Greg Ruf, DCM patient, explains “Managing and Measuring DCM Symptoms After Diagnosis”
Read More… from A DCM Patient Journey – Part 2 – Managing DCM Symptoms after Diagnosis
Patient Stories & Videos
Adam’s Story of Familial Dilated Cardiomyopathy
Meet Adam Burkhart, a patient with familial dilated cardiomyopathy. Adam says that his story truly began in 1968 when his aunt died at the age of 13. That was the start of his family’s reckoning with familial dilated cardiomyopathy. Everyone born in their family until 1988 was tested for gene variants that can cause DCM.
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Greg Ruf’s DCM Story Part 1 Leading up to Diagnosis
Greg Ruf’s Story – Part 1 of his experience with dilated cardiomyopathy. Through a series of videos, he will talk through his life before DCM, his diagnosis, his life after being diagnosed, and his health today. We hope it provides an insight into one patient’s journey with the disease while providing a connection with someone
Read More… from Greg Ruf’s DCM Story Part 1 Leading up to Diagnosis
From Athlete to DCM Diagnosis and Heart Transplant at age 30 – A story of HOPE
We’d like to introduce you to a member of our DCM community: Kaitlyn Amos. Kaitlyn was raised in Waco, Texas, and grew up playing sports. In the fall of 2006, she went on to study at and play soccer for Baylor University. During freshman year, she started to notice a decrease in stamina and eventually,
Read More… from From Athlete to DCM Diagnosis and Heart Transplant at age 30 – A story of HOPE
Rob Buys’ Winding Road to Health
Written by Shawn Lake When Rob Buys was 35, he had an echocardiogram to diagnose some heart palpitations he was having. When he heard the results, he spun them in his favor. “The doctor told me I had a 50 percent chance of having a cardiomyopathy,” Rob says. “What I heard was, ‘There’s a 50
Melissa Justice Values Every Birthday
Written by Shawn Lake For Melissa Justice, all the signs of heart failure were there. The problem was that no one recognized them. When she was finally diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), at age 31, her heart’s ejection fraction — the heart muscle’s pumping function — was severely reduced at less than 15 percent. A
Jane Leeuw’s Family Takes DCM in Stride
Written by Shawn Lake “We’re all healthy,” says Jane Dittoe Leeuw. “In my family, we don’t consider ourselves to be sick.” That’s a very positive statement, given that Leeuw and her siblings, the Dittoes, all have dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). One of her three brothers has a transplanted heart and another has continuing problems with arrhythmias.
Balancing a Busy Schedule, Including a Full-Time Career, While Living with DCM
We continue to use our blog as a space to feature personal stories of individuals and their families who are impacted by dilated cardiomyopathy. This blog post was written by Steve Fietek, an individual who has been living with DCM for many years. Steve shares how he continues to search for balance between this chronic
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Coping with a Chronic Illness: DCM and the Importance of Emotional and Mental Health
My name is Maureen Daniels and I am/was a dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patient for over 30 years. I developed cardiomyopathy at age 37, in 1985, and at that time, there was little specific drug treatment. I lived with the disease for 30 years, and was very blessed, as I was declining, to get a heart
Read More… from Coping with a Chronic Illness: DCM and the Importance of Emotional and Mental Health
Physical Fitness and DCM
We look forward to using this blog to share personal stories of individuals and their families who are impacted by DCM. This blog post was written by Greg Ruf, a DCM patient, as well as one of the founders and current president of the DCM Foundation. Greg shares how physical activity has remained an important