The Story Thus Far

Thanks to everyone who has reached out to me and my family over the past three months with love, support, prayers, and well wishes. We are incredibly grateful for the blessings of you all.

I thought I would just post a quick overview here of what happened to me for those who don't know the specifics. In October I was diagnosed with myocarditis, which causes inflammation in the heart, and is often driven by a viral infection of some kind. Most cases of myocarditis resolve themselves and the heart heals itself.

Unfortunately, in my case it seemed to rage out of control and basically destroyed the function of my heart. As one doctor said to me, a useless few pounds of muscle were sitting where my beating heart used to be. At the end of October I was transferred to Tufts Medical Center where they put me on machines that pumped my blood for me, I was told that my heart had no hope of recovery, and that I would need a heart transplant.

But heart transplants don’t happen overnight, and in the meantime, complications further ensued, including pneumonia, which prompted them to intubate me and give me paralytics to give my lungs a chance to heal. One of the doctors advised my wife to say whatever final words she wanted to say to me in the event I didn’t survive; I was given the opportunity to do the same thing before they intubated me. Those were hard moments. But I made it through all of that and was put on the list for a heart transplant.

These were my first efforts at writing shortly after my stroke, as I was trying to write the names of my children (with plenty of mistakes), my wife, some of our friends, my sister who was visiting—and the cat!

Finally, on December 21st I received the gift of a new heart. The transplant was a success, but sometime during the surgery I experienced a stroke in the left side of my brain. The stroke initially caused me problems with both speech and writing (happily I had no problems with reading). Now six weeks out from the stroke, I have probably recovered 80% of both speech and writing facilities, and my speech therapist predicts I will have a full recovery.

The hero of this story is my wife, Anne Lang, who came to sit with me every day in the hospital for three months. She turned her life upside down, taking leave from her kindergarten classroom, and had to become a single parent for this whole time. I can't imagine any deeper demonstration of love than what she has done and endured throughout this ordeal. The help we received from my four siblings was another gift, as each of them came and helped keep our household running—including guiding our two high school seniors through the crucial phase of applying to colleges—so Anne could be at the hospital every day.

Finally, our family will be eternally grateful to the donor and their family for giving me a new lease on life. The hospital gives donor recipients the opportunity of sending a letter to the donor family, and I am still thinking about what I will say in the letter.

That’s the story thus far. Quite the finish to 2021—and 2022, here I come!