Transplant Work Up

I had my heart transplant “work up” in the spring of 2021. You have many, many tests and labs to make sure you are a viable candidate for transplant. Here is a stream of consciousness I wrote down while I was waiting to start my very first appointment.

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I’m sitting here holding a pager and waiting for my very first appointment for my transplant work up. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to start this ball rolling. Everything is going to change. I want to stay in my current life where I know how to manage my heart failure. But then again, that is not true anymore. I am not managing it well. My internal narrative for the last 12 years has been, “I am managing my heart failure.” That narrative needs to change because it is no longer true. I need to be here in the waiting room starting the transplant process. Because I am sick. And I am not managing it well anymore. Acceptance doesn’t always arrive with a pretty bow. Sometimes it arrives right before the pager buzzes for your CT scan. I still don’t want to be here. But I need to be here.