Heart Transplant Journey (2)

Faith & Family

I would like to thank Myoshi for reaching out to me to as me to share my story and I see it as a great honor to stand before you tonight.

But before I share my heartfelt story, can I say a prayer to give me strength to share my story and not to become too emotional.

Prayer

Before I share my heart journey story of last year, especially of February and July of last year, I would like to share my backstory with you.

         My heartfelt story begins in April of 2000 at the age of thirty-six. I went to the ER of Cape Fear Valley on a Sunday night. I was placed in an exam room and in walked this cardiologist on call who was Dr Martin Bacon, and he came into the room and said that I was having a whopper of a heart attack, but he was going to take me to the Cardiac Cath Lab and take care of me. Once in the Cath Lab, Dr. Bacon asked me if I would like to listen to some music while he performed my Cath I think he played the music for my benefit than his. and I told him that I did not mind. He picked a Beatles album, and the first song was “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely-Hearts Club Band” and as I was lying on the OR table, I realized that God has a sense of humor. First God gives me a cardiologist named Dr. Bacon, in the 2000 bacon was bad for your cholesterol, I thought about all of the BLT sandwiches and French fries that I had eaten throughout my life.  Then Dr. Bacon tells me I am having a whopper of a heart attack, and I thought about the Burger King that was located at the corner of Owen Drive and Village Drive where my coworkers would go have lunch getting a Whopper combo which was not the healthiest lunch choice. And then finally I was listening to the Beatles song “Lonely Hearts Club Band” while Dr Bacon put 3 stents in my heart to unblock my artery. I remembered thinking that if something happened during my procedure, and I did not make it, I knew I would go to heaven because I had put my faith, hope and trust in the good news of Jesús Christ. That he lived a sinless life, he was  crucifixion and died and he was resurrected from the dead that when I died I would have eternal life but I had not made him the Lord of my life but that all changed that night, I promised God that if he would get me back on my feet and back to a normal life, I would make sure that I would make Jesus the Lord of my life and I have never looked back. And if anyone here has not put their trust and faith in Jesus Christ then see me after the gala and I will be happy to share with you what the Bible says about Jesus.

My recovery has come with some bumps in the road but I look at it as God keeping me humble over the years. After I recovered from heart attack and heart cath I went home and began a chapter in my life.

Over the next twenty years until he retired. Dr Bacon gave me the best care that a heart patient could ever ask for. When the damage to my heart did not improve from my heart attack and my injection fraction reached 28%, he recommended a defibrillator be installed in my chest and on February 4, 2009 to pace my heart and to shock my heart if it got out of rhythm. I asked him if the procedure was painful. He said the surgery was not but that if the defibrillator ever shocked me it would feel like being kicked in the chest by a donkey, and he knew what he was talking about because the first time the defibrillator shocked me in the years to come, he was telling the truth. The scariest part of a defibrillator shock is that there is no warning of when it could happen. In 2018, my first defibrillator battery was dying, and I could hear a faint beep that went off every so often telling me the battery did not have much battery life. So, In November 2018, I received my second defibrillator. I cannot count the times my second defibrillator has shocked me, but each time it got my heart back into a heart rhythm. I believe that the shocks to my heart damaged the muscle of my heart but at least I was still alive to live another day. Now that I have shared my backstory I share with you all the reason I stand here tonight.

       On February 28th 2025, my heart journey took me where I never imagined.  My wife and I had caught some type of Nora virus and for three days before the 28th and I could not keep down any food or drink including all my heart medications in my system and my heart just stopped beating that morning. My wife called 911 and when the call came into the EMS stations at Gilespie Street, our son had just reported for his shift and heard the call come in and he told his supervisor that was his parents’ house, his supervisor drove him to our house where he and his supervisor beat the Rescue Squad and EMS to our house. Our daughter had come to our house to pick up our youngest grandson to babysit him that day and wound up helping her brother get me out my recliner and onto the floor where our son Jonathan’s paramedic training kicked in, and he began CPR on me, and he got my heart back beating. He broke a couple of my ribs in the process, but that was the least of my worries.

How many parents can tell the story that their child saved their life, I bet not many. He kids his older sister, Amber that he is the favorite child now and he tells her that he will get more inheritance than her since he is the favorite, but I joke with him that there probably will not be much of an inheritance by the time I pay all of medical bills especially for my heart transplant. But I tell him it is money well spent if I get to be around and be with him, his mom, his sister, my grandchildren to make more memories in life with them.

After I was placed in the ambulance to go to  Cape Fear Valley, I coded a second time in the ambulance named Jacob and he had to perform CPR on me again to get my heart to beat again. Once at the hospital, I was placed on the ICU floor. Once in the room, a the doctor came in and looked at my monitor and asked me if I was feeling ok and about that time, I said I felt some tightness in my chest and I coded a third time in less than 8 hours. I do not remember much about that ordeal, but my wife said the doctor told her that he had me on as much medications as possible and that there was not much more that could be done, CPR was performed by a nurse who preformed CPR and saved my life for the third time. My wife said the nurse got on a stool to perform CPR on me. The decision was made by my heart failure team at Cape Fear Cardiology to life flight me to UNC Chapel to find out how much damage my heart had suffered and get me back on my heart medications. They intubated me and I were flown by the Life Flight team from here to UNC Chapel Hill. I was intubated on that Friday afternoon until noon on Sunday. It was strange to be intubated on a Friday afternoon and waking up on a Sunday around noon. After my cardiology team at UNC got my cardiac medications adjusted, I went home after two weeks. I returned to UNC on March 22nd and Dr. Byku performed a right heart cath to check the pressures of my heart and once it was completed, Dr. Byku came over to me while I was still on the surgical table and she said Marty, your heart is in bad shape and I am going to start the process of getting you on the heart transplant list. I was in shock.

After we left the hospital that day our daughter who had come with my wife and I to drive us home. I was in the back seat, and I said I do not think I am going to go through with a heart transplant. I said I have had a good life and have been blessed with a great family and friends, I think someone younger than me should have a new heart instead. To which my daughter looking at me through the rearview mirror with disgust in her eyes says. “You will have a heart transplant, and you will like it, end of discussion.” You cannot argue with a strong-willed daughter like ours, who takes after her mother.

I was scheduled to go to Duke University Hospital for a heart transplant evaluation as an outpatient on June 30th, July 1st,and July 2nd but that all changed on the night of June 28thwhen my defibrillator shocked me four times and then did not shock me again. I later learned that a defibrillator does a series of checks to continue the shocks after those checks if the heart does not respond it will not shock the heart. Our son again had just gotten home from his new job, at First Health and he started CPR on me, but my heart would not start beating. The Rescue Squad and EMS arrived, and the paramedics used an external defibrillator to shock my heart to get it beating again. I was taken to Cape Fear once there I asked cardiologist on duty to send me to Duke since I had planned to go there for an evaluation anyway and the next day, EMS transported me to Duke. After a couple of days of testing it was determined I was a candidate for a heart transplant and I was given a great team of cardiologists to see me through the process Dr DeVore, Dr Patel and Dr Schroder and I was placed on the list on July 4th 2025 and on July 12th I got the call from my heart transplant coordinator that a donor heart had been found for me, I went into surgery that night and received my new heart the following morning of July 13th. All my follow-up visits have been excellent, and my heart transplant cardiologists tell me I have a happy and healthy heart. I have had some side affects from the organ rejection drugs but that is a small price to pay to have a second chance at life.

I now have a second chance at life and I will forever be indebted and grateful to my son and all of the other first responders who came to my aid on the darkest days of my life and helped save my life If it was not for my son and the other first responders, doctors and nurses of CFVH, I would have never been given the chance to receive a new heart at Duke. I am also forever grateful and thankful for my wife who never left my side the entire time while I was in the hospital and for the love of my son, daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. But most of all I am grateful and thankful for an 18-year-old young man who decided to be an organ donor and had compassion and love for a total stranger like me to give me a second chance at life and I pray that I can honor that young man’s life with a life lived well at the end of my days and honor his legacy that he did not die in vain.

In closing, My heart transplant team at Duke told me that I would need to recuperate for at least 3 months before I attempted to go back to work and I while I was at home I decided to catch up on some reading and I came across a book that I had had for years entitled Don’t Give Up… Don’t Ever Give Up and that book, Jim Valvano who was the coach of the NC State Wolfpack basketball team who won the 1983 NCAA Basketball Championship. In his book; he was diagnosed with bone cancer in June of 1992 and in 1993 he won the first ever Authur Ashe Award at the ESPY Awards. In Jimmy V’s speech, he said that he did three things every day. First, he says he laughed every day, Second, he said he spends time in thought every day and the third thing he does every day, he brings his emotions to tears. He said if you do those three things, that’s a full day. He said you do that seven days a week you’re going to have something special.

I know I laugh every day whether I laugh at myself or laugh at something that is said on our family group chat; by my wife, daughter, son, son-in-law or one of my five grandchildren are on every day.

Secondly, I spend time in thought every day. I think about how God has given me a wife that has been by my side through all my health issues that I have experienced. From the heart attack at the age of 36 in 2000. To my brain surgery in 2014, to diagnosed with heart failure in 2020 to my prostate cancer treatments in 2021 to suffering two cardiac arrest in 2025 and a heart transplant in July of the same year. Third, every day I think about the 18 year-old young man who decided to become an organ donor and allow a total stranger like me to have a second chance at life.

In closing, I want to challenge each of you that when you wake up tomorrow that you think of something that makes you laugh or smile, spend some time in thought and to have your emotions turn to tears and just as Jim Valvano did and as I continue today each day.

Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you tonight!!!