❤️‍🩹 A patient’s perspective from someone who lived early feasibility When you’re one of the first people to receive a new heart valve, you learn pretty quickly that innovation is both a miracle and an evolving standard of care. I was an early feasibility EVOQUE patient — part of the group whose outcomes helped shape future FDA approval. The valve saved my life. But being in that first wave also meant stepping into a space where long-term answers were still being written. Th

January 2026 marks the start of my fifth year living with the EVOQUE tricuspid valve, which I received through the TRISCEND II...

💔 A Moment I’ll Never Forget. Right before I went into hospice, I could feel my body getting weaker every day. Still, I tried to keep...

How Heart Valve Disease Taught Me to Listen to My Body's Other Rhythms Hey everyone, you know I'm a big advocate for heart valve disease...

Redefining “Normal” After Illness The bridge between real stories and how care should be designed After a major health scare, surgery, or...

🫀 Real Advocacy. Real Impact. Tori Lungren’s Two-Story Reminder That Your Voice Might Be the Most Important Tool You Have 🩷 PATIENT...

Every life-saving treatment starts with a clinical trial . You can’t approve a cure no one is willing to test. I didn’t say yes to the...

Being quiet won’t protect you—but being informed just might.  If you're anything like me, you didn’t choose this health journey—but here...

Because Some Wounds Don’t Show Up on X-Rays I’ve talked about this before, but I don’t think I realized just how real it was until now....

Lived Experience Isn’t Optional Data. It’s the Truth You Can’t See in a Test Doctors vs. Patients: Why Being Heard Means Everything in...

Heart stuff is never simple, especially when you’ve walked through it like I have. But sometimes, we get a bit of good news in the...

Why the people deciding your treatment aren’t the ones trained to treat you. Right?! It’s absolutely wild. Your medically trained doctor,...

Breathing is automatic for most people. For me, it was something I had to think about constantly. I wasn’t wheezing or dramatically...

Risk vs. Reality: The Fear That Almost Cost Me My Life I understand why people fear clinical trials. The unknown is terrifying. You hear...

If you’re new to my page—welcome!  I’m so glad you found your way to my little corner of the internet. If this is your first time...