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?