Just a castawayAn island lost at seaAnother lonely dayWith no one here but meMore lonelinessThan any [wo]man could bearRescue me before I fall into despair I’ll send an SOS to the worldI’ll send an SOS to the worldI hope that someone gets myMessage in a bottle Gordon Sumner (aka Sting) Prior to my second heart […]
I am a two-time heart transplant recipient. I have been brought to my knees twice in my lifetime only to be saved by people like you. You do not know me, nor did you in life. You were not my donor, but I speak to you now as though you were. Today, our Country remembers […]
On March 17, 2019, I was attending the American College of Cardiology annual meeting in New Orleans. I was a featured speaker amongst a distinguished group of doctors from Canada, Mexico, and the United States. One evening after the conference events, I found myself In the midst of a St. Patrick’s Day parade of sorts […]
On December 26, 2017 I had a heart attack. Yes. You heard me right. A F@%$ing heart attack. On December 27, 2017 I was told I needed a new heart. My first transplanted heart was rejecting and full of coronary allograft vasculopathy (CAV) a kind of plaque unique to transplants that builds up for unknown […]
What can I say? It has been a while. Perhaps too long. Perhaps just long enough. Or even too soon. I don’t really know. I would love to tell you that I have been happy, and I have been – but it’s complicated. I would love to tell you that all is well with our […]
Like Alice I followed the white rabbit down the hole. Down, down, down I went into a strange, frightening world, where nothing made sense, and I had no control. Opening doors, meeting strange creatures. Around every corner there was something new, something else that revealed itself to be an imposter, a sinister cheshire cat just […]
I sit here and I mourn a life I would never have. My heart screams out not understanding how we got here. Either one of us. All we know is that we have great joy because of the life we lived, but also a deep underlying sadness that we need to let go of, and, […]
I paused, took a deep breath, and rang the call button from within the bathroom. I heard the door to my room open and Carrie call out.
I sat down in my office at the university, breathed in deeply, and sighed. I had visions of this moment. When I was laying in bed at the hospital, or at home, where the hours were endless. I pictured it in my mind. I would say to myself “Just hang on. You will get back […]
This past Thursday, I came likely as close as I ever will to meeting my donor family. I was speaking at BC Transplant about my journey through a decade of heart failure, stroke, ICD, LVAD, and waiting for my transplant. Where I had the amazing fortune of meeting a donor family member – not mine – but I tried to speak to […]