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Letter to the Editor: Medicare

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Written and submitted by Robert Lalley of Silver Spring.

As a heart transplant recipient, I am upset by recent Medicare coverage rollbacks by private contractors that limit some patients’ ability to receive simple diagnostic blood tests that detect early signs of organ transplant rejection so doctors can make rapid treatment decisions. This is very concerning because research shows that one out of three heart transplants fail after 5 years, making proactive monitoring essential to patient care.
Read the full article in The Sentinel Newspapers.

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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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Have a heart, gallant youth survives two transplants

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By Sylvester Brown Jr.

Imagine having a four-year-old son who seemed healthy and normal. Suddenly, your child has trouble keeping food down and then loses his appetite completely. You take him to the hospital, and he’s diagnosed with a bowel obstruction. You then find out it’s a misdiagnosis; your child’s heart is failing, and he’s been placed on the donor list for an immediate heart transplant.

“The news hit us like a ton of bricks,” said Makiyah Mosley-Flye. She and her husband, Antonio, live in Cape Girardeau, Mo. They have two children: 12-year-old daughter, Adrianna and Kyndric who’s now 8-years-old. Read the full story in The St. Louis American.

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‘Quite an adventure’: Cartoonist helps lifelong friend through heart transplant

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Over three months, Steve Ulrich and Leigh Rubin drew strength and inspiration from each other. Rubin also drew cartoons for his nationally syndicated comic.

By Katherine Cook
PORTLAND, Oregon — A Hood River man has a new heart and deepened appreciation for a lifelong friend.

Steve Ulrich, 66, received a heart transplant in December at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Southwest Portland. But before getting on a transplant waiting list, doctors told Ulrich he would need someone to commit to being a temporary, in-house caregiver to him for three months. Ulrich reached out to his close friend, Leigh Rubin. Read or watch the story from KGW8.

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Heart transplant patient rings ‘transplant bell’ for first time at Ascension Seton

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Project Bell was created to help donate “new beginning” bells to cancer centers after patients complete their treatment.

AUSTIN, Texas — A heart transplant patient at Ascension Seton is getting to ring the “transplant bell” for the first time. 

Ascension Seton is expanding the hospital’s capacity to handle complex heart care capabilities to include care like heart transplants. As a way to celebrate the expansion, the hospital has installed a “Heart Transplant Bell” at the Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin, and heart transplant patient Raul Rangel, 39, has the honor of ringing the bell for the first time. Check out this story in KVUE.

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A new heart brings new hope

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Sethan Wilder’s cardiovascular issues began early in life and continued for many years until a heart transplant was his only option.

When Sethan Wilder heard the heart he had been waiting for was available, the range of emotions he’d been feeling in the months prior seemed to all come back at once.

“Not just the news that I was in need of a heart transplant, but that I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to have a heart transplant,” the 28-year-old said. “I can’t say the news made me happy or sad necessarily, if anything it made me eager to take on this new challenge and all that comes with it. Read the full story in Michigan Health.

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