The heart thing Part 2

So what IS CM-Left Ventricular Non-Compaction???

It's what Moe has!  OK that's not really the definition.  Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle and for Moe, it means her heart muscle didn't form properly.  Her left ventricle has grooves in it where the wall should be smooth.  This means blood can pool in the grooves and when her heart pumps blood out to her body, alot of it stays in there.  So her heart has to work extra hard to get it's work done.  Which leads to failure.  There is no cure.  The only hope is drugs or a heart transplant if the drugs fail. 

Why does she have it? For her, it's genetic. It's rare - like less than 1:1,000,000.  Almost 1:10,000,000.  It often goes undetected for years, even decades before the person drops of a sudden cardiac arrest.  The survival for that is less than 5%. 

So now what?  I hope she won't be rehospitalized.  We get echos and other tests often and monitor her heart function based on her behavior daily.  If she goes back into failure, we try meds again.  We are lucky they say because at least we know.  At least we know that she might die need extra help to live. 

For me, I'm glad we get to get it.  I'm glad we know going into this that we need to make it all count because we just don't know.  Nobody knows what the future holds and we easily forget that life is precious.  My family just has it thrown in their face a bit more. 

I promise my blog won't make me cry be so serious all the time.  I want it to actually be mad ramblings 80% and heart/reality/Debbie-Downer 20% or less.  But I had to get the baseline done.  Now the elephant in my room is out from under the rug.  Now, let's dance!