Heartbeats

Each year since 1963, the president has declared February American Heart Month. Hallmark may be responsible for Valentine's Day, but the goal of American Heart Month is to increase awareness and education about heart disease and treatment, and to save lives.

This year, my friend Pam is one of those who — please, God — was saved.

Barely two weeks ago, her badly damaged heart was removed and the heart of a 19-year-old woman was transplanted into her chest.

One family faced loss and in their grief found the strength and generosity to give the gift of hope to my dear friend. Better than chocolates and flowers, they gave life.

Pam's mother had heart disease, and she has had heart disease for as long as I've known her — 25-plus years. Her son has heart disease. Through the years, she has done everything right: watched her diet, didn't drink, moderate exercise, medicine, naps, yoga, meditation. She has raised two beautiful children and been the best friend a girl could have, and she has done it taking naps in the afternoon, swallowing handfuls of pills and never (well, almost never) complaining, but always doing her best to be grateful for the strength she has, always doing more with less energy than anyone else I know.

But it finally started catching up. It finally started becoming clearer than anyone wanted it to be that she couldn't go on like this. She and her husband started researching transplant programs. They picked New York-Presbyterian, the University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell, because they do more than any hospital in the country, and because both of their children, now graduated from college, have settled in New York City.

She had the various checkups and contacted others who had had the procedure.

But we still kept thinking about it as something out there, in the future, not yet, not sick enough, not ready. Then she went to New York to visit her children over the holidays, and her heart took a turn for the worse. She ended up in one hospital, then another — crash carts, irregular beats, the signs of failure now too clear to ignore. They put her on the list and the wait began.

"Days, not weeks," she said to me in the time leading up to the day we got the e-mail that the surgery had been performed. We sent e-mails, told jokes, prayed.

Now, here is the truth: It is not easy. She has had rough days. She is incredibly grateful but very scared and nervous. The first test showed "mild" rejection. More medicine needed. To be expected. Still scary.

But the bottom line is very simple. She is incredibly lucky. Just over 2,000 transplants are performed every year in the United States. Many more people than that need them but don't get them, not in time, not at all — because the hearts are not available. My friend was lucky — great husband by her side, great doctors, great team, great friends and family. But what she really had going for her was the family of one 19-year-old girl, who could see through their grief to offer her the ultimate gift.

They don't tell you anything about the donor, other than sex and age. But somewhere out there, perhaps reading this, is a family who made the hard call, who signed a form through their tears, who chose life in the face of death.

And from the bottom of my heart, I say to them, for the sake of my friend and her family and all the others who are waiting and praying, thank you. God bless.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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