Posts by Damion Martin

Of all the stresses that come with congenital heart disease, one that doesn’t necessarily sit front and center is the prospect of our financial futures. As a CHD patient, I often look at my financial situation in the present and am consumed with the finer points of insurance coverage and deductibles, and less so with investments.

With my most recent diagnosis of pace-induced heart failure, I was faced with the realization that I hadn’t done much to help my wife and children thrive, should the darkest of days come sooner than expected. I remember driving home with a growing lump in my throat, playing through the scenario of what their lives would look like without me in it.

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Diagnosed with aortic stenosis at just three days old (and mitral stenosis later in my childhood), I grew up knowing the tedium of regular check-ups with a cardiologist. I appreciated the thinly veiled enthusiasm my parents would exude over a day off as a family, consisting of six to seven hours driving to and from the hospital. And I reveled in the freedom of college, where I could reinvent myself as someone who didn’t have a heart problem and could party like the rest of ‘em.

But as I got older, the pesky CHD label never completely wore off, and at 33 years old was informed that I needed to prepare myself for open heart surgery.

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