In Depth Details of HOCM


 After reviewing the links I realized there are a lot of technical terms that are hard to get a good grasp on unless you are familiar with them.


For me, the first signs of the heart condition were noticed in the hospital.  My heart was beating very hard and sounded concerning.  The only symptoms I was having at that time was shortness of breath.  


After I went home from the hospital with our new baby my feet and ankles swelled up to the point that I couldn't wear any of my shoes or socks because they dug in too deep.  This, however, went away after about a week or so.  


But unfortunately, about 2 months later, I started having dizzy spells where out of nowhere (no matter how hydrated I was or what I had eaten) I would get light headed and have to sit down.  They would last about 5 minutes or so, but the scariest one was when I was getting my youngest daughter, Sophia, out of the car and I had to sit with her in my lap until it passed.  Then at bedtime when I would lay down my heart would start beating extremely fast and I'd have to sit up to catch my breath.  It started to get to the point that my chest was also feeling tight so I gave my cardiologist a call and moved up my appointment with her.  

When I spoke with her, she decided to do the angiogram (which is where they thread a very small wire up through the femoral artery in your groin area and inject ink into the heart to see any kind of obstructions or blockage) to decide what our next step would be.  


After the angio, one of the two options we had (the alcohol ablation or the septal myectomy) was, unfortunately, ruled out.  I had no other real choice but septal myectomy, which is an open heart surgery where they cut out the obstruction.  


After the angio I had a much more serious dizzy spell where I could hear crashing waves in my ears and my vision went white.  My husband, luckily, was there to hold me up and make sure I didn't fall flat on my face on the concrete and dislodge the clot they put in place to keep the artery closed. 


Since then I have been in contact with my cardiologist about getting on a medication that is supposed to help with the symptoms I have been experiencing, hopefully just until we have the surgery.  As a very overprotective mother, I have ZERO intention of fainting around my children and will take any step to preventing that.  


The problem with HOCM is that it's not something that will fix itself, it will just continue to get worse if left untreated until the person dies. And this girl has WAY to awesome of a life to let that happen!