May 2nd, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Patient Interviews, True Stories, Video
Mr. Ron Murray, a tranplant heart recipient, tells his story:
From the video:
“If the transplant issue ever comes up for anyone listening, that’s almost the first thing they would think, too. If I had time to think about it over that year, I would have realized ‘Oh, my God.’ I would have apprehension all built up about how I would react to…I mean is it going to change my way of thinking? Is it going to alter my own thoughts? None of that holds up, ultimately.
When I realized that there was going to be forever an emotional component, and maybe a spiritual component to this thing that I hadn’t thought about, is when I became –- God, I don’t even know if I can tell you about it –- that I began to grieve for the donor, that brought me to tears several of those nights.
But they weren’t bad tears, they were were just, like tears you feel when you go to a funeral –- someone you know –- and I didn’t know Kevin but I did now, is the way I looked at it. And so, the rest of my time in the hospital was an alternating time between listening to music in my head and writing it and making it up, and thinking about Kevin and his family and what all of this really means to my future life.
So, I formulated a plan to try to reach a lot of people for the specific reason that I passed up so many deserving people on the [Austin] transplant waiting list. There were 12 people ahead of me who had been waiting for a heart, sometimes up to a year, and I had only been on the list three weeks and here I am jumping ahead to get the heart. (By the way, he saved four or five people that night –- he was a donor of everything).
So I figured the reason that I jumped ahead of so many people was because there was such a severe shortage of donors, and ultimately that proved to be true. So anyway, my effort now is to reach as many people as possible, and this is part of that effort.”
Remarkable guy. May his message reach millions.
-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
Tags: Cardiology, Emotional Component, Heart Transplant, Organ Donation, Organ Transplantation, Ron Murray, Spiritual Component, Transplant Heart Recipient, Transplantation
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