Ginger age 44 married to John 6 children, aged 6 - 24 we have a mini-zoo also!

Hi, I am Ginger. I am 44 and have 6 kids aged 24 to 6. Only 4 are still at home. Only the youngest has my red hair. I hope he doesn't hate it like I used to. I have been married forever to a great man named John. We own an Air Conditioning Company in Miami, Florida, so I am lucky in that I get to work from home. I have a dog named Hercules: he is part Yorkie and part Chihuahua. I have 2 parrots, one cockatiel, 2 parakeets and 3 cats. We almost have our own zoo.

My Health

I have only known that I have cardiomyopathy for about 6 weeks. I went to my doctor for chest pains. They thought it was stomach related till the pains just did not go away. It turned out that the pains weren't even related. My EF was 35% the first of March and they will do a Muga scan April 16 to see how it goes.

My Interests

My hobbies are my computer, of course, and plants. I have so many plants that it's almost work now instead of pleasure.

My Meds

I thank God every day for this day he has given me and for this site. I can't begin to explain the difference finding this place has made. Thanks!

Update Update Update Update

I went April 16, 1998 for a MUGA, which showed my EF to be 45%. I had an echo in May and it showed an EF of 50%, and an enlarged left ventricule at 6.3cm. Normal is below 5.6cm. They increased my meds and I added lots of supplements. The increase made me very tired. I couldn't even exercise. In July, I started walking on my treadmill. After a few weeks, I got up to one mile at 2.6mph twice a day. Then I started gettting PVCs - just a few at first. By October, I had a lot of them and an arrhythmia. On a Holtor moniter, they recorded 689 PVCs in a 24 hour period. Some were doubles and triples. I had to go for an EP study because they got twice as bad with exercise. I also have bradycardia with a resting heart rate of 50 during the day and in the 40s at night, but I don't have any symptoms from it. The EP Study showed that the PVCs were multi-focal so they couldn't burn anything to get rid of them. It also showed that unless the bradycardia got worse or started giving me symptoms, they wanted to leave it alone.
     In November of 1998, I went for another echo. It showed my EF to be 56% and my left ventricle has reduced to 5.5cm in size. It does show minimum mitral regurgitation. To date, I still have bradycardia and PVCs. Some days they are worse than others. I do get tired if I do too much and still have chest pain off and on, which they say may be costrocondritis. I go for check-ups every 3 months except for right now it's once a month because of high blood pressure. We tried cutting the ACE inhibitor in half but after 30 days had to put it back up due to high BP. I still feel I owe my improvement to God and the help of a good doctor.
     I have changed doctors twice to find one who would talk to me and listen to my complaints and fears, and explain things to me in a way that makes me know he cares. Finding the right doctor made all the difference in the world. I am also very grateful for this Forum of Jon's. It is what helped me through all this, these last 10 months. I still live every day as if it could be my last. I make sure I kiss and tell my kids everyday that I love them. God also! :-) I also made a web site on cardiomyopathy to help other people like us. It's at http://www.heart-help.net/.
     Hugs, Ginger. Smile, Someone Loves You !

  Ginger -- April 6, 1998

All information on this site is opinion only. All concepts, explanations, trials, and studies have been re-written in plain English and may contain errors. No one here is a doctor. No information on this page should be used by any person to affect their medical, legal, educational, social, or psychological treatment in any way. This web site and all its pages copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Jon C.