Ben's Profile

Let's rewind to 1983. Born with a severely defective pulmonary valve and an ASD. I underwent my first open heart surgery at seven months old. Cleveland Clinic surgeon Dr. Gill removed my pulmonary valve and closed the three ASD's. The surgery was a complete success and since I have lived a completely healthy normal life. I'd go every 5 years for regular checkups (the last being in 2012) with having great feedback from my cardiologist. A year ago, I started to have some unusual symptoms i.e. easily fatigued, shortness of breath, fingernails would be cyanotic, feeling of disengagement, and irregular heartbeat and palpitations (those were a normal everyday occurrence my whole life so it wasn't that abnormal but they began to feel different and more frequent.) I decided to make an appointment with my regular family doctor who I've seen for the last 20 years. She drew blood and checked my vitals. Told me everything was good to go and that I was just experiencing social anxiety and panic attacks. Her solution was to send me to a counselor. I argued her diagnosis and stated the fact that my job requires me to be a very social person and I regularly give speeches in front of 100's of people so I ignored her treatment and haven't been back. The symptoms started out as being fairly intermittent and wasn't effecting my day to day all that much, so I did my best to look past them. Over the last few months they started to become more frequent and started to slow me down physically and emotionally. While helping a family member move over Thanksgiving weekend, I noticed myself being short of breath and completely exhausted. I tried to laugh it off because I am very stubborn but my family forced the issue that I make an appointment. The following day I made my way to the Cleveland Clinic. After a few tests I was diagnosed with a 4+ pulmonary insufficiency and severely dilated right ventricle. The cardiologist is amazed that my body had "adapted" and that I was still able to work 50 hours a week and lead a very active lifestyle. Since then I have had a stress test, heart catheter and it was determined that I was in desperate need of a pulmonary valve (I had been living without it for the last 32 years.) I met with Dr. Gosta Pettersson on Feb 4th and he scheduled my operation for Feb 11th. He said that the amount of volume my right ventricle holds is incredible and asked if I would opt into a research study regarding the expanding of the muscle tissue caused by volume vs pressure. Discussing this in great detail with Dr. Pettersson, I opted into the program. With confidence in the competence and capabilities of Dr. Pettersson, I am looking forward to getting back to a normality that I have been accustomed to.