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Mighty Mike
By Mike Hargett
“It’s hard to beat
a person who
NEVER GIVES UP.”
– Babe Ruth
W hen I was born, I broke my mom’s tailbone. Two Sciences University (OHSU) my “home away from home,” and
days later the nurse taking care of me noticed that I figure I basically funded their new aerial tram with all my
something wasn’t quite right, and kept me overnight for medical bills over the years!
observation. As it turns out, I had incurred a massive subdural
hematoma (a pool of blood between the brain and its outermost In 2005, my senior year of high school, I was diagnosed with
covering) during my birth that required surgery, to stop the dilated cardiomyopathy. My heart was so sick that I wasn’t able
bleeding and potentially-fatal swelling. They knew right then to even walk from one class to another. Even after being thrown
that I was a bleeder. Over the next two decades I experienced this curveball I still graduated on time and was elected to the
many hospital stays, medical treatments, and emergency room National Honor Society. Often, I tell people that, despite my
visits. In 1989, I tested positive for the antibodies for hepatitis heart condition and bleeding disorder being a major part of my
C, contracted through tainted blood infusions that I received to life, those things don’t define me. I define them and how they
treat my hemophilia, but it wasn’t until 1998 that I was actually fit in my life.
diagnosed with the disease. I started calling Oregon Health &
Over the following eight years those challenges took a toll on
me. I often felt like the only thing I could control was my eat-
ing and I comforted myself with food. Paired with my lack of
mobility, I gained a staggering 175 pounds. My ejection frac-
tion (the measurement of the percentage of blood leaving your
heart each time it contracts) kept decreasing, and the need for
a heart transplant became critical. Finding a doctor to agree
to do a transplant on a hemophiliac was a whole task in itself.
First, I had to get treated and cleared for hepatitis C. Then it
took going to five different facilities before I found a doctor
who would agree to do this high risk heart surgery. I also need-
ed to have a BMI (body-mass index) of 35, which would require
a 200-pound weight loss. That took a little over two years. In
Winter 2017 | Dateline Federation 5
