The chronological story, from CHF diagnosis through transplant and recovery.
A heart transplant is not a recovery. That distinction matters, and it takes time to understand it fully. Recovery implies a baseline to return to. There is no baseline. The years of decline that preceded the surgery didn’t pause while the transplant happened—they accumulated, and what they accumulated was loss. Physical capacity, yes, but also…
On the morning of December 2nd, twenty-three days post-transplant, I needed a ride to The Christ Hospital for my first post-discharge biopsy. Mom was sick. Exposing an immunosuppressed transplant patient to whatever she had picked up was not an option, and she knew it before I said anything. Teresa was otherwise occupied—my youngest son had…
And just like that, I was home. Nine days post-transplant. Sixty days in the hospital—first at Mercy West, then via Air Care flight to The Christ Hospital, where I would spend the better part of that time before anyone spoke seriously about discharge. The procedures, the alarms, the particular quality of institutional time that moves…
The move to the step-down unit came on November 14th—five days post-transplant, the A-line out, down to a PICC and a peripheral, and the recovery ICU finally behind me. Get me the hell away from this nighttime ICU. That had been the sentiment for days. The recovery ward was different in character—quieter in some ways,…
The first few days after a heart transplant are not straightforward. The body is recovering from major trauma while a new chemical environment is being forced into place, and the two don’t always agree. Signals cross. Responses don’t match their causes. What feels like one kind of problem can turn out to be something else…
The nurse came through the door differently. It was 10:15 on Thursday evening, November 7th. The ward had settled into its overnight rhythm—the particular quiet of a hospital after the last shift change, monitors steady, the corridor outside moving slowly. The day had been ordinary by the standards of that room: a walk outside, pork…
Tom Petty said it as well as anyone ever has. The waiting really is the hardest part—but not for the reasons most people assume. It isn’t a matter of patience. Patience implies something you can summon—a discipline you can practice. This is something else entirely. The runway is short, and the solution to a successful…
There is a transaction that occurs the moment you are admitted to a hospital for a serious, extended stay. Nobody explains it to you in advance. Nobody sits down and walks you through the terms. It simply happens, quietly and completely, from the first hour. You surrender agency over your own body. Not partially. Not…
The room at 7am looked the same every day. Lines in, lines out. The Impella running its quiet mechanical rhythm in my chest. The monitor glowing green behind my head, numbers I had learned to read the way you learn to read a dashboard—not alarming anymore, just information. The ward coming to life outside the…
The listing came through on a Friday afternoon. October 11th, 4:02 in the afternoon, Niles in the room. I had been officially listed for transplant—Status 2 at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, on an Impella heart pump, waiting. I posted to Facebook from the hospital bed. I HAVE BEEN OFFICIALLY LISTED. Three days of relative stability followed….
