Jenison Retiree’s Memoir “The Miracle Man” Recounts Heart Transplant After Years of Cardiac Decline

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William Breimayer, a retired Jenison, Michigan resident, has published a memoir detailing the decade-long medical ordeal that led to his heart transplant. "The Miracle Man: A Remarkable True Account of Faith, Healing and Restoration in the Face of Impossible Odds" is published through Christian Faith Publishing.

According to the announcement, Breimayer suffered a major heart attack just months into retirement, requiring four stents and a twelve-day hospital stay. Over the following six years, he worked to rebuild his heart function, the announcement states, until a serious bout with RSV triggered congestive heart failure. A second near heart attack required three additional stents and left him with damage to both sides of his heart and three separate arrhythmias, per the account.

Breimayer’s condition continued to decline over the following months despite medication and medical devices, the announcement states, reaching stage 4 congestive heart failure. An emergency room visit found thirty-five pounds of fluid retention and failing kidneys, and a cardiac resynchronization device ultimately did not resolve his symptoms, according to the account. He was transferred to the Corewell (Meijer) Heart Center in Grand Rapids, where doctors installed two small pumps in his heart ventricles to sustain him while he and his wife, Gayle, weighed a mechanical heart against a transplant. They chose the transplant, the announcement states, and Breimayer received a donor heart with what he describes as only hours left to live.

Breimayer has been married to Gayle for forty-eight years, according to the announcement, and in retirement volunteers restoring World War II-era aircraft at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo and supports a Legacy Thrift store and his church’s Go Serve ministry. He also lists fishing, model railroading, and building model aircraft among his hobbies.

"The Miracle Man" is available through major booksellers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the Apple iTunes store, as well as through Christian Faith Publishing directly.

Studio CarryOnHarry sees this as part of a steady stream of first-person medical-crisis memoirs finding an audience through faith-based presses — stories less concerned with literary ambition than with bearing witness to one ordeal, in detail, for readers who’ve faced something similar.

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