyhurst University, he came home to Cincinnati for winter break eager to see his father.

Ryan’s dad, Steve, had dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart muscle becomes weakened, then enlarged. Steve had surgery to implant a machine called a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD; it essentially does the work of the left side of the heart. He was waiting for a heart transplant. And he was recovering from a stroke. Read the full story from the American Heart Association.

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I Would Have Died Without A Transplant. Here’s My Story Documenting The Journey.

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“I can’t articulate what it was like to lose my mother like that, after being diagnosed with the same disease. I just know the fear of meeting that same fate was something I carried since that hot July day.”

By Alison Conklin

When I was 13 years old, I passed out in the middle of a competitive game of floor hockey in gym class. A trip to the hospital later, I’d been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease that often causes thickening of the heart.

Five months after that diagnosis, my mother and I were in the kitchen together. We’d been chatting as she cooked, but suddenly she said she didn’t feel well. I watched as she collapsed to the floor. Read the full story in the HuffPost.

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Medical Mystery: A Healthy Hiker Couldn’t Catch Her Breath

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It wasn’t a heart attack. So why was the active 59-year-old’s heart suddenly failing?

By Rachel Nania, AARP

About a month before Beth Ramsey started feeling crummy, she was hiking a glacier in Iceland. So, when she began having shortness of breath a few weeks after her 2022 trip, the then-59-year-old elementary school principal assumed it was bronchitis or another common illness. Read the full article from AARP.

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How a heart transplant brought 2 moms together — and led them to ‘America’s Got Talent’

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By Lottie Elizabeth Johnson

Most contestants who go on “America’s Got Talent” have the same aspiration: They want to achieve stardom.

For many of the acts on the competition show — whether it’s singing or dancing or ventriloquism or magic — the “AGT” audition is a major stepping stone on the path to success and fame. Read the full story in Yahoo Entertainment.

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Two mothers, one heart: A shared journey for heart transplant recipients

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Friendship forms between two strangers who received lifesaving transplants within days of each other.

By Sean Gorman
Mary Small and Janell Hull didn’t know one other before they were each brought to the hospital late last year for a heart transplant.
 
But they already had so much in common by the time they arrived at VCU Health Pauley Heart Center’s intensive care unit. Both had endured years-long battles with declining heart health while taking their own paths to the same destination of a lifesaving transplant from the team at Hume-Lee Transplant Center. Read the full story from VCUHealth News Center.

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