There I was, staring at the operating table, it was surreal. I checked into the hospital, like you do for a hotel, and was supposed to wait there for a heart transplant. I had walked in expecting things to go one of two ways, I had no idea that it would lead me here.
My hospital stay was pretty atypical if you can call a heart transplant a typical procedure. I had scheduled my transplant, or rather the hospital admission to wait for a transplant a while back so I had some time to prepare. I brought all the usual things one would when going to the hospital for an undetermined amount of time: books to read for myself and to read to the kids, a journal to help keep track of everything the doctors tell me, socks because the hospital ones are always gigantic, an eyemask and earbuds so I can try to get some sleep with all the lights and beeping around me, my mouthgaurd because I grind my teeth in my sleep, of course my phone and charger so I can stay connected to the outside world, laptop and speakers to Netflix and chill, and my camera…okay, maybe most people wouldn’t pack all that stuff.
My wife and I had checked into a hotel across from the hospital so we wouldn’t have to deal with San Francisco rush hour traffic. My appointment was first thing in the morning, I woke up and walked over to the hospital, that was probably the only routine thing that happened to me. I’ve been in and out of the hospital prior to this for various other tests and procedures so by now I had thought I knew the routine. You go in, register with the nurse, go to a pre-procedure waiting area where you get into a gown, they take your vitals and start hooking you up to heart monitors and get the IV started. But this was during the Covid delta spike, so hospital procedures were a little different. Instead of getting into a gown and going to a pre procedure room where there’s about half a dozen other patients all just separated by curtains, the registration nurse walked me right into the OR, still in my street clothes, camera and backpack in tow.
The nurses and tech’s thought it a little strange, but cool, that before I got into my gown and got onto the operating table I asked if I could snap a few shots. Now that I’m thinking about it, I must have been quite the spectacle, laying there with my camera on my belly shooting away. But I thought, who cares, how many people get to shoot inside an actual operating room!
I was making quite a stir among the staff. They were like, “you are not the usual heart transplant patient.” I guess not. I have a defective gene that has caused my heart to weaken and get into a dangerous rhythm so I need a new heart. I was the youngest one in the ICU and for an ICU patient I was pretty self sufficient, except that I was tethered to an I.V. pole and had a tube coming out my neck. The process of admitting me into the hospital involved a procedure to put a catheter from my neck connected to my heart. They did this to check the pressures inside my heart, and they just leave it in until the transplant.
Initially they told me that I could be waiting in the ICU anywhere from a few days to a few weeks until I get my new heart. So I figured I’d have a lot of time to kill. I was able to video chat with the girls and read bedtime stories with them, or just watch as they played with the filters.
But I still got lonely. Because of the delta surge, they weren’t allowing any visitors. The only visits I got were from the nurses, they’d check in and make sure I was alright. I wasn’t too much trouble, just spent alot of time reading, writing, listening to music and catching up on all the shows and movies people were talking about. Every once in awhile the nurse would walk with me around the floor. I was pimpin’ my style in the hospital ward too. My mom had gotten me this kimono so I can put on over my gown for when I walk around, I had my house shoes that I packed… yeah I was not the typical ICU patient.
Every morning the doctors would wheel around their computers and do their rounds. That’s when my Dr. told me that from the tests and observation they didn’t think I need a transplant yet. So they kept me a few more nights for observation and sent me home without performing a transplant.
So now I’m on a journey to live as good a life as I can and try to buy as much time until I will need a transplant. Cuz it’s not IF but WHEN I’ll need a transplant.
Photography by Rex 