Two years ago today, my life completely changed.
I was, by most measures, a typical high school senior just trying to make it to graduation and decide which college to attend, although for a litany of reasons I still had not obtained my driver’s permit. So, the week or so after my last state wrestling tournament, I went down to the courthouse, took the test, and received my permit. When they asked me if I wanted to be an organ donor, I immediately said yes.
My immediacy resulted from losing a teammate and member of my wrestling family when I was in seventh grade. To this day, Timothy is one of the greatest individuals I have ever known. When I wrestled varsity in seventh grade because another teammate was injured, Timothy was a junior. He was and still is a role model for how I try to live my life. Timothy was a godly individual at the peak of physical shape, and he was extremely intelligent to boot. I’ll never forget how unbelievably hard he worked in the practice room and every other facet of his life. And just as Timothy was about to begin his senior year, he was unexpectedly taken from us.
However, his life was not lived in vain. In his short time here he left indelible marks on myself and countless others. He was also an organ donor. This was a decision and process that I did not fully understand at the time, but what I did understand was how many lives he changed with his decision. It wasn’t just limited to the people who received donations either; his small decision impacted friends, family, and everyone that those recipients would meet in their now extended lifetimes.
Over four years later, I never thought organ donation would impact me at a much more personal level.
Just three weeks prior to March 10, I was wrestling at the state tournament; my momma has always been my biggest fan. That’s why it was unusual that she missed the first few rounds because she was sick. Nonetheless, by the second day of the tournament, she was feeling better and was able to come spectate.
At the beginning of March, we had Snowmageddon. As I was sleeping in until 11 on March 4, I heard momma making some kind of choking noise from the living room. I came out of my room completely unconcerned and was honestly expecting to make fun of her. What I saw I will never be able to forget. Momma was passed out on the couch completely unresponsive. She was trying to breathe, but couldn’t—that’s what the gurgling noise was. I shook her so hard that the doctors later found bruises on her arms and back. She didn’t even flinch.
I ended up having to pry her mouth open just so she could breathe. It was terrifying, and I don’t want to think about what would have happened had I not been there. She didn’t want me to call an ambulance, so I didn’t. I didn’t leave her side the rest of the night, and since we had another snow day on the fifth, I did the same thing.
On March 6, as I was getting ready for school, I heard her yell for help, and it’s not possible for me to recount the terror I had in that moment. I found momma passed out on the kitchen floor, and, for the second time in my life, I saw my rock shaken. We were both terrified. I called into her work and my school, and set up a doctor’s appointment for her later that day. My grandma took momma to the doctor’s appointment, because I had an FFA officer meeting with the local Kiwanis Club.
After getting out of the meeting, my sister called and told me that momma had been admitted to St. Mary’s hospital in Evansville, which was very unusual. They did an EKG at Union County, and something was peculiar. My wrestling coaches drove me up later that night, and momma, while sitting in the hospital bed, was the picture of southern hospitality. She kept asking all of us if we wanted something to drink. Everyone else in the room was poking fun at her, saying that she should be taking care of herself and not worrying about us. She told us that they were going to do a heart cath sometime soon. Momma looked great, and I left in good spirits, seeing how normal she was.
Flash forward to March 10, and I’m sitting in Dairy Queen with some friends, chowing down on a large Blizzard because I don’t have to make weight anymore. My sister calls, and, normally, this call would have been to chastise me for not wishing her a happy birthday yet. But this wasn’t a normal March 10. She told me that I needed to get to Evansville as soon as I possibly could. When I asked her what was wrong, she said that she didn’t want to tell me over the phone. All she said was that the heart cath showed a significant amount of blockage in two arteries.
A friend and his family offered to drive me up. They also offered me a place in their home later on. When I arrived at St. Mary’s, I was greeted with nothing but distraught faces. I received nothing but second-hand information, as the doctor had already passed through. Like a game of telephone in elementary, every single person’s story was different. I heard countless versions of what was going to happen, but the bottom line was that she was going to be LifeFlighted immediately to Jewish Hospital here in Louisville. Some people were saying that she’d be having a heart transplant immediately, which I knew to be a ridiculous proposition, while others were saying it was simply a precaution and that Jewish had better facilities and equipment. I had no idea what to think.
What I did know is that I was scared. My momma was scared. She’d gone from being at home to being sent to a hospital three hours away in a matter of three days. She was lying in a cardiovascular intensive care unit for a problem that she didn’t think she had. We prayed through the tears, and I felt my heart fall out of my body as they pushed her gurney out for what might have been the last time I saw her.
And then I disappeared. Apparently no one but me thought it proper to go watch the helicopter take off. I cried more than I ever thought it possible, and I would be lying if I told you that I’m not crying right now writing this. As the blades turned and turned and beat the air, it felt as if they were beating every breath out of my choked-up lungs. It wasn’t just a helicopter taking off; it was my life. My momma can never understand how much she means to me, and I was watching this hull of metal take her away for possibly the last time I would ever see her.
Momma, on the other hand, was having a different experience on that helicopter. After she settled down emotionally, she started taking selfies. I’m serious. She was making light of a situation that was literally dire. If you can’t smile at that, then you can’t smile at anything.
While at Jewish, she was the life of the cardiovascular intensive care unit (CVIC). Every other patient seemed to be in much more dire straits, while momma kept insisting that she didn’t need to be there. She was downright jovial, but the numbers didn’t agree.
They discovered that she had been having minor heart attacks for years. That’s most likely what happened on the sixth, and the eighth, and even the at the state tournament. The symptoms of cardiac arrest in women are different than the ones we commonly look for. Women often just feel queasy or light headed. Due to these heart attacks, large portions of her heart muscle were dead. It wouldn’t work. This took many weeks of testing.
The doctors at Jewish told us that she would eventually need a heart transplant, and that she could either wait for one in the hospital or that they could give her an LVAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device). For obvious reasons, she chose the latter option. The LVAD is a motor in her heart that basically pumps the blood for her. She doesn’t have a measurable pulse or blood pressure anymore. Her sleeping issues have been exacerbated, because she now has a whirring in her chest that keeps her awake. And she waits for a call that she needs to get to Louisville immediately.
After 50 days in the hospital, she finally got to come home, but our lives are forever changed.
I implore you to consider becoming an organ donor. After experiencing both sides, I feel like I truly understand the importance of this decision. I also want to thank you for taking the time to read this. This isn’t something that I talk about a lot, even though I should. I don’t like to recall the events of two years ago. Thank you again for reading my story, and please keep my momma in your prayers if you’re a person of prayer, or send good thoughts if you are not.
