If you are reading this, you likely know me personally, to some degree. Maybe you’ve read my other blog posts. You probably know about my health situation. You probably know that I’m immunocompromised.
Hopefully you also understand that the only reason I’m alive today is because of incredible advances in medical technology.
When you are told you are going to die, it’s not a great feeling. When they tell you that there is an extremely complex treatment, not without risk, but well understood, developed through the rigors of the scientific method and built on all of the incredible information we’ve learned from previous science, you trust. I can’t know everything that a transplant surgeon knows about the human body. But I do know that transplants are an overwhelmingly successful treatment for heart failure. The numbers don’t lie. I do know that the methods and tools of science produce tangible, successful, repeatable results. There’s ample proof all around.
When they announced that they had developed an mRNA vaccine for Covid my team at Cedars began recommending the vaccine almost immediately, knowing that people like me really needed it the most.
In fact, let’s back up a minute, because many may not know this. The reason I needed a heart transplant in the first place was a virus. I was a normal 19 year old kid, I got a viral infection and my immune system didn’t fight it off. I was, like many 19 year old kids, burning the candle at both ends. The virus attacked my heart and destroyed it. You may have heard the term ‘cardiomyopathy’ recently. That’s what happened to me….and I nearly died from it. It’s also happening more and more to people who get COVID-19.
So yeah, this viral pandemic is very serious, especially for someone like me, but for all of us. It really could happen to anyone. I have avoided public places for the past two years because of the severity of the risk I face from Covid.
One of these days, I will get a phone call. I will drive myself to the hospital. I will lie down to have a new heart put in my chest.
When I emerge from that operation, I will be even more immunocompromised than I am now.
I hope there is a society for me to participate in once I’m recovered.
If you are unvaccinated, consider your next move, because it could really affect the outcome of the match for all of us.
P.S. Watch this short video from the NYT and watch it till the end. Please listen.