Mark Graff Has a New Heart
My name is Jackie Lietke and I am a friend of Mark and Shelly Graff's. On Friday Mark had a heart transplant at UW Health University Hospital. I have been in touch with Shelly to see what I could do to help them out during this very trying time. She says Mark is adamant that he doesn't want a benefit which would be difficult to do at this time with COVID-19 and social distancing.
SOOO I decided to set up a gofundme page and I am asking for your help to help them with the bills, travel, lost work, medication, hotels, gas, food and whatever else may come up during his LONG recovery.
Here's a little back story for those who didn't know Mark has had heart issues for many years along with several of his siblings and other family members on his dads side.
I asked his sister Sandy to share their story so here it is:
Mark was born on June 29, 1968 to LeRoy & Lola Graff. He is the baby of the family that consists of 3 girls and 3 boys 8 years apart in age from the oldest to the youngest. In the early 90's Mark's first cousin on his father's side found out she had Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a condition in which a portion of the heart becomes thickened without an obvious cause. This results in the heart being less able to pump blood effectively. Symptoms vary from none to feeling tired, leg swelling and shortness of breath.
Mark's cousin was in the service at the time and stationed at Bethesda, Maryland. Due to her condition and research that was being completed at the time to determine the gene that caused this the Minneapolis Heart Institute studied Mark's extended family from uncles, aunts and cousins on Mark's father side. They had all of Mark's siblings do blood draws and that determined 4 out 6 children born to LeRoy and Lola had the gene that doesn't necessarily indicate that they have the disease. All 4 of the 6 children including Mark were tested later in life and determined that all 4 indeed had the disease. Mark has known for quite many years and due to the thickening of his heart muscle the physicians were concerned with sudden death so they implanted a defibrillator many years ago to restart his heart if it stopped. A couple years ago they had to change the battery on Mark's Defibrillator.
In the last year Mark's heart function (ability to pump) continued to decline and breathing was very difficult. In August of 2019 his Doctors in La Crosse referred him to Madison where they ran more heart tests and due to the his condition they wanted to keep a close eye and run the tests again every 3 months. He returned to Madison in November for more tests and then again in February which is when they told him that his condition had severely changed and that he would need a heart transplant. He then had to run through a series of appointments with the Madison Heart Transplant Unit in early April to see if he was a candidate for a heart transplant. From that point forward things moved very fast.
His surgery on Friday went well. Michelle is doing her best to up date his caring Bridge page here is the link to follow his long road to recovery.
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/markgraffsheart?fbclid=IwAR1lhnW_y6aTkKIaMWRmRBdYtXf8Rlp2EJJRxH-3Nwz9KqQ2DAPSC_XydRQ
Also an Account has been set up at the Governmental Employees Credit Union in La Crosse, WI in Marks name if you'd like to drop off a donation locally.