Someone who provides advice and direction to public bodies on the protection of privacy, is talking openly about his own personal experience in order to help people learn more about heart failure.

This is Heart Month and Heart & Stroke is raising awareness about the signs and symptoms of congestive heart failure, a progressive illness that can result from a heart attack or develop on its own.

Michael Harvey was only 44 years old, with no particular risk factors and otherwise active and healthy, when he first started noticing that something wasn’t right.

He started to feel like he was missing a step, and noticed he couldn’t keep up with others in the swim lane. That shortness of breath and lack of steam started to increase, and he initially attributed it to getting older. But that’s not what it’s like, says Harvey, “it’s not normal.”

Harvey got a diagnosis fairly quickly and is undergoing treatment. Acute Care Nurse Practitioner with the Congestive Heart Failure Clinic at Eastern Health, Rodie Pike, was part of the health care team who helped to determine that Harvey’s heart failure was the result of a rare autoimmune disease called cardiac sarcoidosis.

The signs of heart failure include shortness of breath—like running out of steam climbing the stairs—and swelling of the limbs. It comes as the result of the heart’s inability to effectively pump blood around the body. There is no cure, but it can be treated.