Speaker 1: They did a CT scan, and my doctor he was like,
Speaker 1: this is maybe a fifty to fifty percent chance of survival.
Speaker 2: They finally like allowed me to let the kids in
Speaker 2: for one afternoon, and I just remember being like, I've
Speaker 2: got to take a bunch of pictures because I'm not
Speaker 2: sure if they're ever.
Speaker 3: Going to be able to see them again.
Speaker 4: If we don't get people the necessary treatment early on,
Speaker 4: it can impair your physical and mental health.
Speaker 5: I was in shock. Can I fight this? Can I
Speaker 5: beat this? Is this something that's going to just change
Speaker 5: my life completely? Like? Are these my last days?
Speaker 6: How terrifying would it be to fight an unknown enemy,
Speaker 6: one you didn't recognize and didn't see coming. What if
Speaker 6: that enemy was coming from within a disease but even
Speaker 6: doctors couldn't identify. Nearly half of all Americans suffer from
Speaker 6: some chronic illness, and many struggle for an accurate diagnosis.
Speaker 6: These are their stories. I'm Lauren Bribe Pacheco, and this
Speaker 6: is symptomatic. So tell me a little bit about you
Speaker 6: as a person beyond a husband and a dad. What
Speaker 6: are your favorite hobbies? What are your passions? What do
Speaker 6: you love to do?
Speaker 7: So?
Speaker 5: I love to sing, I love to dance.
Speaker 1: I used to play the cello and have on occasion
Speaker 1: brought out my cello.
Speaker 5: To practice a little bit.
Speaker 1: I love sports, particularly basketball, so I love to play
Speaker 1: basketball when I regular chance, as well as watch the
Speaker 1: NBAWA College basketball.
Speaker 6: Jerrod Green also loves sharing his passions for basketball and
Speaker 6: music with his four year old daughter and six year
Speaker 6: old son. What's your go to karaoke song?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I've been trying to figure this out.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty down with anything R and B. You know,
Speaker 1: my favorite group of all time is voiced him In,
Speaker 1: so I often lean into them for music inspiration.
Speaker 5: I also love us here.
Speaker 6: A quintessential dad striving to be in the moment with
Speaker 6: his kids as much as possible. And even though he's
Speaker 6: now only thirty one years old, he has the calm
Speaker 6: and coolness of someone much older. Just ask his wife Courtney.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jerrod is like the king of chill, Like he
Speaker 2: is so relaxed, Like he's pretty much like an unshakable person.
Speaker 2: In college, everybody's like, oh yeah, he's definitely a pot
Speaker 2: and Girod is actually like stone cold, sober, straight edge
Speaker 2: by choice. He just brings that like ultra calm presence
Speaker 2: to anything that he does, but also like the most compassionate,
Speaker 2: caring person, so he got a social work degree, has
Speaker 2: worked in higher ed, cares so much about his students
Speaker 2: and the people that he's served in the past, and
Speaker 2: now does like diversity work for children and family services.
Speaker 3: So like everything that he.
Speaker 2: Does is just like with that servant heart.
Speaker 6: Courtney and Girod have been together since high school, both
Speaker 6: growing up in Minnesota. They first noticed each other at
Speaker 6: a Crosstown football game and instantly became friends. That friendship
Speaker 6: quickly turned into dating and prom and eventually into a
Speaker 6: lifelong partnership.
Speaker 1: She's my best friend. I feel like I can talk
Speaker 1: to her about anything, go through with anything which is
Speaker 1: really meaningful, and I'm glad that our relationship is built
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 6: And Grod would undoubtedly need that support as a mysterious
Speaker 6: disease turns his life upside down in the span of
Speaker 6: just a couple of months. By the middle of twenty twenty,
Speaker 6: at the height of the COVID pandemic, Drod started feeling
Speaker 6: new sensations that he'd never recognized in his body before.
Speaker 6: All of his instincts warned him that something was wrong.
Speaker 6: Will you tell me the first time that you realized
Speaker 6: you had something that you would have categorized as a symptom.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it was gradual.
Speaker 1: I would say that my experience with symptoms is very hindsight.
Speaker 1: In the moment, it wasn't like, oh, there's something really
Speaker 1: wrong with me. At least at the beginning stages. I
Speaker 1: had allergies, or what presented as allergies, you know, stuffy,
Speaker 1: I was coughing a lot, my throat was itchy, and
Speaker 1: so I just took allergy medications hoping that it would
Speaker 1: go away.
Speaker 6: At the time, Drod did live in South Carolina, where
Speaker 6: allergies were a pretty regular thing for him. I tried
Speaker 6: brushing it off that the symptoms would linger.
Speaker 1: After a few weeks, things hadn't really improved, and so
Speaker 1: that's when I started thinking, you know, there's something going
Speaker 1: on here. I don't know what it is, but usually
Speaker 1: when I have allergies, they're gone after about a week.
Speaker 1: So now that it's been several weeks, I tried switching
Speaker 1: allergy medication to see if that would help. It didn't,
Speaker 1: and actually things started to get worse. My appetite was
Speaker 1: starting to wane a little bit. That's when I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I need to probably talk to someone
Speaker 1: about what's going on.
Speaker 6: Amidst the consistent coughing and congestion. Girod was also juggling
Speaker 6: being a father of two young kids, studying for his doctorate,
Speaker 6: and working a strenuous full time job. You're in school,
Speaker 6: you are working incredibly long hours to provide for the
Speaker 6: growing family that you have. There was a lot on
Speaker 6: your plate. And how does that impact the time you
Speaker 6: take for yourself and your health?
Speaker 5: What time?
Speaker 1: I guess that's how I answer that question is there
Speaker 1: wasn't time. I wasn't taking care of myself. I wasn't
Speaker 1: taking care of my health. I was really just in
Speaker 1: autopilot's survival mode. I did the basic minimum to stay
Speaker 1: afloat and stay alive, and that was my main focus
Speaker 1: was I'm going to eat lunch because it's something I
Speaker 1: need to do.
Speaker 2: Just shortly before he got sick, he was like up
Speaker 2: in the morning, leaving for work at work, would finish work,
Speaker 2: was doing a student activity or something until seven, and
Speaker 2: then needs to go to class and doesn't get home
Speaker 2: until ten thirty and all throughout that time, like I'm
Speaker 2: trying to text him, like, hey, don't forget to eat something. Hey,
Speaker 2: are you like drinking any water? You know, just like
Speaker 2: the self.
Speaker 3: Care was just not present because he was so so busy.
Speaker 6: What's going on in terms of your personal, professional, and world?
Speaker 6: Yeah at the time that your symptoms are getting worse.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so personal.
Speaker 1: I think it's the culmination of work, stress, being in
Speaker 1: a PhD program, family, and really trying to balance all
Speaker 1: of those things. Another piece is the diagnosis of type
Speaker 1: two diabetes and having that weird sensation of slurring of
Speaker 1: words and feeling unwell. And then in February of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, my dad was also diagnosed with type two diabetes.
Speaker 1: And he found this out because he got COVID and
Speaker 1: was admitted into the ICU for about two and a
Speaker 1: half weeks, and he got really sick in the ICU,
Speaker 1: and they were thinking that they would have to put
Speaker 1: him in a medically induced coma. And I know that
Speaker 1: so many people don't wake up from.
Speaker 5: Those things, and so.
Speaker 1: I think the stress of my dad having in near
Speaker 1: death experience was also taking its toll.
Speaker 2: It was really difficult for everyone. And then I'm at
Speaker 2: home with two small kids, trying to support my in
Speaker 2: laws who are going through this giant health issue as well,
Speaker 2: and it's just like layers, layers, layers, layers, layers, and
Speaker 2: on top of that, were like trying to ever eat
Speaker 2: a meal as a family in a calm way, or
Speaker 2: like trying to ever just get time together he and
Speaker 2: I and remember where we come from, right, Like, this
Speaker 2: is such a cool, beautiful love story. But when you're
Speaker 2: like in the thick of all this weird stuff, it's
Speaker 2: hard to remember that.
Speaker 6: His dad would recover from this life threatening battle with COVID,
Speaker 6: but it was a harsh reminder of how little time
Speaker 6: there can be left with the ones you love. The
Speaker 6: stress triggers continued to pile on Girad. At this point,
Speaker 6: he was working vigorously in the Department of Diversity, Equity
Speaker 6: and Inclusion for the Minnesota Court Systems.
Speaker 5: At the time.
Speaker 1: With my job, they were overseeing a very high profile
Speaker 1: trial related to the murder of George Floyd, and up
Speaker 1: until that point, I hadn't seen any videos, I hadn't
Speaker 1: seen any surrounding information. I tried to keep some distance
Speaker 1: because that imagery of black people being brutally murdered or
Speaker 1: experiencing violence is one that I tried to avoid and
Speaker 1: working for that organization. It was hard, and instead of
Speaker 1: processing my own feelings, emotions and pain around it, I
Speaker 1: was helping other people do that for themselves.
Speaker 6: He couldn't get away from work because his work was
Speaker 6: front page, headline news.
Speaker 3: Every single day. Every single day.
Speaker 2: We had like a small bedroom that he had a
Speaker 2: desk shoved in the corner, so like court TV was
Speaker 2: just on in our bedroom all day long. And then
Speaker 2: trying to just like be a person on the planet
Speaker 2: still where this is all that anybody's talking about, between
Speaker 2: this trial and COVID and everything else.
Speaker 6: Under the suffocating stressors, drawed symptoms would quickly begin to escalate.
Speaker 6: In addition to the shortness of breath and sore throat,
Speaker 6: he was now having trouble keeping food down, and he
Speaker 6: would wake up in the middle of the night struggling
Speaker 6: to catch his breath. When did you decide this isn't normal,
Speaker 6: I'm going to the doctor exactly.
Speaker 1: I actually did doctor and Demand a couple of times
Speaker 1: and consulted with them, and at that time, they would
Speaker 1: often prescribe steroids or antibiotics to see if that would help,
Speaker 1: because they're thinking, you know, something's wrong, maybe I have
Speaker 1: post nasal drip. I also got an inhaler with them
Speaker 1: because this is about the time where I was having
Speaker 1: some issues with breathing and having a lot of shortness
Speaker 1: of breath, especially at night. So then I called them again.
Speaker 1: They prescribed another round of steroids and antibiotics, and then
Speaker 1: we're like, you should follow up with your primary care doctor.
Speaker 1: And when I did, they gave me more steroids and
Speaker 1: we're like, we don't really know what's going on.
Speaker 6: I should imagine that it was just masking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the real issue, absolutely and probably worsting the issue
Speaker 1: as well. You know, it was a few weeks after
Speaker 1: that where I had to just leave work.
Speaker 5: You know, I couldn't really eat anything.
Speaker 1: My head was hurting, and I was just down in
Speaker 1: that moment, and so that's when my wife was like,
Speaker 1: something's wrong, Like you need to go to the emergency room.
Speaker 1: I think in that moment, I was just thinking, what's happening?
Speaker 1: Am I going to feel this way forever? What does
Speaker 1: this even mean? Like what is this coming from? And
Speaker 1: so there's just a lot of questions about my physical health.
Speaker 6: So what happened once you got to the er.
Speaker 1: They did a basic metabolic panel, saw that my members
Speaker 1: weren't astronomically in the the yellow or the red, and
Speaker 1: we're pretty much just like, we don't really know what's
Speaker 1: happening with you. So I guess follow up with your
Speaker 1: primary care, but you know, there's not really much we
Speaker 1: can do for you.
Speaker 5: So I went back home.
Speaker 1: And so I think that it was just a combination
Speaker 1: of acute situations that were happening in that moment and
Speaker 1: then just a lifetime of you know, trauma, stress, racism, poverty,
Speaker 1: and other factors that I think really created this perfect storm.
Speaker 1: And that's just how my body reacted.
Speaker 6: Jerrad couldn't keep up with the symptoms, which kept piling up.
Speaker 6: He had very little appetite. Normal everyday activities like playing
Speaker 6: basketball with his son were now becoming nearly impossible. Time
Speaker 6: his breathing problems worsened to the point where he could
Speaker 6: barely sleep, if at all. So what wound you back
Speaker 6: up in the er again? A few weeks later? What's
Speaker 6: going on?
Speaker 1: We're living in an apartment at that time, and my
Speaker 1: parents were coming by to have a cookout with us,
Speaker 1: and so I was still not feeling great, but I
Speaker 1: felt a little bit better that day, so I was
Speaker 1: able to go down to the area by the pool
Speaker 1: where our shared grill space was and sat in one
Speaker 1: of the chairs with my family.
Speaker 2: And then by the time he got there, he was
Speaker 2: just like slumped over and just like could not catch
Speaker 2: his breath.
Speaker 1: That walk felt very tenuous, like I struggled a lot,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't that far of a walk, like strew me.
Speaker 5: Out of breath. I didn't feel well.
Speaker 1: We had some Beyond burgers and I think I ate
Speaker 1: half of one of those burgers and maybe a couple
Speaker 1: of chips, and I was able to get it all down.
Speaker 1: So I thought that things were improving and going better.
Speaker 1: And then I remember, maybe thirty minutes later, feeling horribly,
Speaker 1: so I went and laid down.
Speaker 2: I had to drive him like the half of block
Speaker 2: it was from the barbecue pit area back home.
Speaker 5: It didn't get better, and then I ended up throwing
Speaker 5: up the food.
Speaker 3: Gerad was like the persistent optimist.
Speaker 2: So for him to be saying like I don't know,
Speaker 2: I just don't think it's going to get better, worried
Speaker 2: it's going to be like this forever.
Speaker 3: This is just not typical.
Speaker 2: He has like a nickname that he's the quixotic one,
Speaker 2: like the one that's just painfully optimistic, almost to the
Speaker 2: point that it's nonsensical.
Speaker 1: That's when my wife and my parents were like, all right,
Speaker 1: I think you need to go back.
Speaker 8: To the er.
Speaker 6: Rush to an er. The fearful couple was at the
Speaker 6: end of their rope managing Jirod's symptoms without a proper diagnosis.
Speaker 2: His blood oxygen started to decrease, his heart rate was increasing.
Speaker 2: We were not seeing any improvements.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 2: Thing was getting better. It was only getting worse. I
Speaker 2: just came with like an agenda of things that I
Speaker 2: wanted tested for. I was like, is this an autoimmune issue?
Speaker 2: Are we talking about lupus? What's going on with why
Speaker 2: he feels like he can't get a good breath? Is
Speaker 2: there something going on with his lungs? Can we do
Speaker 2: a scan of his lungs?
Speaker 6: Courtney was prepared to advocate for Jirod, something he was
Speaker 6: in no condition to do himself. But even as they
Speaker 6: scrambled to make an action plan, which was complicated by
Speaker 6: the fact that they were in the middle of the pandemic,
Speaker 6: the doctors felt like there may not be much time
Speaker 6: left for him.
Speaker 2: They finally like, allowed me to let the kids in
Speaker 2: for one afternoon, and I just like remember being like,
Speaker 2: I've got to take a bunch of pictures of this
Speaker 2: because I'm not sure if we're ever like if they're
Speaker 2: ever going to be able to see him again because
Speaker 2: it's COVID, so like they're making a one time exception
Speaker 2: for them to come in and see him.
Speaker 6: But how are you keeping a brave face with him?
Speaker 6: How are you?
Speaker 2: I just left the room a lot, like I would
Speaker 2: just be like, Okay, I'm gonna grab some snacks, weir bit,
Speaker 2: you know, And what would you do in the hallway
Speaker 2: just sobbing. I would go to the little chapel that
Speaker 2: they had there. We have a Christian faith, and I
Speaker 2: would just sit there and be like, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Like, we've answered your call.
Speaker 2: We are taking care of this family just as we
Speaker 2: feel we've been called to do.
Speaker 3: And now now what.
Speaker 6: With Courtney's fierce advocacy, the doctors finally do a CT scan,
Speaker 6: which would hold the necessary clues as to what was
Speaker 6: causing Drod's rapid health decline.
Speaker 1: So when I finally got the CT scan, I mean
Speaker 1: nothing could have prepared me for what information would come
Speaker 1: back from that.
Speaker 6: We'll be right back with Symptomatic a medical mystery podcast.
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Speaker 6: Now back to Symptomatic, a medical mystery podcast. Jerrod Green
Speaker 6: approached most of what life through at him with a
Speaker 6: smile juggling a full life at work and his PhD
Speaker 6: studies and at home as a proud husband and father,
Speaker 6: but rapidly the symptoms of a perplexing condition landed him
Speaker 6: in the emergency room, hoping to find answers before it
Speaker 6: was too late. What were your biggest fears in those moments?
Speaker 2: There are so many fears that are so layered. It's
Speaker 2: like what are we doing here right? Like is he
Speaker 2: going to have to stop working? And my persistent fear
Speaker 2: is like what are we going to do to get
Speaker 2: him the care that he needs?
Speaker 6: Through fear and confusion of her own, Courtney continued to
Speaker 6: show up for Girod when he needed it most, pushing
Speaker 6: for answers until the doctors found the clue they were
Speaker 6: looking for. On a CT scan, they found that part
Speaker 6: of Grod's spleen had died off because of a blood clot.
Speaker 6: Seeing the blood clot led the doctors to order an
Speaker 6: echo cardiogram to get a better picture of the.
Speaker 1: Heart, and that's when they found that I had not
Speaker 1: only a reduced objection fraction, but also enlargement within my
Speaker 1: heart as well. And that's when the doctor later came
Speaker 1: in and diagnosed me.
Speaker 5: With congestive heart failure.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anyone with heart failure or even heart disease.
Speaker 1: I didn't really know what heart failure meant to me.
Speaker 1: It's such a dooming term to call it heart failure,
Speaker 1: like my heart has failed, and that means maybe I'm
Speaker 1: not going to make it out of this.
Speaker 2: As doctor said, you have heart failure. It's very significant,
Speaker 2: it's very severe. Your heart is almost non functional, and
Speaker 2: it's really bad. So we think we should transfer you
Speaker 2: to Greenville, which is like the next biggest town. I'm
Speaker 2: just sitting there, silent, crying, trying to ask questions about
Speaker 2: like the practical reality about what that means. Because you're
Speaker 2: saying heart failure, I don't know what that means. That
Speaker 2: doesn't mean anything to me.
Speaker 1: You know, my doctor at the time, who's not a
Speaker 1: heart failure specialist, he's like, this is maybe a fifty
Speaker 1: to fifty percent chance of survival and that you probably
Speaker 1: should start looking into long term disability and maybe look
Speaker 1: to stop working because this is going to be a
Speaker 1: long road for you.
Speaker 6: I can't imagine how frightening and difficult that must have been.
Speaker 6: It must have been like waking up into a nightmare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so at the time I was in the
Speaker 1: hospital thinking, you know, is this going to get better?
Speaker 5: Can I fight this? Can I beat this?
Speaker 1: Is this something that's going to just change my life completely?
Speaker 1: Am I not going to make it out of the hospital?
Speaker 1: Like are these my last days? And so it was
Speaker 1: really tough and stressful time, and part of me was
Speaker 1: in shock, and part of me, I feel, couldn't even
Speaker 1: bring myself to process that information.
Speaker 2: And I was like, how how are you feeling? And
Speaker 2: he was like, I just don't even really know. And
Speaker 2: that was like the first time I saw him cry
Speaker 2: in the whole process. And I just don't think there's
Speaker 2: anything worse that could have been said to Jerrod, like
Speaker 2: this devoted husband and father than like fifty fifty chicks.
Speaker 6: After terrifying months of uncertainty, Jerrod and Courtney finally had
Speaker 6: a name for the disease that had flipped their lives
Speaker 6: upside down, congestive heart failure, But they were still left
Speaker 6: with many unanswered questions For people who don't know, Can
Speaker 6: you just break down, by definition exactly what congestive heart
Speaker 6: failure is? Yeah, so our heart has many different things
Speaker 6: it does. I often talk about it as plumbing which
Speaker 6: is the artery is that's where we have heart attacks.
Speaker 6: And then we have electricity, which is the way our
Speaker 6: heart beats, and then we have the structure of our heart,
Speaker 6: and that's where congestive heart failure comes in. That's doctor
Speaker 6: Courtney Jordan Beckler, the medical director of Health Equity and
Speaker 6: health Promotion at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation.
Speaker 4: So, when the blood goes into the heart and then
Speaker 4: comes out, the percentage of blood that goes in versus
Speaker 4: going out, that's called our ejection fraction, and that's really
Speaker 4: the pump of the heart. Fifty five percent of that
Speaker 4: blood volume is what we consider normal.
Speaker 6: That's a normal functioning heart.
Speaker 4: So it's something you don't want less and you don't
Speaker 4: want more, and so there's all sorts of definitions, but
Speaker 4: for sure, less than forty five percent is when we
Speaker 4: start to classify mild heart failure. It's more severe at
Speaker 4: thirty five percent, and then very severe at twenty five percent,
Speaker 4: and under is more advanced heart failure.
Speaker 6: How can can just a heart failure impact people's lives?
Speaker 6: Heart failure if we don't do anything.
Speaker 4: About it, on average, fifty percent of people will die
Speaker 4: in five years.
Speaker 6: And so it's a big deal.
Speaker 4: It can be an end stage process in terms of
Speaker 4: death if we don't get people the necessary treatment early on,
Speaker 4: and I think importantly to many of these conversations, it
Speaker 4: can impair your physical and mental health.
Speaker 6: Are there things about his specific case also, just in
Speaker 6: terms of his age that might have made a quicker
Speaker 6: diagnosis more difficult? What stuck out as unusual? Yeah, really
Speaker 6: great question.
Speaker 4: I think that because Girod is a little bit younger,
Speaker 4: we often think about heart disease impacting people only when
Speaker 4: they get old, incorrectly. In fact, you know, one of
Speaker 4: the fastest growing demographics of heart attacks is women aged
Speaker 4: thirty five to forty five, which a lot of people
Speaker 4: don't know. But the point being, some of these types
Speaker 4: of statistics take a long time for physicians to start
Speaker 4: to pick up on and see that, gosh, we're seeing
Speaker 4: Unfortunately some of these diagnoses at younger and younger ages.
Speaker 4: So I do think unfortunately that was one of the
Speaker 4: challenges with Drod's diagnosis, is that had he been older,
Speaker 4: we would have been more likely to think of that faster.
Speaker 4: It's definitely not an excuse, but I think that is
Speaker 4: a reality.
Speaker 6: Gerard was only twenty nine years old when he was
Speaker 6: diagnosed with co est of heart failure, unusually young for
Speaker 6: someone to experience such significant cardiac issues. He was put
Speaker 6: on a regiment of medicines and also given a life fest,
Speaker 6: a defibrillator he needs to wear constantly in case his
Speaker 6: heart has to be shocked back into a normal rhythm.
Speaker 6: Though he had an answer for what had been plaguing
Speaker 6: him in many ways, his diagnosis only opened the door
Speaker 6: to a host of new questions.
Speaker 1: What does this mean for my life and my family?
Speaker 1: If I do have a fifty to fifty percent chance,
Speaker 1: does that mean I'm not going to make it? And
Speaker 1: if not, what's going to happen to my family at
Speaker 1: that point?
Speaker 6: Wow? And I mean talk about an undiagnosed illness and
Speaker 6: enemy from within? How did you feel about your own heart,
Speaker 6: about your own body in that moment?
Speaker 1: I guess I just was thinking what did I do
Speaker 1: to fail my body?
Speaker 5: Or what did my body do to fail me?
Speaker 1: And it's hard to not think, you know, what's wrong
Speaker 1: with my heart?
Speaker 5: Like why did.
Speaker 1: This happen to me? Is it because of something I did?
Speaker 1: Or the ways I'm not taking care of myself? And
Speaker 1: in some ways I think that I wasn't set up
Speaker 1: or positioned well in a lot of different arenas to
Speaker 1: do that. But I think that I had a lot
Speaker 1: of self blame. I was like, how did I let
Speaker 1: it get to this?
Speaker 6: At this point, you at least had the life fest
Speaker 6: to have you though.
Speaker 1: The life fest it was helpful, but it's not perfect either.
Speaker 1: It would beep in the middle of the night and
Speaker 1: I'd have to readjust it. The first time that it
Speaker 1: beat was terrifying because it's like, oh no, it's something happening.
Speaker 5: You know. Ended up just being that the pads just
Speaker 5: need to be shifted.
Speaker 1: But it was also just hard to live life with this,
Speaker 1: you know, five pound battery pack attached to my body
Speaker 1: at all times.
Speaker 6: His kids were only two and four when he was diagnosed,
Speaker 6: so much of their lives are ahead of them. The
Speaker 6: gravity of what this meant for his life was constantly
Speaker 6: on his mind for a new normal is what led
Speaker 6: him to the Minnesota Hard Institute and his relationship with
Speaker 6: doctor Jordan Beckler. Where was he in his diagnostic journey
Speaker 6: when he first cross paths with you?
Speaker 4: So he had already been formally diagnosed and was actively
Speaker 4: on his treatment plan, but I think he was in
Speaker 4: a place where he was able to kind of look
Speaker 4: back and think about how things might have been different
Speaker 4: in his journey with different additional help and opportunities along
Speaker 4: the way from the health system. So I think from
Speaker 4: a traditional treatment perspective, he was getting what he needed,
Speaker 4: But what he was specifically reaching.
Speaker 6: Out to us about is some of the social support.
Speaker 4: We can't disconnect our head from our body. We are
Speaker 4: whole human beings, and unfortunately, as I'm sure many of
Speaker 4: your listeners know, sometimes in the way healthcare is practice now,
Speaker 4: we do that. So I think that what Gerard was
Speaker 4: looking for in part was that it took I believe
Speaker 4: seven months for him to hear back from a social
Speaker 4: worker and just navigating different changes in his life that
Speaker 4: he was planning to make with work and family and
Speaker 4: figuring out what that looked like living with a chronic disease.
Speaker 6: I think that was what he was hoping to get
Speaker 6: more of.
Speaker 1: So she's very steeped into heart failure and health as
Speaker 1: relates to women, people of color, and also thinking about
Speaker 1: the environmental factors that impact people's health. She's really just
Speaker 1: been a great thought partner and is a leader in
Speaker 1: this space and someone who I have been able to
Speaker 1: go to get feedback, ideas, recommendations, and just general insight
Speaker 1: into better understanding heart failure.
Speaker 6: More deeply, how important as a doctor is taking into
Speaker 6: account the environment, mental factors, and stressors that a patient
Speaker 6: is dealing with on a daily basis.
Speaker 9: So it's critical we know that up to a third
Speaker 9: of all cardiovascular disease is caused from poor mental health,
Speaker 9: and that includes things like social isolation, anger, stress, anxiety, depression,
Speaker 9: bipolar disorder, you know, schizophrenia, really severe types of mental health.
Speaker 4: So it's actually as much of an impact as having
Speaker 4: abdominal obesity or smoking, But we don't talk about it
Speaker 4: in the same way as physicians, as healthcare folks in general,
Speaker 4: and unfortunately, because we don't have a pill for that,
Speaker 4: we get nervous to ask. But to what you're saying,
Speaker 4: it's critical that we understand that has an impact not
Speaker 4: only on the ability of the body to adequately fight disease,
Speaker 4: whether it's COVID or ongoing heart issues, but it also
Speaker 4: impacts our ability to take medications on a routine basis,
Speaker 4: our ability to get outside and go for a walk,
Speaker 4: or nourish ourselves with good foods.
Speaker 6: Navigating proper health management can be a journey all on
Speaker 6: its own, one that rivaled even the treacherous road to
Speaker 6: the proper diagnosis. However, finding empowering care and support is
Speaker 6: what truly changed the course of Girod's life. He now
Speaker 6: has found a place and people who are there to
Speaker 6: help him take care of his mind, body, and spirit.
Speaker 2: We've talked about, like maybe we want to move out
Speaker 2: of the freezing, bitter cold someday, and it's like, no,
Speaker 2: we're not going to leave the Minneapolis Heart Institute. Like
Speaker 2: this is where we are. We have such an amazing team,
Speaker 2: and like we just feel so so lucky. Not everybody
Speaker 2: has health insurance, not everybody has the resources that they
Speaker 2: need to access that, but like it's such an amazing
Speaker 2: place and I hope that everybody that needs it can
Speaker 2: have it.
Speaker 6: Girrod has now started to find a relatively stable pattern
Speaker 6: in his life. He switched from the life best to
Speaker 6: an internal defibrillator called an ICD, making it much easier
Speaker 6: and more comfortable to move around. He's also realized how
Speaker 6: lonely this diagnostic journey felt at times. Even though he
Speaker 6: did have so much family support, he was missing the
Speaker 6: connection to people who were going through a similar journey
Speaker 6: to talk with and to share with. So Girod is
Speaker 6: now using his story to make sure no one else
Speaker 6: with heart failure has to be missing that important piece.
Speaker 6: When did you realize that you needed to connect with
Speaker 6: a larger community? When did you realize that you needed
Speaker 6: support from other people who were going through what you
Speaker 6: now had on your plate.
Speaker 1: As a black person who very much believes and community
Speaker 1: as part of our healing process. It was part of
Speaker 1: our journey, as part of how we raise kids. It's
Speaker 1: not just about medications and limiting sodium and water intake
Speaker 1: and working out. It's about community, it's about joy, It's
Speaker 1: about healing with other people. And this is something that's
Speaker 1: true about my community in general, is that if there's
Speaker 1: a space that doesn't.
Speaker 5: Exist for us, we're going to create a space.
Speaker 4: That's what I did, and I don't know if Gerrod
Speaker 4: explained that to you. That's part of when we met
Speaker 4: was in this quest to start a support group. Now,
Speaker 4: I've been a part of support group since my time
Speaker 4: in Fellowship, particularly because we have so many disparities with
Speaker 4: women heart disease, and so I helped lead a support
Speaker 4: group at that time.
Speaker 1: It's been great. And as much as I think that
Speaker 1: maybe I've helped people, they've helped me as well. So
Speaker 1: I think that I've stepped into this whole new world
Speaker 1: of not only DEI work, but advocacy, health equity. There's
Speaker 1: a world out there of research and things that people
Speaker 1: are understanding about the physiological impacts of racism, stress, poverty
Speaker 1: on communities, and particularly black communities. And I think that
Speaker 1: society tells us that our outcomes are our fault and
Speaker 1: our fault alone. Now I'm thinking about not only how
Speaker 1: do I maintain my own health, but how do I
Speaker 1: help other folks have access to better care so that
Speaker 1: if they are at risk or experience heart failure, that
Speaker 1: they can get the level of care that I got
Speaker 1: and the level of support that I got.
Speaker 6: The same King of Chill, eternal optimist and constant rock
Speaker 6: of support for Courtney, is now giving his energy to
Speaker 6: make sure other people don't have to wait as long
Speaker 6: to find a diagnosis or community with shared experiences. This
Speaker 6: drive pushed Drawd to start posting about his journey on Instagram.
Speaker 1: And I remember my wife and sister were just talking
Speaker 1: about how ever, since I was with heart failure, I
Speaker 1: have like these really critical and direct hot takes. I
Speaker 1: think that we kind of joked around like heart Failure
Speaker 1: hot takes, and I was like, you know what, this
Speaker 1: is actually kind of cool. We should do something with this.
Speaker 1: And from there I created the Instagram page heart Failure
Speaker 1: hot Takes as a way really to share my story
Speaker 1: and in some ways it was about community, but in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways it was just therapeutic for me
Speaker 1: to share.
Speaker 4: Gerard is definitely somebody that is living his life. He
Speaker 4: is thriving, He's living alongside his diagnosis. He has definitely
Speaker 4: not become his diagnosis. Also, he is out trying to
Speaker 4: make this easier for other people. I just, both personally
Speaker 4: and professionally, have so much respect for that.
Speaker 1: And the last thing that I will say is take
Speaker 1: the time to appreciate and show gratitude for yourself and
Speaker 1: for others in your life, because it's hard to do
Speaker 1: this without.
Speaker 5: Any of that.
Speaker 1: And the more gratitude and compassionate you show yourself and
Speaker 1: to others, the easier this becomes as well.
Speaker 2: The hope that I have for everyone is that they
Speaker 2: know that they're allowed to advocate for themselves. I think
Speaker 2: so often we kind of get that white coat syndrome,
Speaker 2: not just with our own stress around medical providers, but
Speaker 2: just about you know where our agency lies. Don't be
Speaker 2: afraid to keep asking questions. Don't be afraid to ask
Speaker 2: them to note it in your chart that they are
Speaker 2: declining your request for a test to be run like
Speaker 2: that is within your right to want the best for.
Speaker 3: Yourself and the people that you love.
Speaker 6: You can follow Girod's journey with heart failure on Instagram
Speaker 6: at heart Failure Hot Takes.
Speaker 1: My name is Gerrod Green and I was twenty nine
Speaker 1: years old when I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
Speaker 6: On the next episode of Symptomatic Chris Thaudi had a
Speaker 6: simple case of indigestion, but things quickly became unmanageable, losing
Speaker 6: control of his GI flares. No intervention could seem to
Speaker 6: ease his suffering.
Speaker 11: I drove myself to the hospital, to the emergency room
Speaker 11: in a sheer panic because I was worried if I
Speaker 11: called the ambulance, you know, they wouldn't get there in
Speaker 11: time or whatever. And I had never felt anything like
Speaker 11: that before, pain radiating from everywhere. That's essentially what it
Speaker 11: felt like.
Speaker 6: Uncover what sent his body into a full allergic spiral symptomatic.
Speaker 6: A Medical Mystery podcast is a production of Ruby's Studio
Speaker 6: from iHeartMedia. Our show was hosted by me Lauren brad Pacheco.
Speaker 6: Executive producers are Matt Romano and myself. Our EP of
Speaker 6: post production is James Foster. Our producers are Sierra Kaiser
Speaker 6: and John Irwin, and this episode was researched by Diana Davis.
Speaker 7: In Trusto Sukubatu Valsartan Tablets is the number one heart
Speaker 7: failure brand prescribed by cardiologists and has helped over one
Speaker 7: million people. It's a prescription medicine that treats adults with
Speaker 7: long lasting heart failure and works better when the heart
Speaker 7: cannot pump a normal amount of blood to the body.
Speaker 12: Don't take in Trusto if pregnant. It can cause harm
Speaker 12: or death to an unborn baby. Don't take in Trusto
Speaker 12: with an ACE inhibitor or Alice Karen, or if you've
Speaker 12: had angioedema with an ACE or ARB, don't take with
Speaker 12: Alice Karen or within thirty six hours of taking an
Speaker 12: ACE inhibitor. The most serious side effects are angioedema, low
Speaker 12: blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium Angioedema is
Speaker 12: swelling of your face, lips, tongue, and throat that may
Speaker 12: cause death. If it causes difficulty breathing, get emergency help.
Speaker 7: Ask your doctor about Intrusto. To learn more, visit support
Speaker 7: dot intrusto dot com or call eight three three four
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Speaker 7: Novartis may be able to help