I chose life three times….
The Story
For more than two decades, I lived with congestive heart failure. I managed it through diet, discipline, and stubbornness—and for a long time, that was enough. Then it wasn’t.
In the fall of 2024, I arrived at a hospital unable to walk more than ten feet on my own. My ejection fraction was 5%. Death came to my bedside more than once. More than once, I told it no.
On November 9th, 2024, a surgeon removed my heart and replaced it with someone else’s. This is the story of what led to that moment, what happened in the OR, and what life looks like on the other side of it.
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While You Were Sleeping
My number was 58. For twenty-five years, on a bad night, I stopped breathing or nearly did it almost once a minute. Tonight, with the machine running beside the bed the way it has for a quarter century, that number sits between zero and two.
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What Your Ring Actually Knows
Wearables can tell you a remarkable amount about your body. The trick is knowing what they measured, what they inferred, and what they simply guessed. The distance between the sensor and the number on your screen matters more than almost anything else about the device.
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A Tea By Any Other Name
Someone asks the group about tea, and before the question is properly answered the same reply turns up: I drink Earl Grey five days a week and I’m fine. That sentence establishes exactly one thing, and it isn’t the thing people think it is.
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It Looks Like Food
The dangerous things announce themselves: the amber vial, the childproof cap, the pharmacist’s short speech at the counter. The harder part is the coffee. The comfort tea. The gummy on the nightstand. The sparkling water in the checkout cooler.
About James Nerlinger
I’m a writer, developer, and home cook living in Cincinnati, Ohio. I spent twenty-two years managing congestive heart failure before receiving a donor heart on November 9th, 2024. This blog is the story of that journey — and everything that comes after it.
Choosing life, one beat at a time.
Contact
Thoughts? Comments? Discussion?
JNJ@OneMoreBeat.com
