In 2019, I was electrocuted on scaffolding at one of my projects. At that moment, I didn’t notice anything significant about my body that worried me. However, six months after the accident, I experienced major issues with a bloated stomach, difficulty breathing, and many other problems that eventually landed me in the hospital. After extensive testing, the hospital diagnosed me with congestive heart failure. They said my heart was only pumping 5% – 10% of the blood to my body. Thankfully, at that time, they were able to get the fluid off my heart and stabilize me.
For almost three years, I tried to beat heart failure but was unsuccessful in healing my heart. Half of the time, my care team attempted to strengthen my heart with various medications, and the other half was spent keeping me “transplantable.” I didn’t want to believe that I’d need a new heart someday, but I knew it would eventually become a reality.
The week before my wedding, on June 17, 2022, my heart crashed. Here I was, one week before my wedding, stuck in a hospital. The doctors said I was within days of losing my life—definitely a close call. Thankfully, the hospital was able to stabilize me with a drug called Milrinone. Milrinone was pumped into my weak heart 24/7, enabling me to leave the hospital and marry my beautiful bride on June 25, 2022.
Fast forward to August 2022, I ended up back in the hospital for minor complications. However, my care team decided to perform more tests on my heart before they let me go home. After the tests, going home wasn’t an option. They informed me to get comfortable because I wouldn’t be leaving until I had a new heart. Even with the most powerful drug to help my heart pump, it wasn’t enough. They attempted to utilize the Impella heart pump to keep me alive for a few more months and bump me up to a status 2 transplant. One week later, that failed, and I was back to square one.
The last-ditch effort to keep me alive was ECMO. Basically, ECMO is life support. At this point, I had days to live—maybe a week. On September 5th, 2022, they found my heart, and on the 6th, I was transplanted with the heart of the most beautiful soul, my donor, my hero, Jack Robert Sinnott.