Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
privileges, as hopefully will my fellow guest bloggers. Here is my pitch. Some regulars here at the Turley blog know that I am a heart transplant recipient. I received my new heart in October 17, 2010, two days after the birth of my third grandchild. I am, needless to say, an extremely lucky man. My nuclear family all had heart issues. My parents both died at the age of 54 from heart attacks (Myocardial Infarctions {MI’s} as they’re known in the trade). It was my mother’s fourth or fifth and came as a result of her third stroke. When my father died, the requisite autopsy found that this was actually his second MI. My older brother has also had a severe stroke and an MI, but thankfully he is doing quite well today at age 75.
The main reason I am alive today, beyond the fact of my heart transplant, is because my wife during the worst stages of my illness, literally saved my life four times. Her love, care-giving, watchfulness and fierceness in ensuring my medical care, pulled me through very difficult times. We married thirty years ago when I was thirty-seven and six months later I suffered a massive MI, literally destroying one of my three main arteries. Unlike me, she had never experienced the severe illness of someone close, so this transition was obviously shattering but she saw me through. I guess you could say that there is a certain resiliency about me because I was to have two more MI’s at five year periods and yet was able to recover from them and work productively. However, seven years ago at age sixty, in the prime of my profession; I developed Congestive Heart Failure (Cardio Myopathy) and was forced to retire.
What I had was a progressively degenerating condition, where my heart was gradually becoming too weak to be able to pump my blood. Yet by losing weight and living healthy I was able to stave off the inevitable until the winter of 2009. My Cardiologist let me have it straight and told me I’d better get on a heart transplant list, or I wouldn’t have much time left. I was first seen at The University of Miami/Jackson Hospital in March of 2010. Two months later I was hospitalized with Ventricular Tachycardia (VTac) after flat-lining in my living room. I recovered after three weeks hospitalization and on June 1st, 2010 I was officially put on the UNOS Heart Transplant List.
UNOS is the organization that deals with all transplants country wide and ensures that the organs are distributed fairly to those in need. However, by August I was dying. I had no strength and I kept losing weight no matter what I did to keep it on. I was scheduled to go into the hospital to get what is known as an LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device). Since the left ventricle of my heart was virtually dead, this device replaced its function and kept me alive. Coincidentally, Dick Cheney received the exact same device, the HeartMate II LVAD about two weeks prior to this time. Given my distaste for him, it was yet comforting to know that he had gotten it, because obviously he receives the best medical care.
With the device implant scheduled for early August I was told to sign into the hospital a few days before the scheduled date and surprisingly was told the next day that a heart was available. I was prepped for surgery and for the next fourteen hours my wife and I waited expectantly for the operation, hope, fear, tension and anxiety making us emotionally exhausted. The operation had been scheduled for 8:00 AM, but that time came and went with no word. Finally, at 11:00 AM, we were told that the operation was not to be for technical, legal reasons dealing with the donor. The effect upon us was devastating, but I have to honestly say that feeling the worst of it fell to my wife, my love and my caregiver. You can’t understand unless you’ve experienced it, that being on the verge of death from non-traumatic causes is modulated by a state called “reverie” where your mind slows down. This could be due to lack of oxygen, or some other physical means that is hardwired into us. Given this, the burden of this sudden disappearance of hope fell on my wife and I can’t even begin to imagine what she went through, yet while at the same time being able to look after and minister to me.
The LVAD was implanted a few days later and for the rest of the month I was in the hospital rehabbing and learning to live with this device. With a LVAD there is a power cord in your abdomen that must either be connected to an external powering device, or to a set of heavy batteries. You literally can’t live without external power. Give my extremely physical weak state prior to the operation, rehab was not an easy process. Learning to switch to batteries and back within a two minute window is hard and initially fills one with dread. Nevertheless, my wife and I mastered the process, which included her learning to change my dressings over the abdomen tube regularly to prevent infection. I made it home by September and must admit that as the days passed I began to despair about ever receiving a transplant.
I was approaching age 66 rapidly, utilizing the LVAD was difficult (imagine the process of going to the bathroom in the middle of the night attached to a 10 foot cord in your belly) and despite my wife’s best efforts, I was feeling uncharacteristically depressed. Miraculously in mid October we were awakened by a call from The University of Miami/Jackson Transplant Center and told there was a heart available for me. We needed to be in Miami in two hours and the drive itself is one hour at full speed. Since I hadn’t been allowed to drive since my condition had deteriorated in May, my wife had driven there and back too may times to count. We made it and the following day I received my heart transplant, recovery from which is no walk in the park. In fact after I came out of the operation I was in a psychotic state induced by one of the medications used during transplant, combined with morphine for the pain. I couldn’t speak because I was Enturbated and my wife and daughter had to deal with my psychotic belief that the hospital staff was trying to murder me, after they had just saved my life. When I refused pain medication after two days, the psychosis abated and I could begin to let some of the joy of my new life begin to take effect.
I’ve far simplified the experiences I’ve gone through; to really detail it might well take a book. Today, I am healthier than I’ve been in perhaps 20 years. My wife and I have recovered somewhat from the PTSD like state that people normally get going through an experience like this and our lives get progressively more fulfilling than they’ve been for years. My gratitude to my magnificent Heart Surgeon Dr. Si Pham, Chief of the UM/Jackson Heart Transplant Center is boundless. He is perhaps the most unpretentious, yet powerfully charismatic human being that I have ever met. He is quintessentially all that we hope for in a Physician. His 5:00 AM calls to the intensive care nurses for his patients vitals, giving followup instructions based on the results, even when on vacation, indicates his dedication to his patients and his work. I would say categorically that he is perhaps the most impressive human being I have ever met. I feel the gratitude also to the entire staff of the University of Miami/Jackson Transplant Team, that are as good as in any like facility in the nation statistically, but don’t get the equal credit that other more prestigious institutions receive.
The overwhelming bulk of my gratitude must go to the unknown donor and his family, whose strong heart now beats within me. I know nothing of this donor save that he was a 26 year old man, of approximately my height and build. I am working through an agency that will anonymously contact his family to see if they are willing to receive my personal letter of gratitude, now that some time has passed for them to begin to have processed their own heavy grief. That he and they were willing to allow this life saving donation, at a time for them which must have been tragic, is a testament to their humanity. It is to recognize that humanity, coupled with my own blessings, that I am impelled to find some way to pay back for the gift I’ve received. This post is but a beginning. Below there are links that first give a excellent, short presentation of the case for you to designate yourself as a organ donor and following it are links that will allow you to do so.
As someone who has both commented frequently here through the years and is a guest blogger, many of you know who I am. If in any way I have connected with you on any level, even if it was in disagreement, please understand that I would have been dead a year and a half ago without the blessing of this donation. I implore you the to consider putting yourself on the list as a potential organ donor and perhaps save someone’s life. It could well be the ultimate gift of your life.
An excellent video briefly explaining the need for donors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifyRsh4qKF4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Other links that can help you get involved in this.
http://www.unos.org/donation/index.php?topic=fact_sheet_9
http://www.thenationalnetworkoforgandonors.org/index.html
http://donatelife.net/register-now/
http://www.experienceproject.com/groups/Want-To-Encourage-Organ-Donation/56405
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger