Heart Transplant -- Finally Free

[ashkir]

Hello everyone! My name is Nick. I was born hard of hearing and very weak. My parents went into a massive amount of debt trying to keep me alive, throughout their life. Doctors right and left had no idea what to do with me. My entire life growing up has been in hospitals. 

I was always so sick. In school I was sick and absent most of the time. My high school teachers just passed me because I was going to die anyways. No reason to give the dying kid that F even though he never showed up to school, right? This kept happening. Over and over. I did get accepted to a Brick & Mortar but, I got so sick I ended up in the hospital for over a month and had a major surgery. 

I worked while weak. I pretended to be okay. Still spent a lot of time in the hospital or purposely avoided it. I put education on the backburner. Cause, why bother? I'm gonna die. One day Kaiser Permanente gave me an actual timeline, right when I got good at my career, and realized I had to fight them. I went looking for a second opinion and ended up at Cedars-Sinai.

I got a new heart this year. I just turned 31 now. I am reading your guys' thread like an addiction. My medical expenses are sky high! The actual heart transplant cost my insurance 5.7 million thus far. My work has been great at holding my job for me. I'm still in rehab, and with this Sophia thing going on I'm finally knocking off things I've always wanted to do. 

For the very first time I am alive, truly. I don't feel chest pain for the first time in over 30 years. I don't feel out of breath for the first time in 30 years. My old heart was under 30% EF for my entire life, and under 15% for the last ten. Now I'm at 70% with this donor heart.

After I'm done with Sophia (probably a few weeks from now), I plan on doing a few InstantCerts next, followed by Davar. I plan on going to TESU. 

Thank you everyone for your awesome advice, your support, your encouragement to me getting my degree. I'm looking forward to it. I feel finally free. Have any of you done college after an organ transplant?

[ss20ts]

Congratulations on your new heart!

[inkleind]

That's awesome! Don't wait on applying to TESU, apply now and get your courses locked in. They change things every year, the only reason I'll be able to graduate this year is because I locked in the course catalog (or whatever it's called) back in 2017 and have stayed enrolled since.

Welcome to your new life! I can't imagine what that must be like for you. Go out and live it!

[ashkir]

Congratulations on your new heart!

Thank you! <3

That's awesome! Don't wait on applying to TESU, apply now and get your courses locked in. They change things every year, the only reason I'll be able to graduate this year is because I locked in the course catalog (or whatever it's called) back in 2017 and have stayed enrolled since.

Welcome to your new life! I can't imagine what that must be like for you. Go out and live it!

I did apply and pay the $50 fee since waivers don't exist for them. I got the current catalog locked in! I wish I would've done it years ago now, haha. So I could skip SOS-110 and others. I'm going to have to save up for about 6 months while on Disability from my heart transplant before I can afford the $1500 for the SOS-110. I'm trying to apply for scholarships and am -having no luck. I did apply for Financial Aid through FAFSA so we'll see how that goes I believe I can use Sophia for 81-84 credits, and Davar for an additional 18, and plug the last two in with InstantCert. I'll be applying for InstantCert next once I'm able to afford the next expense haha.

Disability pays 1/5th of what I used to make

It's insane how different I feel.

[ARhead]

Hi Ashkir,

I'm really happy to hear the good news. It took a lot of heart for you to make it this far.

...excuse the pun.

Anyhow, I believe one must be an enrolled student to lock in a course catalogue. This isn't a big deal because they don't seem to have changed much in July. To be enrolled you have to take a course or a tecep at TESU. The cheapest way to go is to take the $50 1-credit Medical Terminology tecep. I went this route and never took the test and am enrolled. Who knows, you may do well on this test having had all that unfortunate experience in hospitals. Then there are the 3 credit teceps that may be of interest to you, I think they are $150...Once you do this you have unlimited academic evaluations and your catalogue locked in for a year, at which point you'd have to take another course or tecep to stay enrolled. I like to get new courses on my evaluation pretty regularly so big changes won't effect me.
Good luck man, you've got this!

[ashkir]

Hi Ashkir,

I'm really happy to hear the good news. It took a lot of heart for you to make it this far.

...excuse the pun.

Anyhow, I believe one must be an enrolled student to lock in a course catalogue. This isn't a big deal because they don't seem to have changed much in July. To be enrolled you have to take a course or a tecep at TESU. The cheapest way to go is to take the $50 1-credit Medical Terminology tecep. I went this route and never took the test and am enrolled. Who knows, you may do well on this test having had all that unfortunate experience in hospitals. Then there are the 3 credit teceps that may be of interest to you, I think they are $150...Once you do this you have unlimited academic evaluations and your catalogue locked in for a year, at which point you'd have to take another course or tecep to stay enrolled. I like to get new courses on my evaluation pretty regularly so big changes won't effect me.
Good luck man, you've got this!

I didn't think about doing the TECEP. one of the classes I need to take was through Study.com was to be in place of OPM-301-TE Operations Management. But that is TECEP with an InstantCert study guide for it... Upper level too. Very tempting :O

[Library2HospitalChaplain]

Congratulations. I had open heart surgery in August 2017 for congenital heart disease. I needed extra bits removed, instead of a donor heart at least. 

It's an amazing feeling, just having the improvement in circulation, isn't it? :-) My signature can show you how well I'm doing right now. I expect to graduate with the double AOS Bachelor degree from TESU in March 2021. I got my Associate's degree from TESC in 1995...