Support Gabe's Life-Saving Open Heart Surgery

I’m Gabe. I’m 41 years old, and I found out on August 14th that I need open heart surgery.

Outside of being overweight most of my life, I’ve never had any serious health issues. This news has been jarring for me and my family, to say the least.

That said, how we got here is pretty interesting. In the last 6-7 months, I’ve lost about 65 pounds through a combination of medicine, changing my eating habits, and incorporating exercise into my lifestyle.

One night about 6 weeks ago, I woke up with extreme stomach pain after a week of constant nausea. I headed to the ER. After a full body CT scan, no stomach issues were discovered, but an aortic aneurysm was. A big one.

An ascending aortic aneurysm - which is what I’ve got, is a bulge in the ascending aorta which is the main artery providing blood to your brain and back. The threshold for surgical intervention on these things is 4.5cm and mine is between 5.2 and 5.5cm depending on the scan.

The danger here is that it could burst basically at any point, and cause complete heart failure. If you are familiar with John Ritter of Three’s Company, Bad Santa, and Problem Child fame, this is how he passed. Luckily mine was caught before the worst happened.

After my initial ER visit, I visited my doctor and they ordered an echocardiogram. Unfortunately, the aneurysm was just the start. I also have a bicuspid aortic valve with moderate to severe regurgitation - this means instead of 3 leaflets on the valve like most folks, I have 2- blood is going places it shouldn’t because that valve isn’t doing what it should, and this is a huge cause of heart failure as well.

In addition, they found some abnormalities with my mitral valve as well as enlargement in areas of my heart, which, my surgeon says, is never a positive thing.

And so, a surgery, called an Aortic Root Replacement is what’s gonna happen to Ol’ Gabe. They will replace my aortic valve and the piece of the aorta affected by the aneurysm with some newfangled mechanical bits. Luckily, I’ve always wanted to be part robot.

My family history is bleak when it comes to heart issues. My mom died at 58, her dad died at 60, my dad made it further but had a few heart attacks himself, dad’s dad did too.

I have a 16-month-old daughter and a loving wife that I am not ready to leave. I will fight my ass off and eat nothing but celery and carrots for the rest of my life to make sure of it. Though I will miss my Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

I also, like most Americans, have real crappy insurance. That’s why this campaign.

I have to admit I have mixed feelings about this. Not thrilled about asking for help this way, but here’s why I am:

- I have 80/20 co-insurance with a high deductible and the max out of pocket maximum.

Needless to say, we weren’t expecting this.

-Recovery poses other financial impacts as well- I will be recovering far longer than the amount of leave time I have with my employer (I have 2 weeks, then I can apply for short term disability which pays a percentage of my salary). In total, the estimate for recovery is around 8 weeks.

-I need to make sure my family is taken care of and our bills are covered.

I can’t overstate how much any help at all would be appreciated.

We are planning surgery for the 2nd week in October to allow me the time to wrap up things at work for our next event. I will share updates and images of my scans and things as we go.

Thank you all for reading, and would love to speak to you all soon.

Love you!

Gabe