Medical bills, Heart Transplant Journey

I'm Patricia Kramer.

My friends call me Patty and this is my story.

I set up this Go Fund Me Page to lessen the burden and stress of my heart failure, monthly hospital admissions, open heart surgery, ablation, LVAD placement including at least 6 weeks in hospital, Dr appointments, heart medications, many, many tests, pre-op tests, post op tests, heart transplant work-up and evaluation, keeping up with daily bills while in the hospital and catching up when discharged. Insurance co-pays and deductables, Praying for the miracle of Heart transplant and everything involved. My husband staying with me for support, taking over most of housework to support me and truly joining me in fighting this battle for life. Please hear our story and help support us and fight this battle with us.

My story begins around May 2021 when I started feeling sick and thought maybe I had pnemonia. After two doctor appointments the second doctor sent me to emergency room. My ankles, feet and most of my body was swollen and we did not know what that meant. The emergency room Doctors did lots of tests and broke the news that I was in heart failure! This was soo shocking to me and my family. Our life has changed from carefree to worry that I will not be able to breath. The emergency room doctors admitted me to the hospital and they had to drain 30 pounds of fluid off of me so I could breath again. The cardiologist did a procedure where they go in through arteries to my heart to explore what is wrong with my heart. The cardiologist could find nothing to fix and said my heart failure was probably caused by a virus that went to and desroyed my heart. I had water in my lungs and around my heart. My ejection fraction was less than 30. I became progressively worse over the next year and spent half of April, May, June, July 2022 in the hospital because I could not breath and my heart was no longer able to pump well enough to function. My ejection fraction was now less than 10. The cardiologist implanted an ICD device in and by my heart in April.

By August 2022 I was rushed to the hospital and then Baylor St Lukes Medical Center downtown Houston and put in ICU needing help to breath. August 19, 2022 is the date the cardiac surgeon performed open heart surgery and placed a device called LVAD. LVAD is left ventricular assist device or a heart pump surgically implanted in my heart. LVAD is basically life support to make you stronger and more healthy and help you survive until you can have a heart transplant. The day before we were supposed to get discharged from the hospital my ICU device went off because my heart was beating 188 beats per min when we walked down the hospital hallway. Next, the cardiac surgeon did an operation called an ablation because scar tissue from surgery was probably causing my heart to beat too fast and my heart rythem was not good. The doctors and nurses and surgeons at Baylor St Lukes were saving my life every month and we are soo Grateful and Loving every day we are here together on this earth. Please pray for us, Patricia, Robert, Amber, Michael and Madison Kramer. Also, we are Gratefull for our extended family taking me to some of many Dr appointments and coming over to help. We are grateful for your prayers and support and donations, ThankYou for helping us fight this battle to live.

The LVAD team said we are starting on the heart transplant work-up and evaluation, We will give updates here on this page.

We are Grateful and Thankyou for taking the time to read my story.

Keep Praying and God Bless You.