20 Weeks

A change of heart, a change of home, back to work

It has been 20 weeks now since I got my new heart, each day I wake up I thank the donor family, Pauline and my family, friends and medical team for the chance to live that day and the next. I am returning to a normal life, everyone has said take it easy, slow steps, don’t overdo it. We have moved house and taken possession of our Motorhome, got the go ahead to go back to work and have been in the Gym or on my bike every day for between 30 and 90 minutes.

Everybody tells me I look remarkable, (I always thought that, as did my Mum), I hate to think what I must have looked like. The nurse at my doctors when I walk says “oh it is wonderful to see you still alive”, the person who takes my blood each time says she is so pleased to see me as she thought I had passed away. Some side effects of the drug linger, the shaking has largely subsided, the mood swings with the prednisone have largely gone, there is still numbness in the feet, which makes walking a bit different, and my skin is thin and bruises very easily.

I have never experienced depression, I have been sad and a bit down at times. Strangely in the last month I have experience symptoms of depression, lack of motivation, finding it difficult to do things. I am sure the reason for this is that I am generally very well, I have some limitations on what I can do, my fine motor skills are very dull, trying to fit things together is tough, I can’t lift heavy things, have difficulty moving things around. I have felt ready to return to work for some time, I got the go ahead from the Doctors in December, my employer requested some information, and due to Christmas the letter didn’t get to them until mid-January and they had still not formally confirmed until the week before I go back to work. A massive investment has been made in me, and I feel an obligation to make contributions to acknowledge that investment, that can be done through working again, making some difference for others, contributing to the swimming community and enjoying life with Pauline and family.

I have had some lovely time with my family and friends in the past month, going to the Breakers basketball practice again and seeing them practice moves. It was great going to the game the next day and seeing a number of moves they practiced being put into effect. If you watch basketball a little you think things just happen and players happen to be in the right place, but in effect they practice those moves and set it up, often 3 pointers are not just by chance. It was a wonderful reinforcement that what you practice is what happens, if you just leave it to “chance” then anything will happen and it will not be of your doing.

I have spent a lot of time trying to understand how my heart is working and responding to activity. I don’t use too much science, but I do monitor my Heart Rate (HR) and my effort, be it watts on the bike or weight and reps when doing those exercises, a bit like using strokes per length of the pool, or time for 100 or 200 meters. Of course my aim is to return to swimming, but I might continue to do some biking as I do enjoy it, except the hills, and the traffic. But Pauline would like to do Taupo or half of it so I would like to do that with her, I have done it about 7-8 times in the 1990’s.

My regular HR has settled in the high 70’s up from the low 70’s in November, my waking HR has remained similar in the mid 60’s to 70 and my average work out HR has gone from mid 90’s to 110 at the moment. In November my HR would not go above 105 due to the beta blockers I was on to control the HR, now I can take it up to 135 continuously for a period of time with no reduction in performance. As time goes on I am able to go harder at a lower HR for longer, so the training I am doing must be working. The ideal is to have a constant HR at a level that maximizes the exercise over the time you want to perform. In other words if I want to swim for an hour at 80% of my maximum speed then I need to be able to have a constant HR for that period that supplies my muscles with the oxygen to keep it up, if there is not enough O2 then performance will reduce due to tiredness.

There are not many examples that I can find of heart transplanted people doing endurance events or challenges, I am not sure if that is because they do not exist or their stories are not told. I do not believe that there are limits placed on human performance if one is reasonably healthy. Many transplanted folk have been sick most of their life. When one suffers heart failure every other organ is affected, there are many recipients whom have kidney transplants at some stage of their life. Damage is done to the arteries and veins as well. Fortunately I was not really sick for that long, only 2 years, my liver has now recovered, whilst my kidney is struggling along it is improving.

I was very fit at the time I got sick, so my general health has been OK, that has enabled the recovery to be strong. I am now doing up to one and half hours exercise in the Gym and up to an hour on the bike, I try to alternate those days. I am getting stronger and fitter, my torn muscle is almost better now so now I am looking forward to doing Bike the Bridge and getting back in the water in March and see how that goes.

We have our Motorhome now, it arrived in late January and

we have been away twice now for long weekends. The first trip we did was around the Firth of Thames, stopping at Ray’s Rest, a free camping spot for motorhomes and caravans. This is a completely shell beach, Pauline went for a swim and then we had a bike ride. The next day we went to Little Waikawau Reserve 24 kms north of Thames. This was a delightful spot and we stayed 2 nights. Pauline had a swim each day, we had a bike ride and rested and just enjoyed the peace and quiet.

The following weekend we set off on Friday evening after having dinner with friends and stayed the night at Hauraki District Council Building Ngatea, next morning we went to see a friend at Katikati, Graeme has been a great support over my time both being ill and the recovery. Pauline had a nice swim at a place called Tanners Point in Katikati on the Tauranga Harbour. We went from there to Mt Manganui and had lunch there, the water was a little rough and it was somewhat windy, so we went to Rotorua and stayed the night at Trout Pool Rd, Okere Falls. We went for a walk along the river and visited the falls. It turned into the longest walk I have done, with lots of ups and downs on a trail for 1 hour 25 minutes, we decided to walk back on the road and discovered it was up hill all the way.

We stayed the night and then went to Lake Rerewhakaaitu, Rotorua. This is a lovely spot out of the way no Vodaphone service and we were parked right next to the water with nice views across the lake. Pauline went for a swim and I read my book (Kindle). It was restful and peaceful, my heart rate was in the 60’s for most of the stay there, that is as low as it gets when I am asleep. The next morning we went to Lake Rotoma where Pauline was doing a swim event the following day. We had a pleasant afternoon and night, nice BBQ and ran out of gas, lucky we had a little bottle for the BBQ.

Pauline did the swim at Lake Rotoma, following that we went home and put the Motorhome to bed until the next trip.

On the 30th January I went back to work, that was a Tuesday and got myself familiar with the systems again and did a number of settlement agreements, after the first one it felt like I had not been away. My colleagues were great and welcomed me back. There have been a number of staff changes in the time I was away, I knew most of them from past lives, so again like my first day I started back in 2015 it was like a reunion. The compulsory cake was produced and consumed and all was good. I worked again on Thursday, the following week I worked the Tuesday and Wednesday as Tuesday was Waitangi Day, a Public Holiday. It was nice doing 2 days in a row as it allowed me to judge how I was coping. I did a mediation on both days, settled both. Interestingly my heart rate actually reduced during the mediation, so any concern that I get stressed doing my job can be eliminated. I managed the two days well, I didn’t get tired and managed well. Next week I will do three days, the same the following week when I have my 3rd monthly biopsy after 5 months, and then hopefully go to a 3 monthly rotation.

Currently my white blood cells have dropped, so my medication has been changed a bit, one drug stopped and another reduced and I am having regular blood test to check what is happening, hopefully next week’s blood test show and increase.

We have settled into our other house just down the road, life is starting to settle and feeling of being so unwell and looking death in the eye is receding, I do wonder from time to time when it is all going to turn to custard as this is a miracle, a second chance at life.

We have settled into our other house just down the road, life is starting to settle and feeling of being so unwell and looking death in the eye is receding, I do wonder from time to time when it is all going to turn to custard as this is a miracle, a second chance at life.