Chapters Transcript Video From ER to Feeling 40 Again In April I started getting very short of breath which caused me to go to the emergency room for the first time in my life I felt like I might might die. I didn't really have other symptoms, which is why in my mind I wasn't really that sick. Ultimately it was determined that the valve that was replaced in 2010 was at the end of its life cycle and was starting to leak. Mr. Koff started experiencing increased shortness of breath and fatigue, and that could be caused by a lot of different reasons, but his issue was that he had a leaky mitral valve. So every time his heart squeezed, the blood would go backwards into his left atrium and back into his lungs. The lungs start to fill with fluid and the heart has to work so much harder to get blood to the rest of the body. So left untreated, he would have inevitably escalated to heart failure if he didn't get this addressed. The first decision was what procedure. So now we're going to replace the valve. It became almost an emergency basis. My first conversation with Doctor Wynn, he was very open. Very candid, and I thought he was ultimately unbelievably professional. He said his recovery was, was better than the, the first couple of surgeries, which was amazing. He has his energy and, uh, and his life back. Today I'm feeling fantastic. After the first week, I started to get back into a normal life. I can walk 23 miles and not even break a sweat. I feel like I'm 40. Being involved in medicine is such a privilege to have someone come in and trust us with their heart and their life. If you don't feel good and you think you have a heart issue of any kind, don't procrastinate, go see somebody and that somebody should be Baptist Health Miami Cardiac and Vascular Institute. Now I have a new lease on life. If the life expectancy of my new valve is another 15 years, I'm gonna be 100, and I plan on being here. Created by
