I am here in Mountain Top PA........NE PA.........
Where have I been........around the world to hell and back........
Where am I going? I don't know..........but I need a heart to get there............
I am 51 yrs old.. I have raced motorcycles off road for over 35 yrs.....then got my first defibrillator/pacemaker......I continued to race..my heart got worse. I went and continued to race till they said to me its time for your second one. Then I knew I had to quit. I was miserable. My wife knew it and said to go back to street riding. I did . Kawasaki ZRX 1200R. Loved to ride but it wasn't the same.....then I went to the track. lol, big mistake.........three weeks later I was drag racing. Thought hell, if anything happened there was a ambulance and the hospital nearby.
Not the reason I am writing this. .......... .... .. .
I had to quit racing after 7 years because I became a LVAD........Left Ventricular Assist Device patient. A pump was put inside me and wires were run outside my abdomen to a controller and two batteries. Its my life now.......after two years three months I was put on the heart transplant list.
I got the call Monday morning......a 30 year old man had donated to me his heart. I went to the hospital.........everyone was happy for me.. I didn't know what to feel as I thought this day would not come. You see they go by three things when you are considered for a heart.
1. Height.......I'm six foot three, 285.
2. Chassis size.....well I am a big block if I was a car. smile.
3. Blood type. A-, this is the second worst blood type to be.
Then it happened. I was talked to ...........after 12 hours of waiting at the hospital I was told its time.........you see the donor was being harvested. Sounds horrible but I was happy and sad at the same time. Here a man had given his life up and considered others when he was gone. There were other parts of him to go to other people.
It was time.......I was stretched out....... arms out balls to the world out. They were about to start and they placed a arterial line for a transfusion of the blood I was get in my left arm. Then to my right for a back up........ Then it happened. My left bicep was getting hard.......
Like I was flexing it. Too hard...
I told them while they were placing the right needle in my arm..... They went back to my left arm.....touching, palpating......trying to figure out why it was getting harder.......measuring the difference of my biceps back and forth.........asking me......right or left handed? Right of course.. Then in was determined..... They had cut my left artery while placing the line......blood was filling up the area between the skin and the bicep muscle. The operation was a loss. I was told the heart will go to another person.........I was at a loss of words. The person who cut the artery told me he was sorry. I told him it was OK........relax and settle down. He was too upset. There was no reason for him to be upset.........I wanted to take the pain in his eyes away as there was no reason for two of us to be so upset. The doctor explained to me I would be on the OR table for at lest 12 hours while they tried to save my life and they couldn't take the risk of me loosing my arm over it while trying to save my life at the same time. I am home now.......its tough to type but I can.......please..........
appreciate the time you have in your life............appreciate your opportunities given to you...........appreciate that you can ride........no matter what it is....... appreciate the ride.....no matter where or for how long.......... Matthew.
