What I bring to the stage

01

Miracle Child

The people and technology behind a life saved again and again

My childhood story, told in order: born with a complex heart, a myectomy at 18 months, then a Ross procedure, a cardiac arrest at 11 and the pacemaker that followed, and an FDA trial valve in New York at 12. It’s a deeply emotional story of one miracle after another: a family that never gave up on me, and the clinicians, engineers and device makers who made each miracle possible. Audiences see the patient on the other side of their work, and few leave with dry eyes. It closes where I am today: a bodybuilder who wouldn’t be here without them.

The name comes from my local newspaper, the Gilbert Tribune, which called me a “miracle child” in its story after my first cardiac arrest.

02

It’s All Up to Me

Resilience and self-advocacy from a lifelong heart patient

A talk about resilience and self-advocacy. As a child, my care was in the hands of my parents and my doctors, and I lived through one miracle after another. As an adult with a complex heart, the problems got harder, the therapies got scarcer, and getting to my next surgery depended on me. I had to become a go-getter and a self-starter, facilitating every part of the process myself, from the research to the appointments, the records and the approvals. This talk is about learning to fight for yourself: speaking up, refusing to stall, and owning every step when no one else can take it for you. It’s a call to action for anyone facing something hard.