What does "and beyond" mean in the working title of this blog?

After 38 months of carrying a heart pump, a left ventricular assist device, around in my chest, keeping me alive, I was fortunate to receive a donor heart in early June. I was listed as a heart transplant candidate in October, 2011, so my actual wait for a heart was about 20 months.

The LVAD was implanted in April, 2010, at Mayo Clinic, after the sudden onset of end stage congestive heart failure.  Without the LVAD, my days were numbered.

When I received the call that I donor heart had been found, what was left of my heart leaped out of my body.  Talk about excitement.  But knowing that it might be another dry run (I had three by June 8, 2013) I tried to contain myself: anxious, frightened, and a lot of other things that have descriptions in the same vein.  As I've commented in the last post, the air ambulance ride from Detroit Lakes, MN, to Minneapolis was a blur.

But that is only the beginning of the odyssey.  It has been reported to me that the surgeon suspected "acute rejection" of the donor heart by my immune system. There were two potential outcomes:  either the heart "woke up" and functioned or it didn't. Sounds detached an clinical.  I didn't know what was happening because I was asleep.

My surgical team at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, sedated me and kept me breathing with life support machines.  I was in medical limbo for many hours.  As I said, it could have gone either way.  Such are the fortunes of war.  Once the first shot is fired, the best plans are usually worthless.  No outcome is predictable until the last shot is fired.

In my case,  my new heart awakened and began to function.  My breathing was not quite so quick to return to normal. It took 8 and 1/2 days for me to be able to breath unassisted.  Meanwhile, any muscle tone I had was gone.  I couldn't open my hands and couldn't swallow very well.  I couldn't stand let alone walk.  Balance was shot.  I dropped 25 pounds.

Meanwhile, the anti-rejection drugs were taking a toll.  Some of these immune suppressing drugs will be a lifelong proposition.  I took 10 or more daily medications with my LVAD.  I now take about three times that number.  Some I will gradually be weaned from.  Others remain for the duration.

So the focus of these postings will shift to what is happening after a heart transplant and that's where the"Life at 9200 rpms and beyond."  The LVAD is gone and the fixed speed of 9200 rpms is history.  I am no longer bionic.  Now I'm self-contained and waterproof again.  

If I count my original heart, the LVAD, and now this fantastic gift of a donated heart, I'm gaining on the proverbial cat's nine lives.  This is chance number three and so a Third Chance at Life.

All who are interested, welcome to an evolving life blog with emphasis on beyond the HeartMate II.