Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy a.k.a HCM is a genetic disorder where the heart muscle thickens abnormally, obstructing the blood flow from the heart. It happens because of the abnormal genes. However, external factors like stress, hypertension and physical activities tend to progress the condition faster than estimated. Pacemakers and ICD treatments are available but it's just a treatment, not a cure. There is no cure for this condition.

What is HCM?

Well, getting right into the story, it all started in a pretty dramatic way. It was 3am on the 3rd of Nov 2020. I was unable to sleep that night because I was kind of excited tomorrow. I took an oath, I wanted to be feel better by doing the usuals, you know, hitting the gym, eating healthy and stuff 😪. Little did I know that my life was really about to change but for the worse. 
 
Somehow amidst all the excitement and adrenaline rush, I slept around 5am, probably only to wake up with a sharp stinging chest pain. I did not know what was happening to me but the pain was unbearable. I couldn't move, couldn't eat. Even breathing in was painful. I couldn't take it anymore and I kind of got a feeling that it wasn't just some muscle spasm, but something has really gone wrong in my body. So, I went to the emergency ward and the doctors were super quick in taking an x-ray, blood samples [ Twice. for my thin body ]. They said everything seems to be fine [ The nurse was pretty hot By the way 🤪] but they too didn't understand what was going wrong. After a couple of hours of lying in the bed, a cardiologist examined me with a 2D echo ultrasonic test. He saw something was odd but couldn't see it clearly. 
 
After examining me for about 20 min or so, the first thing he says to me is "Do not panic, there seems to be a hole in your heart. 🙂". Obviously, I went crazy hearing that. I was like "WAIT! A WHAT NOW!". He wanted me to come in again tomorrow to have a thorough checkup again to confirm that. I went home pretty much convinced that my whole life was depending on that hole. So, that's how it all began. The downfall, the end of the happy days in my life. Probably 🙂.

So that's how it all began...🤦🏻‍♂️

Ep 1 - The one with the diagnosis

That night I came home thinking and crying about the apparent hole in my heart. I could not believe what was happening to me. I was fine until yesterday and the next day I had a heart condition. I still had the chest pains, shortness of breath, I couldn't breathe properly or even take normal breaths. I still had all the plugs on my body that they put in during the tests and I fell asleep after a strange and confusing day. From that night onwards, I started having nightmares. The first one really shook me to my entire core like a butterfly effect. I don't remember the exact parts of the dream, but I do remember the ending, VIVIDLY. 
 
It went like this, I was coming to my room from GOD remembers where, [IRL, my bed is positioned exactly beside the entrance of my room ] and I see myself lying in the bed, gasping for breath. I try to wake me him [ me ] up [ more like resurrect myself ]. Whilst I was trying to wake him up, I feel a strange presence behind me. I look back and I see a grim reaper with a scythe standing behind, waiting to take me away. He starts grabbing me and take me [ the one that's trying to wake the sleeping me ]. with him. I hold onto the bed with one hand trying to resist the reaper. Somehow, I cut loose, out of the blue I suddenly wake up from my sleep, and see myself in the exact same position that the reaper left me. I was like " WTF DID I JUST EXPERIENCE 😭!! " . It felt so very real, got a feeling like I was doing an astral projection. I didn't really believe in astral projections until that point. That nightmare fucked me up so bad, I couldn't sleep for days. I was scared to sleep, to fall asleep, I thought I'd die because of shortness of breath or sudden heart attack [ because of the chest pains I was having ] if I'm not conscious or aware, [ Inner voice: UNAGI 😶👈🏼 ] and the reaper would take me if I fell asleep. With all those sleepless nights, my pain and struggle intensified, we'll get to that later. After waking up, I see all the plugs still attached to my body, I still couldn't believe that all of this was happening to me. Reality felt like a dream. My whole life started shattering right in front of my eyes and I couldn't do a single thing about it. I wished it was a dream. But it was real, and it was happening, so I had to prepare of what comes tomorrow after the thorough test. Saying that, coming to the test on the next day...
 
First thing that day, I went to the doctor unprepared to hear what he was going to say. He brought a better ultrasonic machine to test me this time. The test requires you to take deep breaths and hold them in , or sometimes breathe out and hold before breathing in again. The pain that I was in that day, it felt like I was tied to a bed and someone placed a giant mountain on my chest. I was struggling to go through with it, somehow I managed to bear the pain and complete the examination. The doc said two things, the first one he says, "Good thing! You don't have a hole in your heart 😁". I was like "Oh my LORD [ my stupid sarcastic brain goes Oh my lord of the rings 😆, I tell myself NOT NOW! 😑 ], Thank you 😌". 
Immediately he goes "You might have a congenital heart disease like a narrow valve or something like HCM, Is there anyone in your family that has/had/died because of a heart condition?". [ My inner voice immediately goes "Okay, so you mean to say that I was born wrong?" ]
 
I didn't know how to respond to that, I said "[Kind of, my grandpa died because of a heart attack and my cousin died after 2 months he was born because he had a hole in his heart, I have no idea about my father's side as my parents were divorced when I was 1. However, I had a few palpitation issues in the past and I had 2D echo tests for that [ a test way back in 2010 and in 2018 ]" . The doc asked me to bring those previous reports. Nobody knew what I was going through at this point, except my roommates [ and apparently "Friends" 😏 ]. One helluva roommates they were but that's another story. Even my family didn't know about the series of chest pain episodes that I was having. It was about time to tell them everything? Maybe. 🙂

Ep 2 - The one with the unreal struggle during pandemic

People say you shouldn't keep secrets from family and doctors. I agree with the latter but I'm not really sure about the first. I never call my family or anyone in fact, but I do attend their calls. My friends who are reading this, if you observe carefully, you will notice that I only called you once or twice in the last few years. I hide a lot of things from a lot of people just to not throw anyone into panic mode. I did the same this time as well. I didn't tell my mom what exactly was happening, but I did tell her some truth. She wondered why I called her and asked her about my previous heart reports.I told her that I caught cold and I went to see a doctor who then examined me and asked about the previous reports because he heard a heart murmur. She asked me if I was fine and I said "Yeah, it's just a little cold". You know when people say "Smile through the pain", figuratively it is motivating, yes, but literally it's on a whole other level. I couldn't even talk properly through the pain. Every breath was feeling like a knife stab when I tried to breathe normally because of the shortness of breath. After the call [ Inner feeling : ** a death defying stunt at that time 😓 ** ], She sent me those reports and I forwarded them to the doctor. Till this point, the doc was 80% sure that I had HCM. After I sent him my previous reports, the doctor was nowhere to be seen. 
 
I haven't heard from him since. I tried getting in touch with him, but it was no use, all my calls went directly to voicemail. Of course, it was understandable that the main reason for that was COVID. The doctors were busy in the COVID ward. I was in a very desperate position of help. The pain was intensifying everyday. I wish I could've stayed at the hospital but I couldn't afford the charges, so I visited the emergency ward everyday for a week. The doctors couldn't understand the cause of pain. The blood tests were showing that the troponin levels increased from 20 of 24 in a day [troponin levels: damaged heart (4-10 normal range, 39 probable heart attack)]. They injected me with morphine to ease the pain and sent me home. It was the story for a week and I was getting worse day by day. Breathing in was so hard, I was having sleep apneas. I couldn't get a cardiologist appointment. I needed someone, someone that I could rely on, someone that I truly believed would keep aside everything if I needed them, so out of desperation, I told a couple of friends what I was going through and asked them for help. 
 
[ NOTE: I WILL NOT BE DISCLOSING NAMES OF MY FRIENDS (NOW OR FURTHER) FOR PRIVACY CONCERNS ]
 
Both of them were seven seas away and timezones apart. One of them contacted the Indian embassy in Australia for me and asked for help. The consulate reached out to me on the next day and asked me what was wrong, My exact words were "I don't know. I can't talk, can't breathe, can't eat, can't move properly, can't sit/stand in one position for more than 2min. I've been trying to get a cardiologist's appointment but I'm not able to find any. PLEASE HELP ME! 😣". She was kind enough to listen everything and told me that she won't be able to help me find a doctor immediately but, she suggested me to find a private clinic even if it's not covered in my health insurance. I couldn't travel for longer periods of time [ more than 20min 🤦🏻‍♂️ ] so I called up a small cardiologist clinic close to me and booked an appointment for initial consultation [ Inner voice: ** Initial consultation is better than no consultation at all 🥲 ** ]. I did wait for a couple of days for the confirmation of the appointment. Then I received a mail that says "Dr. Jeffery Franco will see you on the 10th Dec 2020". I knew the private clinic was going to cost me more than I could afford, but I didn't really have a choice. I had enough in my credit card.... or did I? 🙂

Hey There! 👋🏼 Welcome! My Name is Sasipreetham. Close ones call me MJ. Yeah, you guessed it right, MJ as in Michael Jackson 😅

What is HCM?