I am a 65-year-old retired executive in the high-tech, telephone and consumer electronic industries. I was diagnosed with severe heart failure at the age of 38 and forced to leave the workforce five years later due to my declining health. Over the next 13 years, I received 11 stents, two defibrillators and was cardioverted out of atrial fibrillation 23 times.
In 2011, my heart failure continued, and I was hospitalized at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. After two months, my doctors were forced to implant a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) as a hopeful bridge to a transplant. The surgery was approximately 15 hours long. At one point, I coded for several minutes.
I developed several severe complications that kept me admitted in the hospital until early 2013. But on Nov 22, 2012, I received the miracle of a heart transplant. After receiving this gift, I, like many transplant survivors, had an epiphany. I felt I had to give back in honor of my organ donor and all those who have provided another human with a second chance at life. I co-founded the HeartBrothers Foundation, which advocates for heart failure patients and their families.
My post-transplant experience has been extremely complicated due to immunosuppression, which caused severe damage to my lungs from Aspergillosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In my 28-year heart failure and transplant journey, medical and life science innovation has saved my life on at least five different occasions — maybe more.
I owe a great debt of gratitude to breakthrough technologies in medical devices and surgical tools, new pharmaceuticals and the brilliant physicians and nurses who continue to treat me. And there aren’t words to express the gratitude I owe to my heart donor Scotty who I thank everyday by saying “Let’s do something good today with our heart Scotty.”
Patrick J. Sullivan
Congestive Heart Failure Survivor
