My 5-Year Tricuspid Valve Trial Journey: From Hospice to HeartBridge Collective
That's a powerful thing to sit with, looking at a timeline like this and remembering that the first mark on it was the moment I was dying, not just a data point on a chart. There is a profound difference between a clinical timeline and a lived human reality.
When you look at a graphic like this, it's easy to see a series of successful regulatory steps, clinical trial milestones, and procedural breakthroughs. But behind that first entry on the chart was the reality of my life ending. I was in hospice.
I used to think survival was the finish line. Looking at this, I can see it was actually the starting line. To look back at that starting point and follow the line to where I stand today is a heavy and humbling thing to sit with. I don't think I fully understood, back then, that the worst chapter of my life would one day become a map for someone else's survival.
Where It Started
In 2019, my tricuspid valve was failing and my surgical options were exhausted. There was no procedure to schedule, no next step to take. That same year, the FDA granted Breakthrough Device Designation to a transcatheter tricuspid valve, a device I didn't know yet would become part of my own story.
I spent the next two years on hospice. I've called it the Waiting Room of the System elsewhere, and that's exactly what it was. My world shrank down to the size of my bedroom. I wasn't a patient anymore. I was a person holding onto hope while the medical world moved on without me.
The Procedure
In 2021, I received a transcatheter tricuspid valve replacement, the EVOQUE valve, through the Early Feasability TRISCEND II clinical trial. It was a door that hadn't existed when I first got sick, and it opened just in time.
From a data standpoint, it was a triumph. My gradients stabilized. My shortness of breath resolved. But the first 30 days after the procedure were a terrifying medical tightrope that no data point will ever show. I faced a sudden valve thrombosis, dangerous potassium drops, and wild swings in weight and fluid balance. The engineering was a success. Living through the acute recovery felt like an unmapped wilderness for me and my family.
There was also the handoff. My local cardiologist was ready to pick up where the trial team left off, but the actual transition was a blurry mess. I didn't understand who was managing my day-to-day care during those early weeks, and that administrative blind spot left me guessing who was steering the ship whenever my symptoms flared.
What the Data Showed
In 2022, the TRISCEND trial's 1-year follow-up data was reported: 97.6% of patients had their tricuspid regurgitation reduced to mild or trace levels. I was one of those patients.
In 2023, the device received CE Mark approval in Europe. In 2024, it received FDA approval in the United States, becoming available to patients who once had no option at all.
I stayed the course through five years of follow-up visits, scans, and questionnaires because I believed, and still believe, that patients aren't just data points in a study. We're the reason the study exists. My data helped open the door for the thousands of patients who came after me, patients who will never have to wait the way I did.
What Comes Next
In 2025, I founded HeartBridge Collective, because surviving wasn't enough. I needed to build something out of it.
Earlier this year, I completed my final TRISCEND II follow-up visit, closing the loop on a five-year trial that started with me not being considered a surgical candidate, and ends with a full circle back to the community I built because of it.
To those in the clinical, regulatory, and medtech spaces: thank you for safely pushing the boundaries of what is possible. And to every patient navigating the darkest corners of a diagnosis: your story is not over, and your voice matters in shaping the future of care.
We aren't just data points on a chart. We are the reason the research exists. That's not a statistic. That's a person who was once told there was nothing left to do.
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