Sunday, July 15, 2007
Taking heart - and giving one - Globe and Mail
The phone call came at 6:20 in the evening. David Prince thought it was probably a telemarketer, because the call display flashed an unfamiliar name. He picked it up anyway. "How soon can you be at the hospital?" the caller said. "We want you on the table at 7:30."
Four months after David Prince began to die, they had a heart for him.
Valerie Serba's phone rang at 2 a.m. It was her former husband. Their 25-year-old son, Michael, had been brutally assaulted and lay unconscious in a downtown Toronto hospital. The situation, he told her, was not good. "Tell Michael to hold on till I get there," she said.
...
"I was pretty overwhelmed when I saw him," says Dr. Ross, 44, a dynamic personality at the top of the heart-research field. "His blood pressure was really low. His hands and feet were cold because his body was starting to shut down. He was in walking cardiogenic shock."
David's life expectancy was somewhere between hours and days. Dr. Ross told the Princes that he needed a new heart.
...
Transplant patients have powerful feelings about the donors. There's gratitude for a gift that can never be repaid. There's also guilt that someone had to die so they could live. People waiting for an organ sometimes confess with shame that they eagerly tune into the news on a long weekend. They want to hear about the car crashes. ...
The phone call came at 6:20 in the evening. David Prince thought it was probably a telemarketer, because the call display flashed an unfamiliar name. He picked it up anyway. "How soon can you be at the hospital?" the caller said. "We want you on the table at 7:30."
Four months after David Prince began to die, they had a heart for him.
Valerie Serba's phone rang at 2 a.m. It was her former husband. Their 25-year-old son, Michael, had been brutally assaulted and lay unconscious in a downtown Toronto hospital. The situation, he told her, was not good. "Tell Michael to hold on till I get there," she said.
...
"I was pretty overwhelmed when I saw him," says Dr. Ross, 44, a dynamic personality at the top of the heart-research field. "His blood pressure was really low. His hands and feet were cold because his body was starting to shut down. He was in walking cardiogenic shock."
David's life expectancy was somewhere between hours and days. Dr. Ross told the Princes that he needed a new heart.
...
Transplant patients have powerful feelings about the donors. There's gratitude for a gift that can never be repaid. There's also guilt that someone had to die so they could live. People waiting for an organ sometimes confess with shame that they eagerly tune into the news on a long weekend. They want to hear about the car crashes. ...
Labels: sickness
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