如果没有器官移植,我早就死了这是我记录这段旅程的故事

   日期:2025-07-04     来源:本站    作者:admin    浏览:57    
核心提示:    当我13岁的时候,我在体育课上的地板曲棍球比赛中昏倒了。后来去了趟医院,我被诊断出患有肥厚性心肌病,这种病通常会导

  

  当我13岁的时候,我在体育课上的地板曲棍球比赛中昏倒了。后来去了趟医院,我被诊断出患有肥厚性心肌病,这种病通常会导致心脏增厚。

  确诊5个月后,我和妈妈一起在厨房里。她做饭时我们一直在聊天,但她突然说她不舒服。我看着她倒在地上。

  我疯狂地给她做心肺复苏术,这是我最近在保姆课上学到的,我把她抱在怀里,恳求她醒过来。我打了911,然后打电话给我工作的父亲,告诉他这个难以想象的事情。我们在这世上最爱的女人走了。

  那天晚上,从急诊室回家后,我们现在已经是一家两口人了,我看着父亲滑到前门啜泣。我无法形容在被诊断出同样的疾病后失去母亲是什么感觉。我只知道,自从那个炎热的七月天以来,我一直害怕遭遇同样的命运。

  我美丽的母亲去世时42岁。42岁的时候,我的心脏病专家告诉我,如果不做心脏移植手术,我就会死去。

  我是一名专业摄影师,这是我母亲去世后父亲向我介绍的。他在地下室给我建了一间暗房,教我冲洗底片和照片。我经常回想起在暗房里度过的早期时光,这是我克服失去母亲的悲痛的一种方式。

  我爱上了摄影的力量,我知道记录我生命中的这段时间对我来说很重要,可以帮助我处理发生的事情。

  Oct. 14, 2022: The swan catheter was placed in my neck to mo<em></em>nitor the heart’s function and pressures, but what I love most a<em></em>bout this photo is the “I Voted” sticker on my hospital gown. I didn’t know how long I would be in the hospital, so I made sure to fill out my mail-in ballot.

  Oct. 17, 2022: After I spent three days officially listed at status 2, my doctor told me they'd found a heart that would be a match for me. My husband gathered our boys and drove to New York City so I could hug them one last time before surgery. I remember being upset that I couldn’t actually lift my arm because of my IV, so I just buried my head between them instead.

  Oct. 18, 2022: When the surgeon was ready, the nurses came to my room playing “Milkshake” and “Eye of the Tiger” on their phones. We all danced our way down to the operating room. They wished me luck as we got to the end of the hallway, wher<em></em>e my husband, Geoff, stood next to me for a photo. I was feeling every emotion of fear, relief, grief and hope.

  Oct. 19, 2022: The transplant took over 10 hours, and I woke up intubated early the next morning. Geoff took this image of me the first time he saw me with a new heart. I asked him recently what he'd thought in that moment. He said he was simply relieved to see my smile when my eyes met his.

  Oct. 20, 2022: My first walk with my new heart. I had a walker and a nurse following behind me with a chair. I remember thinking, Wow, this heart is so quiet. I had become so used to feeling a loud awkward thudding, but now it was quiet and efficient.</p>

<p>  Here's the best way to describe how getting a heart transplant feels: It's like if you never knew you needed glasses, and then all of a sudden you put them on. You realize: Wait, this is how I was supposed to see?

  Oct. 21, 2022: As the days marched forward in the hospital, there was so much downtime. I would listen to Brandi Carlile on repeat, and I tried to take photographs so I could docu<em></em>ment this time in my life.

  Oct. 21, 2022: I felt so overwhelmed with all the changes, but photography has always been a way for me to feel grounded. It wasn’t until this day that I felt -- ever so briefly -- a small bit like myself again. I had been in the hospital for 11 days at this point.

  Oct. 22, 2022: This was the first time I saw my new scar. I held my camera above my chest and hit the shutter button. The incision had remained bandaged up until this moment. My hands were shaking when I saw myself reflected back in the screen.

  Oct. 28, 2022: I was completely overwhelmed with my new medication routine. The very patient pharmacist sat with me to go over every new pres<em></em>cription, what they did, and the im<em></em>portance of taking each one of the 14 new medications.

  October 29, 2022: I had an implantable cardioverter defibrillator implanted when I was 20 because my mother died suddenly after a deadly arrhythmia. Now, at age 42, they'd removed it.</p>

<p>  The device had saved my life multiple times. It shocked me back to life in the middle of a visit to my then 11-year-old son’s orthodontist, and another time when Geoff found me lying on the floor after I'd been grabbing clothes from the dryer.</p>

<p>  I told my team prior to my transplant that they could keep my ICD implanted. It was part of me; it kept me safe. I will never forget what they said: “You won’t need it anymore.”

  Oct. 30, 2022: I couldn’t sleep. The high doses of steroids were making the night seem unnaturally long. So I picked up my camera and created this image of my reflection in the midst of the city. I would stare at that skyline all day and night. I would track which color the Empire State Building would be. I will always remember all of those long nights looking at the beautiful buildings in New York City.

  Nov. 3, 2022: After 25 days in the hospital, this was my first day at home post-transplant. Our beloved 150-pound Great Dane, Clementine, was so gentle with me. We were so happy to see each other.

  April 11, 2023: I have had weekly blood draws since leaving the hospital, and sometimes more than o<em></em>nce a week. My team mo<em></em>nitors my tacro levels, kidney functions and white blood cells -- all terms and metrics I have become aware of as they delicately balance them to keep me alive.

  April 25, 2023: Medications have become standard practice, and getting used to taking them around the clock, at exactly the same times each day, has been a big part of recovery. My iPhone has multiple alarms set to make sure I never forget.

  April 29, 2023: I cried often. I still cry often. It was a lifetime of change with one surgery. I often think back to a co<em></em>nversation I had with one of my night nurses. He told me I need to keep my eyes fixated on one step in front of me. When mountain climbers climb, they never look at the peak -- it would be too overwhelming to focus on the end goal, as there are many steps, many rocks, and a lot more climbing to get through first.</p>

<p>  I hold on tight to that idea. I can easily become paralyzed in my fear and anxiety a<em></em>bout this experience -- but when I simply say to myself,

  July 26, 2023: Just had my first stress test post-transplant. The doctor doing the test said that if he didn’t know I'd had a heart transplant, he never would have believed me. He said he has been with NYU since 1996 and I am o<em></em>nly the second patient he's seen at this high level after transplant. He asked if I'd been an athlete pre-surgery, and I laughed maniacally. So then he said my do<em></em>nor must have been one.

  Aug. 29, 2023: We have been forever changed in beautifully heartbreaking ways. The word 利用这些时间。每一件小事都是奇迹,杰夫和我会去的

  继续用这些知识生活吧。我们已经列了一个清单,上面写着我们想用这些“钱”做的事情

  新加坡国立大学天。”去每个MLB体育场都是我们计划的一部分。到目前为止,我们已经进入了30个场馆中的14个,其中4个是今年才进入的。在我11个月的时候

  第九届“手术纪念日”,我们去看了布兰迪·卡莱尔的演唱会。我哭了很多次。杰夫把票作为圣诞礼物送给我,我记得当时既兴奋又害怕。“如果我在体育馆爬不上楼梯怎么办?”我说。当他把票给我的时候,我仍然一步也爬不上去

  到路边需要我用双手抓住一个人。我还是不知从哪里掉出来的

  E,因为我的膝盖不行了。肌肉紧张性的丧失和极高剂量的强的松造成了虚弱和萎缩的完美风暴。移植手术几周后,在我最早去做每周血液检查的一次旅途中,我扑倒在地。我开始抽泣。我太累了,又为自己的虚弱感到沮丧。杰夫和保安才把我从地板上扶起来。我很羞愧,但我止不住地哭了。看布兰迪·卡莱尔现场演出的另一个好处是,我在纽约大学的时候,每天晚上都会听她的演出。大多数时候我都是一个人,所以她的音乐带着我度过了孤独、不确定和焦虑。我听着《岩石上的你和我》就会想起杰夫。我一听到《明天此时》就会想起我的孩子们。我会听到“那不是我”的歌词,想起我自己。听着她的话,我又回到了刚刚康复的日子。我简直不敢相信我能在我11个月大的电视上看到她的现场演唱

  第n次心脏移植纪念日。我知道了。

  我自信地知道我可以爬上台阶到我们的座位上。我要尽可能大声地唱每一个字。”src="http://www.aichuangleyu.cn/file/upload/202502/28/073548221.jpg"/>

  Aug. 18, 2023: Back when MySpace was a thing, I filled out one of those quizzes a<em></em>bout myself and posted it to my page for my friends to answer, to see how well they knew me. For the most part, everyone knew me, except for one of the answers: What would I rather do, go for a hike or go to the spa? Everyone answered spa. No one got it right, and everyone laughed at the idea when I said I would rather hike.</p>

<p>  I totally understand why -- I didn’t hike at the time, but I wanted so badly to be someone who did. I spent my entire life wanting to be that girl. On this day, however, we went hiking in the Catskills. In fact, this entire getaway was planned around being able to hike. There was a part wher<em></em>e we walked down to the bottom of a waterfall, and the whole way down, I knew it o<em></em>nly meant we would have to somehow get back up. There were 181 steps after a long, winding descent. In the back of my head, I was making peace with the idea that I was going to have to live at the bottom of the falls now. But, spoiler: I made it back.</p>

<p>  I can’t believe that I could do something like that: I went on a six-mile hike and it was amazing. My 20-something self, who'd wished to be the girl who could hike, was finally that girl at 43. It makes me so emotional. None of this has been easy. I am still recovering, and truly, I will be healing the rest of my life. But to know how good this was -- how absolutely amazing something as simple as a hike was for me -- is simply because I have known the struggle.

  Sept. 24, 2023: I walked alo<em></em>ngside Geoff, Moses and my friends in the Heart Walk for the American Heart Association, and I shared these words with them:</p>

<p>  I’ve been thinking a lot a<em></em>bout this past year, and I know we all know the saying

  在写这篇文章的时候,我已经离心脏移植手术快一年了。今年是我人生中最艰难的一年。我可以不停地写这一切有多艰难,我每天是如何工作来保持健康的,还有我的焦虑和恐惧。所有这些都是我的故事的很大一部分,但比这些更重要的是我在这里。

  我为儿子们庆祝生日。我儿子摩西买第一辆车时,我就坐在他旁边。我和我的大儿子乔纳斯一起散步,并进行了最感人的谈话。今年5月,我满43岁了,这是我从未想过的年龄。我和朋友们笑得太大声,和我的爱人杰夫分享我的冒险经历。通过这次经历,我们都以一种美丽而令人心碎的方式改变了。

  在过去的几个月里,我学到了很多。最重要的事情之一就是现在要快乐。不要等待事情发生,不要等待事情解决或完美,因为让我告诉你,那是不存在的。一切都是奇迹,我很感激这一切。为了那些美好的时刻和奋斗,我来到了这里。我经常用这句话:说“I got to”,而不是“I have to”。

  如果你从阅读这篇文章中得到了什么,请让它成为你要做的所有事情,并且改变观点应该打开一个感恩的世界。哦,还有,请报名成为器官捐献者。你永远不知道你会救谁的命。

  有关肥厚性心肌病的更多信息,请访问4hcm.org。

  要注册成为捐赠者,请访问donatelife.net。

 
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