Witness Marks: Stories From a Heart Transplant

There are days when defeat doesn’t arrive with drama or fireworks. It doesn’t kick down the door. It just sort of… sits next to you. It eats your snacks. It asks if you’ve “really thought about this.” And before you know it, you’re staring at the ceiling, mentally replaying every decision you’ve made since 2009. Defeat is sneaky like that. It shows up when you’ve done most things right but still landed on your face. When you followed the plan, adjusted the plan, stayed positive about the plan—and the plan still failed you. At least that’s how it feels. It’s the kind of tired sleep doesn’t fix, the kind of unmotivated that exists even when you want to care, the kind of wondering whether everyone else got a secret elixir or code you somehow missed. And let’s be honest: in those moments, resilience sounds a lot like toxic positivity. Resilience? Who’s she? I don’t know her. Lately—ever since telling everyone that this year I’d like to run my first 5K since my heart broke four years ago—I’...

 So, it turns out the quickest way to a man’s heart is not through his stomach after all. It’s through his neck—specifically, the internal jugular vein. Sometimes the groin, wrist, or upper arm will do. Ask me how I know. Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve had this done about 25 times. The first time was when I was twenty years old. I had been diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia, and the doctor assured me he could fix it with a procedure called endocardial ablation. I was taken to the cardiac catheterization lab—the Cath lab—where they accessed my heart through the femoral artery in my groin. It was scary (they use only light sedation, not full anesthesia), uncomfortable (I had to lie flat with sandbags on my groin for hours to stop the bleeding), and deeply embarrassing (again, it was my groin). I’ve only had this done twice since. I do not recommend it—unless, of course, they’re trying to save your life. In that case, by all means, embrace your overpriced bikini shave a...

To be honest, not much running has been happening this week. I haven’t been feeling great. And around here, when mama doesn’t feel great, nobody feels great—meaning my not feeling great tends to ripple outward, creating a low hum of anxiety for everyone else. Still, I push on with my morning walks with friends. We’re experiencing an unusually mild winter, one that has gifted us many pleasant morning miles. I’m not complaining. The other morning, our conversation turned to a big change coming to our neighborhood—one that has left most of us feeling disappointed. Maybe worried. At the very least, unsettled. It’s something some of us anticipated, yet still something we’re not happy about: a new development that will inevitably impact our community in ways that make us feel a loss of control. When we built our home here twenty years ago, community was one of the most important factors in our decision. We were a young, growing family, searching for a safe, family-friendly place where our ch...

If the phrase  “new year, new you”  grates on your nerves like nails on a chalkboard, then welcome to the club. I’ve said before that I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I endorse the practice of finding disciplines you actually enjoy, being intentional and consistent with them, and then watching how your life gradually changes for the better. That said, I’m not opposed to identifying areas of my life that could use some improvement. For instance, I recently set out with the goal of running—er, completing—an organized 5K fun run. I know that in working toward this goal, I will inevitably bump up against setbacks—maybe many of them. At this stage of life, I don’t just expect setbacks; I plan for them. Contingencies are the name of the game. At this stage of life, if I didn’t accept the reality of setbacks and plan around them, I might never try anything at all. I remember that early after my transplant, I came across an Instagram account belonging to a woman who h...