A Match

On October 10, 2022, I was admitted to NYU Langone hospital to complete the listing process and wait for a heart. I packed my suitcase with the knowledge that I may be there a long time. My hope was to at least be home by Christmas if not Thanksgiving but, truly, I had no idea what to expect. I had a septal myectomy via open heart surgery five years earlier and multiple other heart surgeries, so I figured I would have a handle on whatever was headed my way. (Spoiler alert: I couldn’t have been more wrong.) After about one week of completing the tests, I was officially listed at Status 2 on the transplant list. The days were long in the hospital. I would walk the halls to stay as active as I could and sometimes I would chat with other patients who were also waiting. I made friends with the nursing staff (they were amazing) and three days later on one of my laps around the unit, a doctor came up to me and asked if we could talk. Not thinking for a second it was about a heart, I sat down on my hospital bed and he sat across from me. Out came the words: