I had seen the cover art for this piece on social media all week, and had even read the first sentence before noping out right after the first line. An empath brain can only take so much! I didn’t really feel like crying on a Wednesday morning.
However, I’m glad I worked up the strength (and curiosity) to read it after a dear friend delivered this essay to my email inbox last night.
It it is incredibly important and beautifully written.
With compulsive compliance, I adhered to the strictest interpretation of transplant protocols. I honored my gifts of life with self-discipline: not one pat of butter; not one sip of alcohol; running mile after mile hoping to stave off vasculopathy, an insidious artery disease that often besets transplanted hearts within about 10 years.
I carried my own detailed medical notes in and out of every doctor’s appointment trying to strategize, along with my doctor’s input, to head off serious issues at the earliest opportunity. I gave my all to sustaining my donor hearts despite daunting odds, and the hearts rewarded me with extraordinary years. I have been so lucky.
But now I lower my chin and whisper the words malignant … metastatic … lungs … terminal. It is the end of the road for my heart and me — not because we didn’t achieve and maintain sparkling cardiac health. But because the sorry state of transplant medicine took us down.
Apologies for the short newsletter this week!
I’ve simply been thinking more about where my career should be heading as a bioethicist, as I crave real-world solutions outside the hamster wheel of academia. A creative path may be manifesting…
What are your thoughts? Where should we go? Where can we be the most helpful?
-Nipa
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