Texas Longhorns Football

In my previous posts, I’ve written how hard this wait feels.  Today, with the excitement of last Sunday slipping away, I find myself missing one of my most favorite past times of my life, Texas Longhorn football at Memorial Stadium.

I began attending Longhorn games my first year at the university.  Back in those days, you spent like $60 a year for an all sports pass including home football games.  Of course, the program endured hard times in those days and the tickets meant 30-40 yard line seats on the east side of the stadium.  With the games came the tailgates.  Tailgates in the heat, tailgates in the cold, tailgates in the wind, tailgates in the rain, and tailgates in the sun.  Loved it.  A bunch of students acting crazy in a parking lot and then walking to the stadium.

After undergrad, during law school, the games were a family affair and taking my sons always made the games as fun if not more fun than when I went with my friends in undergrad.  After law school, I managed a fair share of games with Rob, Don, Blanca, Chris and anyone who let me tag along.  These were during the dawn of the Mack Brown years when success bred frustration and in one shining year, a national championship.

About five years ago, UT Law began sponsoring a tailgate which occurred once a year and was actually more of an informal banquet.  Free drinks and free beer included about 100 yards from the north end zone.    Tonight, before the Longhorn/Kansas game, the tail gate at the law school proceeds without me.  All will be ok in that nobody is indespensible and time moves on.  It’s just that I really wish I could go.

I did go to the UT/UTEP game earlier this year and ended up gettting swine flu two days later.  So, technically, I could ignore everything and go in this wet, dark, cold weather but I’d rather be ready should another heart become available and go to games for the next twenty years.

In the meantime, 90,000 plus fans have to get along without me as does the team in their march to another national championship.  I don’t know how they’ll do it.

Still a Heartless Bastard

I left off on the last post being put under waiting for the surgeon to exchange my decrepid, sorry excuse for a heart for a new heart full of all these exciting possibilities.  Closing my eyes, I thought to myself, “when I wake up it will all be worth it.

Waking up, I found myself in a battle royale with three nurses trying to keep me from touching my ventillator tube.  It’s a tube that’s placed inside your throat to God knows where.  All I wanted to do was either swallow or burb.  That’s it.  No need to get violent.  At some point I just gave up struggling and experienced what felt like a large python being pulled from my throat out my mouth.  Then, I’m out yet again.

Next time I wake up, I look around and see this group of five people looking at me.  I’m in a room with a television and cannot hear any of the beeps and alarms and air pumping that one accustoms themself during a stay in ICU.  The first thing out of my mouth (actually second if you count the ventillator tube) are the words, “why doesn’t my chest hurt?”  Then I heard the words, “you didn’t get your heart” with the explanation that one of the organs, the liver actually, began to bleed and none of the organs proved viable for transplant.

After hearing the news, in my drug induced stupor, I became philisophical and replied I wanted the best heart possible so, alright.  Finally, my life of selfishness and self-centeredness became an asset.  Then, I started lamenting the other patients and the donor’s family.  I then found out that the staff at the hospital were upset and “devastated” never having this situatioin occur before.  Never really having the opportunity to soak in all the information, I fell back asleep as I still felt the effects of the anesthetic.

An hour or so later, after waking up, the hospital discharged me.  That statement about feeling no pain was premature as my shoulder had gauze bandages all over for the tubes installed in preparing for the transplant.  Additionally, I felt several holes in my neck from the SWAN and some other tube.   But the worst proved to be the inside of my neck.  If you’ve never been tubulated…it’s just not fun.  I left the hospital sore and with a raw throat, and one dry mouth, a side effect of the anesthesia.

The whole time riding back to Austin, I contemplated everything that happened the day before and that morning.  Strangely, nothing changed.  Normally, I tend to overreact, think things through, then calm down.  This time, my first impression became my second and third impression and as I write this in the hospital cafeteria right before my clinic appointment, my current point of view.  (They’re playing some great salsa music in the background)

Now it’s back to the wait for that call and the thought the unknown is now known.  Of course, I know such is truly not the case for all of these experiences show themselves to be unique.  The only negative I can gather seems to be that I’ll never get that belief of the point of no return.  Last time, that point was when the heart-lung machine operator came and spoke with me.  In my mind, it was the point when I received the anesthesia.  Now, it’s when I wake up and say, “damn, did anyone get the number of the semi that ran me over.”

Hello world!

Thanks to WordPress.com.  This is my first post for this blog.  I’m a 47 year old lawyer waiting for a heart transplant.  I’ve blogged before as a lawyer but this is a new me for now and I want to communicate what it’s like to be a heart transplant patient.

Please ask any questions or feel free to comment if you’re a patient and your experience differs.  It’s an amazing trip.