Receiving the Gifts of a Liver and a Heart

Jamie Alcroft has been entertaining audiences as part of the comedy duo Mack & Jamie for over 35 years. His appearances with Mack on The Tonight Show both with Johnny Carson and Jay Leno led to 125 original episodes of the syndicated half-hour COMEDY BREAK WITH MACK & JAMIE.In this episode of "Heart to Heart with Anna," Jamie shares with Anna what happened in his life that required him to get a heart and liver transplant, what it was like waiting for the organs needed to save his life and how the gift of life has affected him. You won't want to miss this episode of "Heart to Heart with Anna"!

Transcript

spk_1:   0:04
Welcome to heart to heart With the Anna, I am Enna, Gorski and the host of Heart to Heart with Anna. This is the second episode of Season 12. Our theme Nous is in his organ donation and transplantation, very excited for today's show to feature an actor from Los Angeles who has a very unique and special story in the first segment. We have learned about his condition. Then we'll hear about what it was like for him to be on the transplant list of finally received his transplants. And then we'll hear what he thinks the future holds for him regarding a book he is writing and his advocacy efforts Today Show is entitled Receiving the Gifts of a Liver and a Heart. Jamie All Croft has been entertaining audiences as part of the comedy duo Mac and Jamie for over 35 years. His appearances with Mac on The Tonight Show, both with Johnny Carson and Jay Leno, led to 125 original episodes of the syndicated half hour comedy Break with MCA. Jamie Jimmy is in the elite corps of L. A voice actors providing voices for many national commercials, plus The Simpsons Rugrats, Power Beach Justice League, Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights and scores of video games, most recently gears and +4123 and four and Transformers and Halo. Jamie Confusing on YouTube by going to Mac and Jamie and Boomers on a bench, which I did check out, and it's really funny. You'll have to check it out. He has his bachelor of arts degree in theatre from Ohio University. Jamie is married to Sarah Kawahara, two time Emmy Award winning ice choreographer. She even choreographed Scott. Hamlet is professional career for 14 years, but the reason he's on our program today is because he needed a heart and a liver transplant, and we'll be discussing that in the course of our interview. So welcome to heart to heart with Anna Jamie.

spk_3:   1:54
Well, I'm happy to be here, and I'm actually happy to be anywhere.

spk_1:   1:59
Well, I can understand that after learning a little bit about your story, but why don't you tell my listeners all about your heart condition?

spk_2:   2:07
Okay, kind of caught me by surprise. I was on an airplane traveling from Seattle to L. A. And I had what they call a widow maker. I had a very weak wall of my left descending artery. And it exploded. It did for my grandfather at 60. It did for my uncle in 56. I was 57 at the time that this happened. Now they can predict widow makers. But in 2005 believe it or not, as little goes 2005 they couldn't predict them. So I had this would've maker. I was one of four to feel symptoms because usually it just drops. You're dead right on the spot. So I had the symptoms of a heart attack and they made emergency landing in Portland and I was taken care of by having a stent placed very high up in my arterial wall, and it's sealed it up. And then they slapped in a pacemaker. Oh, they asked my permission to give me a pacemaker. They said, You are at stage four of congestive heart failure and I said, Really, what is Stage five? And they said, Well, that's death.

spk_1:   3:18
Okay,

spk_2:   3:20
I'll take the pacemaker. So I lived with a pacemaker for 12 years with 20% ejection fraction. So that's basically 20% of my heart function. No normal person. We'll have 50 to 80% of the E F factor, so mine was pretty low. But I functions normally. I performed on cruise ships with Matt Day did corporate gigs. I just conducted my life in a fairly normal way. Stairs were a bit daunting. Keeping up with my dogs sometimes was a little daunting, but I did it then. I got symptoms last July, so that was July of 2017. That's when I knew something was very, very wrong and that some intervention was needed,

spk_1:   4:08
right. So before you had the heart attack on the airplane, they said you were in congestive heart failure then, but she didn't feel like there was any more. Afterwards, afterwards, after

spk_3:   4:21
my heart attack that

spk_1:   4:22
it took

spk_2:   4:23
an hour and 1/2 to get me to the hospital. So I missed that what they call Golden Hour. So there was a lot of damage to my heart. My left heart was basically incapacitated. The right side of my heart took over from my left

spk_1:   4:36
heart.

spk_2:   4:37
So in 12 years the right side of my heart grew to three times its normal size.

spk_1:   4:42
Wow,

spk_2:   4:44
compensate. It's amazing what the body does, but

spk_1:   4:47
ISS.

spk_2:   4:47
It compensated for the left side, which was virtually dead.

spk_1:   4:51
Well, why don't you tell us about the signs and symptoms you experience the second go round? When you knew that something was wrong,

spk_2:   4:58
I lost my appetite and I love to cook. I lost my interest in cooking. I lost my appetite and this happened quite rapidly within about a three week time period. And then I would run out of breath when I laid down. Otherwise I'd laid down and I've run out of breath. It was crazy. I wasn't even running in my dreams. I knew something was wrong. I actually looked it up on the Internet and I saw that I was experiencing symptoms of congestive heart failure. So I called my doctor, Dr Fisher. Dev. I said, Well, you know, what should I take? He said you should take a drive to my office. So I

spk_1:   5:38
did. And

spk_2:   5:39
he gave me an ultrasound and he discovered that my heart function was now at seven

spk_1:   5:45
percent and anywhere

spk_2:   5:48
below 10% qualifies you for heart transplant. So he just instructed me to I have my sister who was with me at the time. My wife was overseas, choreographing AAI show on one of the Royal Caribbean ships. So my sister had flown in from the jersey to keep an eye on me because my wife knew that I was not feeling up to my usual spunky self. Sure enough, I went into Cedars and they slapped a ultrasound on me there and I said, Yes, we're gonna put you in the heart transplant unit. We want to keep you here because we want you to be in the hospital if and when a transplant Heart arrives. And then, after being in the hospital for about two weeks, they ran some tests on May. I had a liver biopsy, and as I was going into my liver biopsy, the doctor came up said, I'm Mr Friedman, probably conducting the procedure today. I just wanted to warn you there's a chance of stroke or internal bleeding. I looked at him, I said, For me or for you,

spk_1:   6:47
are

spk_2:   6:47
we talking about here? So I did try to keep my sense of humor

spk_1:   6:50
about, discovered

spk_2:   6:52
that I needed a new liver as

spk_1:   6:53
well, he says.

spk_2:   6:55
In the 12 years my heart had beat up on my liver to such an extent that I had what they called heart induced cirrhosis. So I had scarring on my liver. Which means that it would never have functioned properly had I stayed with the old one. I was a candidate for a heart and liver at that point.

spk_1:   7:15
Wow. Okay, so you were a candidate for heart and deliver?

spk_2:   7:20
Uh, yeah. It has to come from the same person.

spk_1:   7:24
Thio reduce rejection.

spk_2:   7:26
Yes. Yes. Because that heart in that liver that I have now are used to working together. It was crazy when I found out that I needed a new liver as well. They said, Well, you're 68 year, three years over the age limit. A 65 is the cut off for a duel transplant. So we're gonna have to present your case in front of the board. Well, I immediately got online and found out that Mayo Clinic and U. C. L. A have cut offs of 70 so I would have been eligible for a duel transplant of either of those hospitals. So the next time my teams came in, I had a heart team and a liver team. About five or six doctors in each team and they double checked each other. They said they've never made an exception before, so they basically started packing me up. They started disconnecting my I V s. And then Friday, August 4th came along, and the doctors presented my case in front of the board of 30 surgeons and doctors and social workers, psychiatrists, et cetera. They made an exception in my case. One of the doctors told me it was because of my attitude.

spk_1:   8:38
Wow, that just shows the afford IDs of keeping that sense of humor and having a good attitude, doesn't it?

spk_2:   8:44
Yeah. I mean, I was doing 45 shows a day. It paid off.

spk_1:   8:51
Yes,

spk_2:   8:52
it just was mostly for me. People say, Why are you always on? Why do you think you have to entertain? But I don't think I have to entertain you. Trust me, I'm entertaining myself. I'm bored. I'm just keeping myself entertained. That was the case in the hospital. I was keeping myself entertained. Everything I saw seemed funny to me and seemed unusual. It was certainly an experience that I had never been through before in my life. Everything was new, even though it wasn't sparkly and fun. It was new enough for me to find humor in it and find the absurdity and what I was living through. I was waiting for someone else to pass away so that I

spk_0:   9:32
could live fight something to do with

spk_1:   9:38
absolutely.

spk_2:   9:40
Take this hot industry. We're offering us a mechanical hot, and he said, now that I've had enough to give it to someone who's worthy, my father promised me. A golden dressed twirling held my hand and asked me

spk_3:   9:51
where I wanted to go. Whatever stripe for conflict that we experienced in our long career together was always healed by humor.

spk_0:   10:01
Heart to heart With Michael Please join us every Thursday at noon. Eastern As we talk with people from around the world who have experienced those most difficult moments, you are listening to heart to heart with Anna. If you have a question or comment that you would like to address Donald Show, please send an email to Anna Dworsky at Anna at heart to heart with anna dot com. That's Anna at heart to heart with anna dot com now back to heart to heart with them

spk_1:   10:32
Before the break. Jamie, you were telling us how you are an exception to the rule, and it seems like that's the case over and over in your life. You were the exception to the rule in that your father and your grandfather passed away from this same kind of heart problem. And here you have been able to live through it, live past it. And then you weren't exception because normally they wouldn't give somebody to organs when they're your age. But your attitude helped you to also be an exception in that area. I wanna talk to you now about what it was like for you to be in the hospital for about two months before you got that call. Or I don't know if they called you or just came into your room, but,

spk_3:   11:15
yes, they called me.

spk_1:   11:17
Did they call you? Yeah. So? So what was it like to wait for two months like that in a holding pattern?

spk_3:   11:23
What was it like? It was waiting to live. I was dying. My heart was failing, and each day it got worse. And each day I got closer to being put on a machine to keep me alive until my heart arrived. I did have volunteers who had had heart transplants. Come in and tell me their stories, which was odd. I know they were trying to make me feel better, but this was really my story, and I knew it was going to be very unique. Some people had waited for a year and 1/2 for a heart and liver or even a heart. Some people had waited six months, so I was prepared to wait. As long as I had to wait, I busied myself by writing a book. You start off on posts on Facebook, I would write every day, and I would call it The Tin Man Diaries. I gotta following on Facebook. God forbid I would skip a day or two because I did. And did you get overwhelmed with the procedures that I wrote in the book that they're so intent of that they woke me up three times last night to ask me if I needed a sleeping pill. They were very attentive. And so that took up a lot of my time and writing took up a lot of my time, and it was actually quite joyful because I was waiting for a new heart and liver which was a remarkable experience, and I tried to take advantage of that remarkable experience by looking at the remarkable perspective. Even though I was dying at the time, I was given the gift of hope, and I don't think I'd ever been given anything quite that magnanimous before in terms of something to think about, something to wait for. The doctors did not want me to go home. Like I said, they wanted me to be an elevator ride away from that new heart and liver. And the amazing thing is, is the surgeons, my liver team and my heart team, when the heart and liver became available, actually flew ups Northern California to vet it. So the surgical team that puts it in your body removes it from the body of the deceased, and they're responsible for it from procurement to placement.

spk_1:   13:45
Wow,

spk_3:   13:46
so they're very, very protective about that, and I was impressed. I was impressed. Being in a holding pattern for two months really wasn't that bad compared to what other people had to go through.

spk_1:   14:00
Yeah, I've talked to people who have waited for over a year for ah heart, and I would think that getting a heart and deliver would potentially take even longer,

spk_3:   14:10
Not necessarily because if the heart's there and it's good and it's functioning. Typically the liver is good and its function as well. I had what they call a high risk liver. My heart wasn't because the donor had been checked out by cardiologists or a primary physician at one point, but his liver had never been tested for hepatitis or anything like that. So I was told it was a high risk liver because they had no medical records on it and I chose to take it. I chose to take the chance because frankly, even though other people had waited a year, year and 1/2 2 months was quite sufficient. Thank you to be waiting, and I was ready to go for it,

spk_1:   14:55
right, right. That's pretty amazing. It sounds to me like you became really philosophical during those two months.

spk_3:   15:04
Yes, of course, I think anything that happens in your life, you process and become philosophical about. It's your way of coping. It's one's way of rationalizing whatever is you're going through, whether it be good or bad or something as terrifying as my trip to cause, as I call it, because I was the Tin Man, my books called The Tin Man Diaries. And I was the tin man waiting for a heart.

spk_1:   15:32
Well, what would you tell somebody who is in the position you were then? Now they're sitting in the hospital room and they're waiting and waiting. What kind of advice would you give them?

spk_3:   15:42
Well, I don't know whether it's advice as much as it is perspective, which certainly could be translated to advice for people all my life. And I've taught my Children this, too. I have never fretted or worried or stressed out about something I didn't have control over now when I was feeling the symptoms of congestive heart failure that you having to sleep in a chair sitting up because I ran out of breath when I laid down losing my appetite, not being able to go up a flight of stairs. Within 15 minutes, I had to stop two or three times on a single flight of stairs. So all those symptoms indicated to me that I was getting worse. So I took action and I went to my doctor. I called my doctor. I took action When my doctor told me I needed a heart transplant, I let it go because it was out of my hands. It was out of my control. That was something that fate and destiny was going to dictate. And for me to worry or stress or be concerned about it, cry or friend Or do any of those things that people are expected to do upon receiving bad news? I just let it go. It's something I didn't have control over. And then when I got the heart and liver and I had control over my recuperative process, you know, I took action,

spk_1:   17:12
right?

spk_3:   17:12
I did something about it.

spk_1:   17:14
Tell us about receiving that phone call. Yea,

spk_3:   17:20
it was a little better than receiving your call today. It

spk_2:   17:24
was just terrific. A old friend of mine who owned a theater in Key West When I was performing down there, she was visiting me because her daughter had a grandchild. Her daughter live in L. A. And she was in the room when I got the phone call. And so I was able to share it with her. I was quite relieved yet I must tell you, Anna, I was cautious as well, because those people who had received hearts who visited me and share their stories with May some of them had gone down to the O. R. And not receive their heart or liver because it wasn't just right.

spk_1:   18:03
Yeah,

spk_2:   18:04
and that's the way Cedar Sinai does it. One guy bless his heart, had been put to sleep eight

spk_1:   18:12
times on

spk_2:   18:14
woke up eight times with no heart or liver.

spk_1:   18:18
Uh, because

spk_2:   18:20
it wasn't a good fit. It has to be a good fit. It's guesswork when they puke, you're the organs. In my case, up in Northern California again, I had no control,

spk_1:   18:32
right?

spk_2:   18:32
So I didn't freak out. I didn't say, OK, this is it, baby. I said, this might be it. And going in with that attitude, save me. And and then when I woke, I actually knew I had received ah, heart and liver because of the dream or a hallucination I had Well, I was under the anesthesia. I thought it was a video that they'd showed me before they put me under. And actually, when I woke up, I said to the doctor, Can I have a copy of that video that you showed me and you said What video was that? And I described it to him. He said, No, you can't have a copy of that because it doesn't exist.

spk_1:   19:16
Wow. Wow.

spk_2:   19:18
It was all in your head. I saw an aerial view of a Temple Greco Roman temple that was sandy colored and at the top of the temple of the altar, a woman sat and she said, James B. L. Kraft Jr. I said Yes. She said, Are you ready to receive your heart or a liver? I said yes. And just then, eh? I could only describe it as a also the say Pia, a cuddle fish bone. You know, the cuttlefish moment hangs in a parakeet cage.

spk_1:   19:57
Yes,

spk_2:   19:58
they sharpen their beaks on. It was horizontal. It was a white cuttlefish bone, and every time she spoke, a orange computer generated ring appeared over the cuttlefish bone. And she said, Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. I did at an orange ring appeared, she said. Again, I did. Another wondering appeared, and I kept breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. As instructed, she said, Great, you're doing great. You're doing just fine. And when the cuttlefish bone was filled with orange rings, it collapsed into a image of me. And it was me and my body lying there. And she said, You have now received your new heart and liver. Thank you. And I said, Thank you and that was my hallucination. And I really thought that was a video that they'd showed me

spk_1:   20:56
How?

spk_2:   20:57
Yeah. So I will always have that in my heart in my mind and the treasure, that image of that video and that that experience that I had, whether it be real or not, frankly, what I think it was, as I think it was the nurse talking me off of event later and getting me to breathe on my own. But I kind of leaned

spk_0:   21:21
towards being more mystical.

spk_1:   21:23
Yeah, it sounds more mystical that today.

spk_2:   21:27
Yeah, yeah,

spk_5:   21:35
forever by the Baby Blue Sound collective. I think what I love so much about this CD is that some of the songs were inspired by the patient's many listeners will understand many of the different songs and what they've been inspired. Our new album will be available on iTunes amazon dot com Spotify. I love the fact that the proceeds from this CD are actually going to help those with heart defects. Enjoying music? Home

spk_1:   22:03
Tonight forever, huh? Jamie, I think it's interesting that you told us you started writing your book by the Facebook Post that you were creating. Tell us a little bit more about your book because I have a feeling it's gone past that now.

spk_2:   22:26
Yes, it's gone way past that out. It now broke up about 250 pages.

spk_1:   22:31
How,

spk_2:   22:32
frankly, I had a hard time separating reality from hallucination after I received the heart liver because they had me on so much morphine to quell the pain. And believe me, my book is funny. But whoever said Laughter's the best medicine has never had a morphine drip. I guarantee you that,

spk_1:   22:54
Okay,

spk_2:   22:54
because the more feet off my gosh, the 1st 4 days, I believe I was asleep in a medically induced coma, right, because the pain is even too much for the morphine in those first few days. And then after four days, I woke up and my family was around me. When I woke up and I saw them, I think I saw them, but in reality now I know I saw them and I said, Am I alive? And they said Yes, Daddy, you know? Yeah, honey. And now you're alive. And I started yelling, Konnichiwa, baby, I don't know why, but I just was gonna connect you up,

spk_1:   23:35
baby. Oh,

spk_2:   23:36
yeah, you are, baby. Look. And in my mind, I was standing on a balcony shouting out too a cool area where people were swimming in a pool. My family videotaped me doing this breaking

spk_1:   23:54
up on

spk_2:   23:55
and in fact, I was laying in bed, barely slurring out the words Can it you are, baby. But in my mind, I was very precise and loud, and I was projecting when I watched the tape, I was, like, slurring, you know, clears you of, uh So what I've done with the book is I've tried to include all of that recovery period and all the things I could remember all the things that doctors said to me. The nurses said to me the feelings I had my experience with a doctor coming in and telling me he was gonna interrogate my pacemaker.

spk_1:   24:42
Okay.

spk_2:   24:43
And all I could think of is, where were you on the evening of June

spk_1:   24:47
4th 1943 And

spk_2:   24:49
don't try to leave town, Bugsy, because we know where. Yeah,

spk_1:   24:51
Yeah,

spk_2:   24:53
Typical interrogation. Also in my book, I take you back, they take you back to my childhood and I take you back to having you on to school in England for three years, living in Colorado and being a Silver Smith and being a deejay in Key West, Florida on all the experiences I've had managing a symphony orchestra. It all is in the book, and it l relates to the flashbacks I had when I was recovering and they were many. Many. That's basically what the book is. Don't have a publisher for it yet. Frankly, I don't know whether to self publish or to go with a publisher, but I'm doing a Ted X talk in June to promote Donorship, and I will use the book there. I'll have enough published there, too, to hand out some copies or even maybe sell copies. At that point, I don't know

spk_1:   25:47
what. So the book is complete.

spk_2:   25:50
As far as I'm concerned, it is every time I pick it up, I tweak it. So there's a point at which with art, you have to set it down and say, I'm finished,

spk_1:   25:59
Yes, yeah, As a writer myself, I can say how hard that ISS. But yes, you do get to that point and

spk_3:   26:08
it's very

spk_1:   26:08
difficult, Difficult? I don't know about you. I try to be a perfectionist. I don't try to be. It's just my nature to be a perfectionist and I'm my own worst enemy now. But you're your own worst enemy because it's never going to be perfect and it doesn't necessarily have to be perfect in order to help someone. And it sounds like that's what you're trying to do with your books.

spk_2:   26:30
Exactly my criteria is it has to be accessible that has to be readable and accessible. I'm basically taking my readers on a ride in my car and they're gonna have to want to stay in my car for the ride. So I do try to use some of the classic composition skills. But I've learned over the years to hold on to the reader because I do want the reader to stay there because I think what's coming next is important for them,

spk_1:   27:02
right, well and so you're doing a Ted X talk to promote organ donation. What other kind of advocacy efforts are you involved in?

spk_2:   27:12
Well, that's my main trust right now. That's the first week in June. What I've done is I've contacted the local donor organization in Southern California. I've done a lot of research. I know the 22 people a day die waiting for organs that are not available. I know that our organ donorship numbers in this country are abysmal compared to some of the European countries. Their shameful and people just don't think about it. I asked people everywhere I was in the Verizon store today, and I asked the guy, Are you donor? He said, Oh, geez, you know, I don't know. I don't know. Where am I? You know, I hadn't thought about that, and it's amazing how many people don't think about it. But 8000 people a year die waiting for organs. It's so easy to sign up and then look, a donor ships a very passive procedure. You really don't know what's going on. It's a decision you make before you depart. But upon your death you can give life. It's a legacy. I mean, everybody wants to accomplish something in this life. Everybody. I think everybody wants to leave something behind a legacy. And to me, Donorship has always been. Even before I was in this situation on legacy, something that I'm going to leave behind in my 10 X talk, I'm going to try to concentrate more on the recipients unless on the donors, because the donors have made their decision, their death is out of my hands. It's out of my control. What I can control is providing life for someone else when I pass. So that's part of my legacy. I'd like to leave more, of course, to my Children than my wife, but that's a major part of my legacy in life is to believe that to leave life when I depart of speaking for 20,000 nurses in Denver in October, and I don't have any other dates booked. But I hope that this Ted X talk when it goes viral and hits YouTube will encourage people to bring me on. I've got one legacy. They're gonna be in the lobby there, donorship organization here and donate life Isa Donorship organization here, and they're both gonna have tables in the lobby and they'll be able to sign up people in 90 seconds. So if anybody in my audience has not become a donor yet, they could become a donor in 90 seconds as they leave my text.

spk_1:   29:43
I love it. That's awesome. That is awesome. Well, I just have one more quick question for you. And that is, most people don't really know anything about transplants. And actually, if you talk to them, they think that if you get a transplant, that means that you're fixed and that everything is fine now. Kind of like the bionic man. You're better than ever. What would you tell them about what it's like for life after receiving a transplant?

spk_2:   30:11
In fact, their life will be better than it was before they needed a transplant because they were ill. That could only be cured by a replacement part. Right? So, like I have a 46 year old heart, that's all I know about. My donor is, he was from Northern California, and he was 46. The donor's family has the option of contacting me, but they did not. That's something that I've let go of, but I'm thankful to him every day for the life I'm living on, the opportunities I'm given. I was able to see my daughter on Jimmy Kimmel last night because I have a heart and I'm alive. I'm gonna be able to see my other daughter be married in June because I have a heart and a liver and I'm alive. Now. You have to take anti rejection drugs for the rest of your life. You have to be very careful about infection for the rest of your life. But that's a small price to pay for life. It really is. When they told me that they were afraid of rejection and this was their main concern, I told him I'd been an actor in a comedian for 40 years. I thrived on Rich. I'm used to it

spk_1:   31:32
every audition. Yeah, yeah,

spk_2:   31:35
I'm facing rejection so I can deal with that. Yeah, I think they're life's gonna be better. I don't mind taking those 16 pills every morning and 10 at night. I don't mind that it's a small sacrifice to make toe wear a mask. That a large gathering. It's a small price to pay.

spk_1:   31:55
Well, it has been an honor to talk to you today, Jamie

spk_2:   31:59
It's been an honor to talk to you today on a really been enlightening. I really enjoyed talking to you because I was able to express things that I hadn't really thought about her brutalized before.

spk_1:   32:11
But I think you've given our listeners simply to think about two. And we even had some laughter initial, which I think is really important.

spk_2:   32:18
That's key. Absolutely, and I'll send you a copy of my book. You'll have lots of laughs.

spk_1:   32:26
Yes, my not by 90 Absolute. Why

spk_2:   32:29
not? If you you're given the opportunity to have a heart and liver transplant, make them most of it. Don't bemoan the fact that you're getting it. Rejoice in the fact it's a glorious day

spk_1:   32:40
and as a glorious way for us to end this episode. Thanks for listening today. Friends please subscribe to our program on iTunes and remember, my friends, you are

spk_0:   32:50
not a heart to heart with. Anna is a presentation of hearts, unite the globe and is part of the hug Podcast Network Hearts unite The Globe is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing resource is to the congenital heart defect community to uplift and power and enrich the lives of our community members, if you would like access to free resource, is pretending to the CHD community. Please visit our website at www congenital heart defects dot com for information about CHD, the hospitals that treat Children with CHD summer camps for CHD survivors and much, much more. Thank you again for joining us this week way. Hope you have been inspired on Empowered to become an advocate for the congenital heart defect community. Heart to heart With Anna With your hose down, Jaworski can be heard every Tuesday at 12 noon eastern time.