To give a message to you all, never give up. Be strong. I lived twenty two years of my life completely unaware of my own health problems, having thought it was just some oddly specific form of asthma since the age of twelve. It took doctors a full decade to even figure out what the problem was. Everyone thought I was just lazy, myself included, and I was so close to just saying '**censor** it' to getting to where I wanted to be in terms of health. But in the spring of 2016, I got a sudden sickness I couldn't explain. My chest hurt like hell and I could barely sleep no less even walk to the damned bathroom just across from my room. I saw doctor after doctor and they all told me it could be my "asthma," but no matter what they did to treat that, it failed. They eventually sent me in for an Ultrasound on my chest, and they failed to find anything. I kept insisting, and eventually one doctor thought it might be Pneumonia. We did a blood test that day, but after I got home I felt even more sick. I suddenly got a crippling headache, breathing was strained, I was coughing up every organ I had, my eyes were irritated and I was stuffed up like hell. I didn't sleep at all and I had to call an advice nurse. She told me to get my ass to the hospital. It was there that I found out two things: the doctor's suspicions were correct and my heart was four times the normal size or something. Safe to say I was terrified.
I didn't let that break me, however. I did my best to be upbeat and made jokes with the nurses, but especially dark humor. I knew I could die at any moment right there in the bed. So if I did, I wanted to go out smiling and making someone happy. I'd given up on myself and just remembered the people around me, from my family to the nurses who were working their asses off to keep me kicking. This all happened in the middle of moving from my home in Washington to a new home in Tennessee. I had to take oxygen on the plane, but the second flight refused me the tank. I had barely made the first flight and was worried I might not make the second without a problem. Breathing was tough, sure, but it was a short flight and I kept on fighting until we landed. I got the oxygen back and took the deepest breath I think I ever have. Less than a week after arriving, I ended up passing out in the kitchen and being rushed to the hospital. Turns out I had amassed a scary amount of fluid and it had begun to surround my lungs, which had collapsed part of the right one, which was the cause of my labored breathing among other things. I had that surgery the day after my arrival in the hospital on the third of July. I spent the fourth of July in the hospital, experiencing some of the worst pain I'd ever felt in the form of a catheter being forced into my back to drain the fluid from around the lung. Yeah, it hurt like a bitch and I almost passed out again just due to the pain, but I stuck it out.
After that, my Cardiologist finally had a chance to meet me, and he's a goddamn saint. No insurance and he was still treating me, not concerned in the least about me paying him. He just wanted me to pull through. He gave me education on matters and educated my grandparents as well. All seemed well for about six months, but in January, the found the medicine was doing absolutely nothing for me. My heart had become so diseased that I wasn't projected to even make it to the end of 2017, but they never told me that. My cardiologist only told me that I was at risk of death and needed a new medicine... and it would have to be constantly administered via IV. I had catheter placed within my right pectoral and was given a pump after I arrived home along with the medicine - milrinone. It was only two weeks after that and I also received an internal defibrillation device that'd zap me back to life if I had any irregular beats or severe murmurs. I kept these in until my transplant. But before that, I ended up back in the hospital multiple times, and the final time saw a serious scare with my liver enzymes suddenly flaring up. This was the first sign my Cardiologist had that my heart was well on its way to stopping completely.
A perfect match came up after being on the Transplant list for only one month. He brought the news to me along with the fact my liver had settled once more, but he only said that they might have found a match. However, it was only by the next morning and I was woken up at six am to be prepped and carted out to the surgery room. June 7th, 2017, they removed my dying heart and transplanted the healthy heart. I died that day, but was revived just the same. I was unconscious for the entire day and awoke the following afternoon. I had pumps, tubes and innumerable IV lines sticking out of me. My defibrillator was gone, and all that remained was a great red scar on my left pectoral. The very first weekend, my friends in Alabama had come up to see me and wish me well. But sadly, for that entire weekend, I was forced to have an NG tube rammed up my nostril and all the way down my throat, where it finally stopped inside of my stomach. My throat was raw, my face hurt and the slightest movement forced the nurses to have to reset it. I never once stopped complaining about it, but I didn't allow myself to take it out, no matter how badly I wanted to. But within one week, I was having tubes, cables and all sorts of things pulled, even the old IV line in my chest. And by the time July rolled around, I was out. I got to celebrate Independence Day, 2017.
While I was in the hospital, I learned the grave situation I had been in. I cried in the bed thinking about the life lost to save mine, both in thanks and in mourning as well. I was both happy and relieved, but also empathetic to the family that had lost someone. I came to realize that had I hadn't forced myself to stay positive and keep going, no matter how hard it got, that I would have succumb to my illness and this topic would have been far, far different. My official diagnosis was Acute, Idiopathic, Congestive Heart Failure. In laymen's terms, it had a sudden onset, they have no idea why I had it and my heart wasn't strong enough to pump blood throughout my body. I fought through it all and, as you can see above, it turned out better in the end.
One person was on death's door and waiting to stay, but they saw to it I was only a visitor. To them I owe innumerable thanks and I only wish I could repay them for the gift they gave me.
