February 18, 2021 – West Bend, WI – After a long battle with Marfans Syndrome the family of Michael Bartelt made the difficult decision today to pull their husband, father, grandfather, uncle, friend off life support.
Michael died Thursday afternoon, just before 1 p.m. with his family by his side.
At the request of Betty Bartelt a note about Michael is posted below.
“Basically I want people to know the man he was. That even with Marfans Syndrome he strived to succeed.
Here is some information my daughter wrote about his life long fight. I want to raise awareness, 1 in 1000 people have Marfans. It is believed that Abe Lincoln had it. Mike worked very hard in every aspect of his life.
My parents Betty and Michael Bartelt are very active in the community. They are local small business owners of All in Books. My parents were negatively impacted by Covid this past year as well as all the health challenges my dad experienced.
My father Michael Bartelt has Marphans Syndrom and it has negatively affected his health his whole life. It especially impacted his heart. Marphans was the reason he needed his first open heart surgery when he was only 16 years old.
In 1988, he suffered Endocarditis, which required over a 6 week hospital stay when his daughter was only 6 months old. At that time we were told we would be lucky because his life expectancy was only 40 years old.
He didn’t experience any more complications until 2009 when he and aortic aneurism had two open heart surgeries in less than three months. His first surgery failed and he had to have emergency surgery to replace the same aortic valve. But it worked and he made it home.
Ten years later in July 2019 Michael got very ill and was ambulanced to Froedtert Hospital. He was in and out of the ICU until we finally found a heart surgeon willing to preform high risk open heart surgery to replace his heart valve since it was infected yet again. In November 2019, he underwent surgery for 23 hours and it was a miracle he survived.
He spent the next month in a coma in the ICU. But his family was by his side every step of the way. After a long recovery he came home in February of 2020. He spent most of this past year in rehab building his strength and he was finally back to work and seeming like himself.
In December of 2020 Michael got Covid-19, he beat it but doctors unfortunately missed another infection in his blood while he was hospitalized. (or he contracted it there)
On January 31, 2021 he collapsed in his home and was transported via ambulance to Froedtert again. He had been in ICU since. The infection spread to his heart and the cardio team refused surgery because he would never survive it.
My dad underwent numerous procedures to remove the infection from his digestive tract. Unfortunately he had a stroke while he was in the hospital and we were unsure if there was permeant damage.
My dad is a fighter.
Covid restrictions have been especially disheartening to all of us. Previously his family could be in ICU supporting each other by his side and later my mother was there all alone.
I want to make sure she has nothing to worry about during this difficult time so I’m reaching out and asking for help. It’s a miracle we got another year with him. We will always be grateful for that year…
We appreciate everyone’s love and support through this difficult time. More details on services will be posted when information becomes available.