Heart Talk with Hillary
After surviving Acute Heart Failure at 33 years old I felt very alone in my recovery. I had never met anyone with heart failure let alone someone near my age. After beginning to share my story publicly and on social media I began meeting many other people who had also survived Acute Heart Failure. Some of these people had experienced it years before me, some had received a heart transplant and others were loved ones with family members currently hospitalized due to it. Connecting with these patients and family members was carthartic and opened my eyes to a whole new community of people I now had much in common with. I wanted to create this podcast so that other people who experienced heart failure could find this community of beautiful people and find the same hope and comfort that I did from hearing their stories. I hope that this podcast not only opens your eyes to a whole new community of brave, inspiring individuals, but that you also learn more about heart failure and all the ways in which it can affect people. Thank you for being here! Disclaimer: This podcast does not include any medical advice and should not be taken as such. All views are our own and they are based upon individual lived experiences. Please speak with your healthcare provider if you have any questions related to your own health. If you'd like to follow along on my heart failure advocacy and recovery journey you can find me on Instagram @hillarysheart. For any questions, comments or inquiries you can contact me via email at hillary@hillarysheart.com.
Episodes
Today’s episode is incredibly special to me — because my guest isn’t just a renowned cardiologist… he was my cardiologist.
I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Jacob Abraham, who cared for me during some of the most critical moments of my life and advocated greatly for me. He helped manage my care in the hospital and then continued to walk alongside me in the months and years that followed.Â
Dr. Abraham is one of the mos...
In today’s episode you will hear from an incredible woman named Tara Benoit. Tara is a former fitness competitor who was in the greatest shape of her life when she suffered the unexpected, a SCAD heart attack. SCAD stands for Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection and has also been dubbed the healthy woman’s heart attack. I previously interviewed another SCAD survivor in April of 2024 named Marcie Westwater so if you’...
Today's episode is Part 2 of a 2 Part series. So if you haven't already listened to Part 1 please go back and listen to that one first. In this episode, Katy and her husband, Aaron walk us through her entire heart transplant journey. From spending 5 weeks in the CICU to being discharged while still on the transplant list, then getting the call and even post-transplant life.Â
Katy and Aaron's resilience a...
Sometimes life brings people into your path in ways that feel nothing short of divine and that is the case for today’s guests. I’ll never forget when I first heard about Katy Coski. Her sister, Karley reached out to me over social media, telling me that it sounded like her sister was going through exactly what I had been through.
I was stunned to learn that not only did Karlee live in Salem and work out at the same gym...
Today’s guest is my friend, Lauryn Sousa. She’s a young, active preschool teacher from Rhode Island whose life took a terrifying turn earlier this year after she contracted the flu. What started as a common illness quickly spiraled into a life-threatening emergency.
Lauryn lives alone, and navigating the early symptoms on her own was incredibly scary. Thankfully Lauryn made it to the hospital in time but it wasn’t all ...
Today, I’m honored to share the incredible journey of Salina — a woman whose story is filled with strength, unexpected turns, and undeniable miracles.
Salina was diagnosed with cancer at 14 years old, and while she bravely made it through treatment during her high school years, the chemotherapy drug was so strong that it weakened her heart muscle eventually leading to heart failure. As a first time mom in her 20’s Sali...
In the past, you’ve heard powerful stories from heart failure survivors and their caregivers—but today, we’re hearing from someone who has played a very different role in the fight to save lives from heart failure. This is someone extremely near and dear to my heart. Truthfully I don’t think I’d be alive today if it weren’t for this man, Dr. Thorsten Siess, the inventor of the Impella heart pump. I had the privilege o...
In today’s episode you’ll get to hear from Fano and Francesca, the proud parents of a beautiful 4yr old girl named, Sienna. Sienna was born with HLHS which stands for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. HLHS causes the left side of the heart to be underdeveloped. Thankfully it has a good prognosis with the help of multiple surgeries including an open heart surgery that usually occurs when a baby is just a few days old. S...
If you follow me on instagram then you know how special this episode is. Back in June of this year a friend of mine had sent me a post on instagram about a little 3 year old boy named Tru who was on vacation in Hawaii and suddenly became very ill. It turned out that he was fighting acute viral myocarditis. I immediately began praying for this little boy and his entire family. I shared every update I saw over the cours...
In today’s episode you get to meet Jenna Tanner a wife and Mom of 3 from Oklahoma. Jenna shares her story of surviving a sudden and major heart attack while home alone in 2022. In our conversation Jenna shares about her subtle symptoms leading up to the heart attack and how easy it is as women to disregard these symptoms. We discuss the disparity of information on female heart attack symptoms as opposed to male’s. She...
In this episode you get to meet my friend, Michelle. I was so encouraged after this conversation. Michelle’s cardiac arrest happened in 2011 and yet she’s still out here sharing and bringing awareness to what happened to her. I can only hope that I’ll be doing the same in another decade or so.
Michelle's story is one of incredible resilience while enduring many trials. In 2011 while in her early 30’s, Michelle was...
Abiomed has been such a wonderful resource for me, connecting me to so many people all over the world who have experienced heart failure. Today, I get to introduce you to Franzi. She lives in Germany which also happens to be where Thorstein Seiss, the inventor of the Impella lives and is from. Franzi shares her story about how coming down with the common cold led her on a scary years long journey of battling heart fai...
I am so excited for you all to hear today’s episode. This conversation is definitely the most I’ve ever laughed while discussing heart failure. Chavez has the most infectious and positive personality and he just radiates joy.Â
Today he shares his story of battling viral myocarditis at 29 years old after having recovered from covid. We talk about everything from law school to food blogging to heart failure and hospitals...
Welcome back to the podcast. In this episode I interviewed my friend, Cheyenne. I first heard about Cheyenne through a friend whose sister was being treated for acute viral myocarditis at Providence St.Vincent’s just like I had been. My friend told me there was this girl who was also at St.Vincent’s due to heart failure but she had also just given birth. I remember praying for Cheyenne as I heard bits and pieces about...
On today’s episode you will get to hear from my friend Marcie Wastewater. She is a beautiful, healthy, super active wife and mom of 2. She is going to share with you her story of surviving SCAD (S-C-A-D) which stands for Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection. It’s as scary as it sounds and it has also been called the “healthy woman’s heart attack”. I can’t wait for you to hear how proactive and intuitive Marcie was w...
In this episode you get to meet my friend, Jessica Grib. Jessica is a peripartum cardiomyopathy and paraganglioma survivor and advocate. In this episode she shares her story about the birth of her 2nd born child in 2016 and how she experienced heart failure and nearly died in the recovery room after delivery. Jessica later learned that she had a tumor called a paraganglioma that was the actual cause of her heart failu...
In this episode you get to meet my friend, Lauren Delaney. Lauren and I met through social media and as wild as it sounds we also had the exact same team of cardiologists. Lauren lives about an hour north of me and super close to Providence St. Vincent's Hospital. Today she's sharing her heart failure and heart transplant story with you all. I'm so grateful for her willingness to share when she is only ...
In this episode, you get to meet my friends Bobby and Carly Goines. Abiomed's Patient Advocacy program connected Bobby and I in the Spring of 2022 a few months after we had both recovered from Acute Viral Myocarditis. Our stories are eerily similar which has created a lifetime bond for our two families. We got to meet in person last February and I am really excited for you all to hear his story. We talk about his...
In this episode my husband and I walk you through the remainder of my hospitalization. From arriving at the second hospital while bleeding out in the ambulance all the way to discharging a few weeks later and going home. We did our best to summarize a 20-day hospitalization in two 1-hour episodes. There is certainly a whole lot more that could be said here and we could spend hours just on a single topic like recovery,...
For the very first episode of Heart to Heart I thought it would be helpful as the host to share my own experience with heart failure. I'm excited to also have my husband, Daniel along for this 2-part episode sharing his own perspective. In the first 48 hours of my hospitalization I was in and out of consciousness and Daniel was there with me. Soon after we were separated while I was put in Covid isolation. Daniel...
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