Join us for an interview with Veronika and discover how she managed through her journey with cardiomyopathy, LVAD, and heart transplant. This is Veronika’s Healthful StoryTM. Please note that the video may only play in landscape mode on a mobile phone.
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Navigate Veronika’s Journey with Cardiomyopathy, LVAD, and Heart Transplant
00:22 My name is Veronica Stumpo and I’m from Arlington, Virginia
00:28 I am 30 years old
00:32 I received my heart when I was 20 though so I’m going on 10 years in December
02:02 We live in Colorado, and I’ve got two dogs we take them out on walks all the time they love it here
02:26 I was actually born with dilated cardiomyopathy which is a fancy way of saying an enlarged heart and it’s a genetic condition on my dad’s side and my dad actually received a heart transplant in the 80s when he was in his 30s which was still risky in the early days of transplants
02:42 He actually survived 20 plus years with his transplant
03:25 I was still a super energetic kid that just did cartwheels all over the place, so my mom signed me up for gymnastics to try and get some energy out
04:47 My father passed away when I was 18
05:09 He had told me he was feeling great as he had lost weight which is a common thing before your kidneys fail
05:21 Soon after that my heart was failing
05:25 I was struggling to go up the stairs to my dormitory since I lived on the sixth floor but I had been doing fine before that
05:32 I gained weight
06:20 You know a foreign country (in Poland) and you were having these difficulties getting up the stairs, etc. Was it easy to find access to medical attention or because of your condition were you already seeing a doctor?
06:34 My dad passed away in November and then we of course flew back for the funeral and then flew back for Christmas because we knew we should spend it with family and then my semester ended in February and just because him passing I decided I should go home and you know be with the family so I just came back home in February
07:01 I went to my doctor and they checked my heart and they said everything’s fine so I was like okay, I guess I’m good and then progressively I just got worse and worse. But it probably took about a year and I remember I got my wisdom teeth pulled and because I had heart stuff they gave me antibiotics and they put me fully under anesthesia under and I remember waking up and being violently sick
07:39 I left the hospital and went home but I was still sick and I couldn’t keep anything down
07:59 At this point I’d started breathing heavier and my mom was getting worried about my heart and everything so she took me back to my cardiologist who apparently the previous time I was there had lied to me and didn’t tell me that my ejection fraction had dropped
08:18 And now I was qualified as heart failure
09:54 We ended up going to the same hospital where my dad had his heart transplant in
10:27 I couldn’t walk and my mom had to carry me into the hospital
11:12 My mom ended up driving me to John Hopkins which is about an hour away from Washington DC
12:11 They tell me like how bad my heart is. My heart is barely functioning at this point because
13:26 They mentioned that I needed to get a transplant but I won’t survive waiting on the transplant list so I need to have a machine put in which is called a left ventricular assist device or an LVAD and it’s literally this machine that goes through your heart. It’s got a little motor in it and it pumps the blood for your heart and it comes out in your abdomen and it connects to a controller and the controller connects to batteries
15:04 I don’t remember going under for the LVAD procedure at all
19:50 After nearly a year on the LVAD, I finally got a call in December at 2 in the morning. They had a heart for me!!!!
20:49 And so I got to call my mom and my mom was ecstatic and she was waking everybody up in the house
21:30 And I remember going getting to the hospital and getting prepped for surgery and everything because you know they have to clean everything
21:49 I woke up a week and a half after that
22:44 My mom has a video of me walking for the first time with my heart and the video is pretty funny because the whole time it’s me and my mom bantering back and forth her being like “Ii don’t know if I’m recording this!”
24:58 How did you feel in that first few weeks with your new heart
25:09 I was so tired. I had to do these breathing exercises where you breathe into this like tube and it moves this little like ball up and I hated it
25:31 It was just so exhausting
25:54 I personally still have nausea issues that nobody has figured out
27:05 How has your life sort of adapted to the new heart now that we are 10 years down the road?
27:32 My biggest thing is heat makes me exhausted really fast so if I get too hot my heart starts racing and I just get really weak and faint so I try to not get too hot
30:06 My heart is great. The other parts of my body… they’re trying to figure things out
30:25 I don’t know if people thought heart failure was contagious or something but as soon as people found out that my heart was failing they just stopped talking to me
30:36 I’ve had some friends that I’ve known since middle school and they’ve been there since everything went down. They would come and drive out to the hospitals and see me
32:13 As you shared your journey there’s a really big hero and that’s your mom who went through a situation losing your father of course which which is as terrible as anything but then seeing her daughter faced with such a such a circumstance but being by your side this whole time
32:35 She was there for my dad’s transplant too so she already had to go through it with first her husband and then when I was born where they’re like you know, she might not survive and then when my heart failed
32:47 I have no idea how my mom did it
32:49 At this point she’s so unbelievably strong and supportive
33:32 She has unbelievable resolve and strength
35:24 My donor – her name was Nicole
35:33 She was a computer engineer and she was engaged and she was 25 when she passed but she was also adopted from Korea and it’s a bit ironic for me because my dad’s heart doner was also Korean so it’s kind of like we have this Korean heart connection even though he’s passed
37:37 My biggest advice is to actually listen to your doctors
37:58 There’s certain things that you need western modern day medicine
38:40 It gets better. The road never is smooth I’ll tell you that post-transplant you’re never gonna have a normal smooth life but you know everybody likes some sort of roller coaster
39:00 For me, my scars are something I’m proud of
39:07 As I said I look like I have a second belly button
39:10 I look like I have bullet holes from my chest tubes
39:13 I also had like an abdominal surgery later
39:16 I look like a hot mess but I mean I’m not ashamed of them
39:23 It’s part of who I am and it’s always a conversation starter