Grown-Up Hearts: Adult Congenital Heart Disease Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe adult congenital heart disease, the lives of people born with a heart that did not form the usual way. The conditions range from tetralogy of Fallot, transposition, Fontan circulation and hypoplastic left heart to a small hole found at a company health check in Osaka. Writers include a Year Two teacher facing her second open-heart operation, a paramedic who thought he was fixed, a track coach who collapsed in front of his team, a barber told he does not look sick, a ship's cook who failed a medical for a murmur, an air traffic controller once refused a pilot's certificate, a fruit packer in Fresno who waited ten years for a doctor who spoke Spanish, and a seventy-one-year-old among the first children in his state to have heart surgery. There are parents, a sister and a husband in the parking lot too. They write from Enugu to Calgary. The book covers pacemakers on their sixth battery, a valve placed through the groin, a shock from a defibrillator in the cheese aisle, Ramadan and tablets, pregnancy, genetic results, insurance at twenty-six, and moving from children's care to adult clinics. Not every story ends well: one writer describes palliative care, another loses a friend from heart camp, and a third is still waiting for an answer.

Who it's for

For adults born with a heart defect, especially those who were told they were fixed or have drifted from their clinic, and for the parents, siblings and partners who keep the folders.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 281 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.