AFFAIR OF THE HEART

Raschelle Goodman

REXBURG, IdahoTerminally ill patients have a

date. The elderly are on a countdown. Death row
convicts see it coming. For the majority of the
young and healthy population, its unexpected and
unplanned. How would it feel to live in between
to know that each day you wake up could be the day
your heart stops working and you would leave your
life and family behind?

This is the life of Brandon Bascom, a
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy victim since 2005.

When Brother Bascom, piano professor at
BYU-Idaho, has a break between classes or lessons,
he works at his computer with his door open. Often
students congregate around the doorway to ask for
his help or just to share a joke.

Bascom sits at his desk, dressed in black
slacks, a white dress shirt, and a maroon and blue
replica of President Monsons famous striped tie, as
he describes his condition.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a disease
that manifests itself through abnormally increased
heart muscle mass that causes blockage and problems
for the cardiovascular system (Bohachick).
The danger in this disease is that at any given
moment, the heart of the individual could just stop
unexpectedly and the individual would suddenly
die (Ommen).

Bascom was diagnosed as he was pursuing
his Masters degree in piano in New York. I was
running after a subway and I passed out at the 125th
station and I hit my head Bascom said. There
had been some previous incidences where I had
passed outonce running away from security at
BYU and once playing basketball on my mission.

Brandon Bascom, a recent faculty addition at BYU-Idaho,

has become a popular professor among his students.

The subway experience prompted him to get his

heart checked out and based on his symptoms and
family history, he was diagnosed with HCM.

He explained that many of his family
members have the same heart condition. My aunt
passed away when I was probably 9-years-old
[She] had just placed [her baby] in his crib and
just keeled over and died. He was checked for
the disease at that time in his life, but there was no
indication that his heart was abnormal. The disease
is a disease that will manifest itself in different
times and in different ways and in different people,
Bascom explained.

On a corner of his desk in the Snow building, Bascom

gestures to a silver box that resembled a small tape
measure in size. Thats whats in my chest, he said,
pointing to his left pectoral muscle. He spoke of
how he relies on it for his life if his heart doesnt beat
normally. He said it shocks his heart to start it again.
When asked if he could feel the shock, he paused for
a moment, looked up with a playful twinkle in his eye
and laughed, Oh yes, I feel it.

The device is supposed to catch abnormal
heart rhythms, but its been adjusted so many times
to prevent false shocks like in the Kobe incidenct that
the doctors have told Bascom that he will pass out
before the device will fire. Im always afraid its
going to miss something, Bascom confesses.

How does someone live their life knowing
that even with the medical miracles of today that the
heart could stop at any moment?

He continues to teach piano and be a husband
and father, living life the best he knows how.

I dont know what to think [The device] is
kind of comfort, but who knows?
REFERENCES
Bohachick, Patricia; Anna Marie Rongaus. Hypertrophic
cardiomyopathy. The American Journal of Nursing. Lippincott
Williams & Wilkins: Vol. 84, No. 3 (Mar., 1984), pp.
320-326.

This is a replica of defibrillator implanted in Bascoms chest.

His device has fired several times, but all of
them were false alarms. It shocked him once after
shaking hands with Kobe Bryant, so we call Kobe
my heart throb, he laughs.

Ommen, Steve R; Rick A Nishimura, Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy,

Current Problems in Cardiology, Volume 29, Issue 5, May 2004, Pages
239-291, ISSN 0146-2806, 10.1016/j.cpcardiol.2004.01.001. (http://
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0146280604000027)