March 24, 2019

I just realized something today, that I probably should’ve realized sooner: I’m going to die young.

I’m going to die at 30.

You might not know this, but a heart doesn’t last forever after transplant. The average heart after transplant lasts for 15 years.

I got my heart transplant when I was 15, and the average heart lasts for 15 years. I’m going to die at 30.

I’m not scared, which is weird. I’m not afraid, because it’s so long away.

15 years seems so longs, but 15 years also seems so short.

And it’s not fair. It’s so not fair.

An average person could eat junk food all their life, never exercise a day in their life, and never go to the hospital, and still die of old age. Me, I have to eat “nutritiously”, exercise six times a week, and go to the hospital semiannually, and die at 30.

Why do I have to suffer through pain just to stay alive?

Sure, I could get another heart transplant at 30, but I have to suffer through THAT again. And I really don’t want to. Also, let’s be real, if I had a heart transplant every 15 years, then I’d have to have 4,5 hearts to live until old age.

Lizzy, the person I met at the transplant reunion party, had her heart for 30 years. Could I be like that? Sure, but that’s only 30 years.

I would still have to have another transplant to live until age 75 (assuming my second heart also lasts 15 years). And what happens with that transplant?

Once one organ starts to fail, all your other organs start to fail. With my second heart transplant, will I need a double transplant? Will I need a kidney transplant, liver transplant, lung transplant, along with it?

And the heart transplant list is so uncertain. I was lucky to get a heart in 2 weeks (which is unheard of, by the way), but next time I’m not going to be as lucky. I could wait on the list for years.

I could die on the list.

Chronic heart failure happens so fast that it gets out of control. It’s like an exponential decay graph, and it’s out of our hands.

It makes me mad. When my classmates are settling down with their spouses, buying their first house, having kids, I won’t be there.

And I hate it.

I came here all this way to do what, do it again?

Update

I know I’ve probably scared you, or depressed you, but I’ve thought about, and I’m okay with the thought about not living until old age.

Lamenting and moping about my life isn’t going to help, and it won’t make myself better. I want to choose hope, so I will choose hope.

Medical research is growing at an exponential rate, and by the time I’m 50 there will definitely be new discoveries.

Maybe I won’t live forever, but I’ll live long enough. Fifteen years is pretty long, and who knows, maybe it’ll be longer.

Some people live more in 20 years than others do in 80. It’s not the time that matters, it’s the person.

David Tennant