Thumbs up on each biopsy!

Photo: Me and Eden dressed for Halloween, Granny was in paying for Gas. Can Cats drive?

After a fun Halloween weekend, Monday morning I had my fifth biopsy since receiving my heart transplant 56 days ago. So far all of my lab results have been wonderful. There are hardly any signs of rejection, if any. In other words, the heart I received is a perfect match, extremely strong, and my body is receiving the organ very well. I am fortunate, blessed, and grateful to God.

What is a Biopsy?

My myocardial biopsies are performed in an operating room known as the cath lab by a cardiologist. In this test a small amount of tissue is removed from the internal lining from the heart for testing. It is used to help detect rejection of the new heart after a heart transplant. A long, flexible tube, called a catheter, is inserted into a vein and threaded into the heart's right artrium through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle. The doctor can guide the catheter by watching its movement on a monitor showing an X-ray image of the area. The tip of the catheter is fitted with tiny jaws that the doctor can open and close. Once the catheter is in place, the doctor will take several tiny snips of muscle for microscopic examination.

What does it feel like?

Most adults and some teenagers choose to be awake for the procedure since most sit still and can endure the tugging.

Because I am doing this in a children's hospital I still have the luxury of requesting anesthesia. My first biopsy was very painful because of some nerve pain so we decided to use anesthesia the next time. Unfortunately, I have some reaction to my anesthesia which seems at times more challenging than the transplant did. For several minutes afterward I feel like I’m in deep water trying to reach an unattainable surface. However, this passes. And I remind myself no matter how hard it is in that moment of despair all things pass. Eventually, it’s over and I feel renewed and happy to be alive. I don’t like talking about the hard moments because I’m an optimist and try to see things from a long-term perspective.

My team and cardiologist have been extremely professional and kind in helping to ease the pain.

As time goes by and there is no sign of rejection my weekly biopsies turn into bi-monthly, monthly, every three months, six months, to every year. At this point, if all goes well I won’t need another one until after Thanksgiving.

I often think of the words of Joseph B. Wirthlin who put suffering in perspective:

“Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come!”

A Heart for Christmas | Or Not

The call came at 12:45am. “We have a heart for you,” the voice on the other line said. I was in shock. I had prepared for the call but because it came early Christmas morning and the fact that it was a real call left me speechless and emotional. We had until 2am to get to the hospital. The operation would take place at either 6 or 7am.

I called my parents to meet us at the hospital. They called my siblings to let them know what was going on. Early that night, we had all gathered with the husbands, wives, and kids for our annual Christmas Eve dinner at my parents. It was a great night. We had a special family prayer and the kids acted out the nativity. My wife and daughter left to go home at 11pm. Before putting my 3-year-old daughter to bed we each opened a present. We put her in bed and then Santa came. Then the phone rang.

We arrived at the hospital feeling a great sense of peace and comfort. The time had come and I was ready. Nurses began the preparations. Everyone was extremely positive and saying things like, “Merry Christmas!” and “What a great Christmas gift.”

I received a rather larger IV and a lot of blood was drawn from my already existing picc line for lab work. They had me wash my chest and groin area (where the major arteries are for the heart lung machine) with special medical soap. It was a little cold. Then surgeons came into my room a little before 5am and told my wife and my parents what was expected. He mentioned the “difficulty” of my particular case because of my heart’s anatomy. It would be challenging to get the old heart out. There would be a lot of bleeding. He said, "There is an 80% chance we'll have to go back in later to help stop bleeding." He said chances are I might not make it. Although he had to talk about the downside or the surgery he also mentioned they have an 80-90% success rate with these surgeries on post fontan patients. But, the harsh realities left me a little depressed but I still felt great peace. I had understood the depth of this procedure previously but when you are minutes away from it actually happening life becomes quite sobering.

They came to get me at 5:20am and before the anesthesiologist took me into the operating room I talked briefly with my wife and parents. I kissed Lynnette, told her how much I love her, and then headed down the hallway.

In the cold, brightly lit, O.R., nurses lifted me from my bed onto that firm, narrow, operating table I have become familiar with over the years. I received a dose of versed (Midazolam) for anxiety and preparation. Before I went completely under we were waiting to hear from one of the surgeons, who had gone to harvest the donor heart, if everything was absolutely perfect and good to go. About 30 minutes later the news came. “The new heart had a problem undetected until they looked at it face to face and would not work,” they said. It had an aneurysm which would require some additional surgery on top of everything else we're dealing with.

I didn’t know what to feel. Shock? Relief? Disappointment? I have felt all of those things. Nonetheless, we called it off.

Lynnette and I came home 5 hours later to Christmas morning. My daughter, who had been taken good care of by my sister n’ law, asked if I brought her a sucker from the hospital and things seemed back to normal. I was anxious to experience Santa with my child. One of the gifts from Santa for my daughter was a Fisher Price Medical Kit. She practiced giving shots to me and listened to my heart beat.

I am thankful for the love and support of my family and friends, particularly my sweet wife Lynnette.

This is a roller coaster of emotions. In a way, this experience seems like a brief 2nd opportunity of time before we find out the real outcome of my life’s journey. I am ready for another call but for now I’ll enjoy this weekend with my wife and daughter as we humbly celebrate the birth of the babe in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.
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Time, precious time
How quickly the leaves fall from the tree.
Time, oh precious time
In a blink of an eye a child grows old.
And in the pursuit of joy and happiness
Lies time
But quickly it fades
And all we have are memories
Precious moments
Remembered in time.
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