If you have been reading my previous blogs about my mom’s journey to her heart transplant, you would know that I left off with some impending news from her, news that wasn’t so good.
Mom went along fine with her heart condition and her new pacemaker and defibrillator. She was really very healthy for a number of years following that. It was only when she started getting very winded and out of breath when walking up the stairs or from room-to-room that she knew something wasn’t quite right. It was shortly before her routine Mayo Clinic visit that she broke the news to us that she thought her heart wasn’t working quite as well as it should. She wasn’t sure, but she thought perhaps her heart was beginning to fail altogether.
Mom went to Mayo for her routine visit and they did several tests to get to the bottom of her breathing issues. To make a long story short, the Mayo Clinic explained to Mom that she was in the beginning stages of heart failure. Her cardiologists told her that they would do everything they could by using medications to combat this heart failure, but eventually the only thing that would save her would be a heart transplant. However, at that time she wasn’t sick enough to be considered a candidate for a heart transplant. Her cardiologists knew they could use medications for a while before they would need to take this next step.
I remember Mom calling me. I was at work and I had insisted she phone me, no matter what the news. Luckily, it was the end of the day and my students had all gone home. She told me the news and I sat down in our main office and just began crying. I was now faced with the real possibility that my mom could die eventually without a new heart. I couldn’t quite fathom how this had happened, and I really wondered how my parents must have felt.
It was shortly after this news that I began dating the man who would become my husband. My mom said her one goal in life was to help me plan my wedding and to dance with my father at my wedding reception. She told me that by setting goals like these, it gave her something to keep living for.
I am happy to say that with the help of her cardiologists and the Mayo Clinic, and perhaps by her own strong will, my mom danced at my wedding in June of 2001. She was actually pretty healthy, very tired, but she was there and she danced!
Mom’s journey took another twist not too long after my wedding. Stay tuned tomorrow for more of her journey to a heart transplant.
If you haven’t read my other blogs in this series, here are some links.
Mom’s Journey to a Heart Transplant Part One
Mom’s Journey to a Heart Transplant Part Two
I have linked part three of this series in my first sentence of this blog.