Preventing A Time Bomb: Patient Education

By Juddson Rupp

Even as a child, friends and family said I had a “big heart.” At the time, I didn’t know how profound that statement would be later in life. At annual physicals, I was told that I had a heart murmur, which I would likely grow out of by my teenage years. While earning a scholarship to play football in college, I was told by the university doctors that my heart murmur had disappeared and there were no signs of any heart arrhythmias or thickened heart walls, hallmarks of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).