Hi everyone, I'm Bruna and I'm 25 years old. Telling a personal life story with all its positive and negative emotions is never easy, but I will try.

I will try for you, for those who have recently discovered that they have cardiomyopathy at this moment, for those who have known it for many years and think they are alone, and for those who feel confused not knowing what they will encounter.

My story began when my father died suddenly in May 2001, I was 7 years old. It was a very painful time for my family and for me. My father was suffering from Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy, he followed drug therapy, sometimes he went to Florence to be examined. At the time, we are talking about almost 20 years ago, the idea of ​​performing a myectomy was much scarier than it is today: now this surgery is performed by cardiac surgeons with great experience with excellent results. Mom knew that Dad was heart disease, he was being followed by our family cardiologist. At the age of 9 he took me for the first visit, and he advised us to visit a cardiologist expert in Cardiomyopathies, Prof. Franco Cecchi (Florence). When I met him I was really very young: he advised us to do the genetic analysis, to find out if I too had inherited the predisposition to the disease.

When the outcome came it was not easy for me to accept, I had in my DNA that gene for me "bad", I was still a child and I remember that I was having a tantrum when I went for visits or when they told me to take medicine.

The first phase is the most difficult one, the acceptance phase, the phase in which you have to become aware that you have a problem, especially at such a young age. When the first time I went to the Careggi in Florence to do the checks, I knew that I had to undergo a cardiac magnetic resonance and a cardiorespiratory test. I was very scared, I was wondering why I was paying so much attention, I was just a little bit out of breath and therefore it was even more difficult for me to understand where the problem lay. I thought to myself "for a bit of trouble ... but what will it ever be ..." . I tended to underestimate it, I think out of fear. It is natural that what we do not know frightens us, but we must try to transform fear into strength. And so I went straight in, trying not to let the fear I actually felt at that moment get out. When I got out of there,

I remember that I said to myself "what a fool I was to have had that fear for simple checks ..". I lived my adolescence with absolute tranquility, I led a very normal life, I went to dance, I went out with friends, I never missed a school trip, and I also had a boyfriend. Of course, I felt a little different from my other friends and noticed it more under certain circumstances. In them I saw a sort of lightness or rather lightheartedness that I did not have, in me the sense of responsibility for myself had developed long before my peers. Growing up the body changes, and my heart was also changing without my noticing it, the thickness of the walls of the left ventricle had clearly increased and had resulted in a severe obstruction. At the age of 19 I was advised to contact Prof. Ferrazzi to undergo myectomy and thus resolve the obstruction. The decision was troubled enough, but I knew there were not many alternatives but to live a life of fear of what it would be like the next day, and the next day. At the beginning I had a hard time accepting the idea of ​​undergoing the surgery, I could never say the opposite, but the day I met Dr. Paolo Ferrazzi it is as if something had clicked inside me. And this is where my second phase begins. I am a very empathic person, I looked at him and listened attentively while he explained to us what the intervention consisted of, and it was strange, I felt that he gave me a feeling of serenity, I felt I could trust him even though he also put us in front of difficulties that could be encountered during the surgery. I remember like it was yesterday the night before the surgery, I was in the hospital room and I saw my relatives in a great state of agitation. I watched them nervously strolling through the corridors and tried to imagine what they thought. I was lying on the bed, they had just had my coronary angiography done and I remember that my boyfriend came up with the phone to make me watch Aladin, one of my favorite cartoons, and suddenly Dr. Ferrazzi came in. He greeted the people who were present, and came straight to me saying, "Are we ready for tomorrow?" I replied with a sharp, firm "Yes". "You're a tough guy." And with those few words he made me understand that he would put all his experience to make the operation go well.

And so it was. The days spent in the hospital were the most difficult and at the same time the most significant of my life, a little girl just over 77 who faces something much bigger than her, without knowing how it would have gone, if she could see the world again with his eyes. Every little trifle gave me a joy, like that morning when I found a piece of paper with a dedication that my XNUMX-year-old roommate left me after she was discharged, or like when my favorite nurse, Alessia, came into the room. with whom I still feel. What seemed defeated over time became victory, that extra step to take, that extra step to climb, those nights to pass, those days that seemed like years, and looking out the window I thought about how much I wanted to go home. And here we are at the last stage, as I call it of "full awareness".

Today, several years have passed since that 13 September 2013, I look at myself and I think that I was right to make that decision that saved my life, I am a strong woman, a happy woman and aware of being what she is thanks to what she has past. I have a good job, I'm about to get married to that guy who held my phone to show me cartoons, I do some gym, I've traveled a lot and I'll continue to do it because it's one of the things that makes me feel more alive than ever.

I am a member of AICARM ONLUS, an association that is mainly involved in supporting research on cardiomyopathies and helping people like me who will have to face this journey and this makes me happy. Of course my heart must always be kept under control now as in the future, but I don't feel different from anyone. I like to share my story with many people, and I am happy when they tell me that they tell my story as an example to encourage those who have to face this path. I wear my scars with pride, they are signs of hope for someone else. I no longer remember me without the scars, they are the timeline of my journey. Each of us in life has to face his battles, but what matters is the spirit with which we face them!

I hope I have been able to encourage you, and above all not to make you feel alone anymore.