My Story
The milestones that made me an advocate
I was born with a heart that needed help from day one, and for nearly three decades I’ve kept getting back up, through surgery after surgery and setback after setback. I never did it alone. Doctors, nurses and the people behind my devices have been in my corner since I was a kid. This is my story of resilience. I share it to thank the people who got me here, and to show anyone facing something hard that they can keep going too.
Milestone 01
The early years
I came into the world with two rare congenital conditions, hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy and pectus excavatum, the first of more than ten diagnoses I’d collect over my life. At 18 months I had a myectomy to clear an obstruction near my aortic valve. At 8, running the bases, the pain came back and I walked over to my mom at the fence to tell her my heart hurt. A Ross procedure followed. Those early years set the pattern for everything after: a new challenge, a team of people ready to help, and getting back up.
Milestone 02
Age 11
I was the youngest of five, growing up in Arizona, when I went into sudden cardiac arrest at home a few hours before school. My dad started chest compressions while my mom called for help, and after 40 minutes I was brought back. For weeks afterward I couldn’t dress or feed myself. Right after the arrest I received my first pacemaker, and with it I became an electrophysiology patient for life.
Milestone 03
The teenage years
At 12, I went to New York for the FDA trial of the Melody transcatheter pulmonary valve. A failing valve had made it hard to walk a city block; the day after the procedure, I was the one telling everyone to hurry up. At 13, a biventricular pacing surgery sent me into my second cardiac arrest and couldn’t be completed, so I was sent back to New York to try again. At 14, that surgery punctured my lung, and what should have been a short stay became three weeks in the hospital. My overall cardiovascular structure, shaped by my pectus excavatum, made every one of these procedures harder.
Milestone 04
Adulthood
At 24, my heart could no longer keep up with my job managing a high-volume store, and I stepped away. A shifted lead and severe heart failure turned into four years of searching for the right answer. Every step depended on me following through, with my doctors guiding me, until I was connected with a newly approved leadless pacing system. Six months after receiving it, my heart was back to normal function. Through all of it I’ve been a bodybuilder for 12 years, and today I’m back in the gym hitting PRs.
Milestone 05
Today
Now I speak about what it takes to keep going, to medtech teams, clinicians and audiences far beyond medicine. Every talk is also a chance to do what I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid: thank the doctors, nurses and people behind my devices in person, and show anyone facing something hard that they can keep going too.
Bring this story to your team or your stage.
Book Miller