My Life at 9200 rpm's: Adapt and overcome, 30 months and counting

     Another milestone for this LVAD.  Thirty months and counting. As I've said before, I received my HeartMate II April 2, 2010. 

     My congestive heart failure, like so many others who develop the condition/disease, slowed my life to an unsteady crawl, fitful and uncertain.  Breathing was the most serious issue. If you cannot breathe, you cannot renew the oxygen in your blood stream. The outcome could be grim.  The HeartMate II made all the difference.

     When I consider that not everyone makes it out of the hospital after the lengthy implant surgery of this miniature mechanical blood circulation device, I know I am twice blessed.  I was in the local hospital in Fargo for a week and at St. Marys Hospital at Mayo Clinic for 47 days. I made it out of the hospital and haven't looked back.

     For an LVAD, getting out of the hospital is a milestone.  Exercise and being active have been a kind of Heartbreak Ridge continuing odyssey for me.  

     By no means am I comparing my experience with the brave souls of the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division. About 3,500 Americans were killed in the actual Battle of Heartbreak Ridge. Some 25,000 North Koreans were killed as well.  The battles were intense: bombs, artillery shelling, tanks, infantry, airborne troops, rifles, grenades and hand to hand combat with knives, feet, and fists.  

     Until the U.S. overall field commander was replaced at the end of September, the fiasco raged as the 2nd Infantry Division was repulsed and slaughtered.  

     New battle plans were developed about the first of October, employing engineers building roads where there had been cart tracks.  Tanks could use the roads but not the cart tracks.  Guts along with tanks and artillery changed the mix.

     My point is that the recovery road has been slow and not always smooth or comfortable. There are no guarantees for LVADs or any of us.  In the bigger picture, there is a certain end for all of us.

     Each day is a good day. But count on nothing. Take nothing for granted. As the fictional Heartbreak Ridge movie character Gunny Highway said,  to his platoon of initially woebegone Marines: adapt and overcome.  It became a mantra for Highway's men.  

     Clearly, you cannot plan for every eventuality. The best, most carefully conceived battle plan always seems to go to hell once the first shot is fired.  Adapt and overcome.  It is all about attitude.

     Unlike the movie references, the real Battle of Heartbreak Ridge was a Korean war encounter that lasted a month in September-October, 1951.  American and French Army forces struggled against overwhelming odds and well entrenched North Korean Peoples Army soldiers.  

     It was not U.S. Marines in the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge like the story line said in the movie starring Clint Eastwood as Marine Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway.  In the movie, the back story was that Eastwood/Highway was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism allegedly in the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge. There was an Army private whose heroics won the MOA posthumously.  Eventually, in actuality South Korean troops took and kept the ridge.  The men and materiel lost were undeniably costly.

     The first year for a new LVAD has been shown to have a survival rate of about 58 per cent, according to the manufacturer's clinical trial outcome data.  For the second year the survival rate jumps ten points.  

     Those are recognizable milestones.  After that LVADs are on their own.  The territory is uncharted. Some LVAD brothers and sisters have more time on the pump than I have. They are the pioneers who give me encouragement.

     I'm now at two years and six months survival mark, feel good, have a reasonable quality of life. I have a heart pump that eases congestive heart failure.  It is not a cure. So living 30 months downrange from LVAD implant surgery is defying the odds. You learn to face each challenge with an adapt and overcome attitude.  

     It is not an attitude that comes naturally.  You have to work at it. But the reward may be another day of living on this mortal coil.  There are no guarantees for LVADs or any of us.