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Sep. 16th, 2013
To the donor....
Sep. 16th, 2013 03:16 pmI drove to Sacramento yesterday. My dear friend, who was the Best Woman at our wedding, got her heart transplant in the early hours of Wed. morning. She came off of the ventilator yesterday morning and so it was time for me to make the journey to see her. I only wish I could speak to the donor or his family to express my gratitude and give them my thanks. Without his final bequest, this gift of life, my friend's life was rapidly moving toward an untimely end.
To the donor and his family,
Your unselfish gift has given me back my friend, an amazing woman who has worked tirelessly for years to help those in need. She has worked to make psychiatric services available to those that have needed them and did not otherwise have access. She has labored selflessly to shelter the homeless in our community, when so many have instead turned their backs and shut their eyes to the problem in our midst. She has worked to make the community in which we live, a better one for all that dwell here.
And she has continued to do this as her health failed and as her strength was sapped.
As her physician, I first recognized she was slipping into congestive heart failure almost 10 years ago. Idiopathic cardiomyopathy it turned out to be, subsequently complicated by a failing mitral valve. I medicated, diuresed, tuned her up, then got her to a cardiology colleague's care. We did all we could medically until this past spring, at which time our only option left to offer her, was a ventricular assist device in the hope she'd last long enough to find her a new heart. There are some for whom the assist device is destination therapy and they do well enough with it to keep on keeping on. That was not her story. Despite the LVAD, she continued to worsen. Where it not for you, we were pretty much at the end of the line.
Yesterday, we cried. She did and I did. They were tears of both joy and wonder.
And gratitude. I mustn't forget gratitude.
She has a long road to recovery ahead of her. She's weak and in some pain, but thanks to you there is a road ahead of her.
I pray for you, dear donor, that you are in a better place, that you are welcomed into whatever comes next with open, tender, loving arms. I pray that your family finds solace, and that this enormous gift gives them some peace in losing you. Know that I will hold you and your family in my heart and my prayers as long as I continue to draw breath, for you have given me back my loved one and for that I will forever remain in your debt.
Vaya con dios.
To the donor and his family,
Your unselfish gift has given me back my friend, an amazing woman who has worked tirelessly for years to help those in need. She has worked to make psychiatric services available to those that have needed them and did not otherwise have access. She has labored selflessly to shelter the homeless in our community, when so many have instead turned their backs and shut their eyes to the problem in our midst. She has worked to make the community in which we live, a better one for all that dwell here.
And she has continued to do this as her health failed and as her strength was sapped.
As her physician, I first recognized she was slipping into congestive heart failure almost 10 years ago. Idiopathic cardiomyopathy it turned out to be, subsequently complicated by a failing mitral valve. I medicated, diuresed, tuned her up, then got her to a cardiology colleague's care. We did all we could medically until this past spring, at which time our only option left to offer her, was a ventricular assist device in the hope she'd last long enough to find her a new heart. There are some for whom the assist device is destination therapy and they do well enough with it to keep on keeping on. That was not her story. Despite the LVAD, she continued to worsen. Where it not for you, we were pretty much at the end of the line.
Yesterday, we cried. She did and I did. They were tears of both joy and wonder.
And gratitude. I mustn't forget gratitude.
She has a long road to recovery ahead of her. She's weak and in some pain, but thanks to you there is a road ahead of her.
I pray for you, dear donor, that you are in a better place, that you are welcomed into whatever comes next with open, tender, loving arms. I pray that your family finds solace, and that this enormous gift gives them some peace in losing you. Know that I will hold you and your family in my heart and my prayers as long as I continue to draw breath, for you have given me back my loved one and for that I will forever remain in your debt.
Vaya con dios.