The Betrayal

Christie (the wife) posting in Dave's stead.

The betrayal has started.

No, we have not been betrayed, we are the betrayers (Is that even a word?). We have betrayed one of the most loyal warriors in this long battle we are in the midst of. Confused? Welcome to my whirlwind of thoughts. 

Dave and I were talking just last week, we have discussed the betrayal before and had resigned ourselves to the inevitability of it when we first had to discuss a heart transplant. 

Dave's heart isn't the enemy here, it has been the most tenacious warrior and has saved him upon many occasions. The enemy is HCM, it is the disease that invaded his heart and created a mutiny among the individual cells of his heart muscle tissue. There were several occasions when he should have been bed ridden, or even dead, and the doctors/ nurses/ radiology techs were amazed at how his heart adjusted to keep him going. His mitral valve is malformed. "Not good", you say. Actually, he would have dropped dead from an obstruction years ago if his heart had not formed this "defect." Dave walked around with blood pressures that would have had most people bedridden for years. I can't tell you how many times I have heard a nurse say, "You WALKED in here?!?!" or "No, DO NOT GET UP!!!" Most people with HCM have to take blood pressure medications and medications to help the heart contract harder. Dave has never had high blood pressure, and they have had to be very careful to not treat his heart like they would every other heart with the same issues. His heart was already controlling the blood pressure and contracting as hard as it possibly could. His cardiologist at Tufts in Boston, the famous Dr. Marron, explained to us that his heart and body had made every adjustment it could to deal with the disease that was taking it over. That is why Dave looked healthy for years and could still function on some "normal" level well beyond the time when most HCMers are home bound or chair bound.

You see, most people say: 

• "Oh, I bet you'll be glad to be rid of that heart." 
• "That heart has caused you nothing but trouble." 
• "Good riddance, to that troublemaker."
• "I bet you are looking forward to getting rid of that bad heart."

Maybe that is how most people with heart failure, no matter what the type, feels. However, it is not how we have felt. You may think we are silly, but we owe the determination, the grit, the steadfastness of this heart a great debt. We feel guilty, we feel like we have betrayed a fellow warrior in this fight. Will it be worth the price of betrayal? Will his body that has adjusted so much to his hearts capabilities be able to readjust to this device? Will the body instead recognize it as a foreigner, and something that must be fought against? We hope the body will accept the change and see the TAH (Total Artificial Heart) as what it is, our last line of defense before death. 

Dave and I decided the betrayal must be, that the doctors were right and his heart has simply worn itself out fighting this battle. A scene from "Firefly" keeps popping into my head. (Yes, Firefly. I am Dave's wife after all!)  It is when they are running from the Reavers and Jane is shot in the leg, being pulled back towards the Reavers. He looks at Mal and says, "Don't let them take me alive, Mal.... Don't shoot me FIRST!" (The last as Mal is aiming his gun at the rope that was pulling Jane back.) Jane thought he was going to be shot instead of saved, given over to the enemy too soon, before he had been beaten. -Is that what we are doing? Are we giving up on this fierce warrior before he has given his all? Are we truly betraying our ally? Can he be saved? This brave warrior is in pain everyday, hurts with every beat, and is dying at a more progressive rate than before. This progression is causing his heart to take the rest of the crew with it. Jane was holding onto the crews transport and they were being drawn into the enemies fold right along with him. That is what is happening now, the rest of Dave's organs are starting to go downhill. I don't know if I believe in euthanasia as a whole, but we have decided that it is a "mercy killing" and is the best chance we have of winning the war. We do feel as if we have lost this battle, but the war is not over and our sites are set to winning the whole, even if we have to give up a part.

Huh, a part, not just any part, but Daves' heart, such a precious part it is. His mother was the first to hear this heart, while she was pregnant. This is the heart that beat in his chest the first time he looked my way and smiled. This is the heart beat that gave me comfort as I lay my head on his chest and cried both times we lost a child. This is the heart that beat and made me feel warm and fuzzy during so many slow dances from my Prom to our living room. This is the heart that soothed our sons to sleep on his chest as infants. So many sleepless nights, laying awake, listening to that heart and having the comfort it gave. He was still with us, at least for that moment, that this warrior was fighting the good fight and beating on with every muscle cell that had not been taken over by the mutiny HCM had caused. 

Farewell old friend Please forgive us all, we do not betray you lightly. We will go on in your stead, we will continue to fight...our eyes remain fixed up towards the north as the sun rises, we are looking towards that white ride that is bringing reinforcements and with it a new day!!!

Of Course, we have the amazing team here at Penn Sate Hershey Med Center:

"Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?" -Mal

"Big damn heroes, sir!"-Zoey

"Ain't we just."

      -and they are, to us they are.

Thanks for reading during Dave's reprieve, I appreciate your support during this long war.

                                                                                                  -Dave's stressed and loving wife,

                                                                                                    Christie