An Interview with The Transplant Helper, Jim Murrell!

Jim Murrell is commonly known on YouTube as "The Transplant Helper" due to his YouTube channel full of episodes helping the transplant community. Jim was born with a congenital heart defect known as transposition of the great arteries. The Mustard Procedure helped Jim to live until adulthood and then he began having problems. Listen to find out what kind of rhythm issues Jim had and what was required to help him survive. Tune in to hear about Jim's journey and what caused him to begin his YouTube channel.

Transcript

spk_1:   0:06
Welcome to heart to heart. With Anna, I am an itch Dworsky and the host of your program. This is the 12th episode of Season 12 of Heart to Heart with Anna. Our theme this season is organ donation and transplantation. Today's episode is an interview with the transplant helper Jim Merle. Jim Moral was born in 1975 and shortly after his birth, his parents were told he had transposition of the Great Arteries. At that time, there wasn't much that could be done, so it was expected Jim would die. However, at about six months of age, doctors decided to do the mustard procedure. Throughout his childhood and young adulthood, Jim thrived in his thirties. Jim started to have rhythm problems. By this time he was married. Jim has to natural Children, two adopted Children and one more child is going through the adoption process. He looked a congestive heart failure for six years. Jim didn't want to have a transplant before it was absolutely necessary. Finally, the doctor said, he needed a new heart, and he was listed. Jim wanted to watch his Children grow up, so he felt very blessed when he received his heart He is the host of the Transplant Helper, a YouTube show that gives advice to those in the transplant community. Gym provides face to face and video transplant education and training via his YouTube channel. Bogota. Hard tart with energy

spk_2:   1:27
and I really appreciate you having me on today.

spk_1:   1:30
Oh, I'm excited to meet you. I enjoyed watching some of your programs on your channel. They are so educational, folks, you have to go out and look for him. It's really easy to find. If you go to YouTube, just type in the transplant helper and his show pops up. So let's start at the beginning, when you were very young, you ended up having a mustard procedure, and I'm sure you don't remember it. Tell me about growing up in the late seventies and eighties with that big scar down your chest.

spk_2:   2:00
Well, as you say, I mean, I had my mustard procedures six months, which at the time made me the youngest child in Alabama have open heart surgery. So yeah, it's something that I do not remember. Probably my earliest memories. I may have been two or three, and some of this may be just me if I've been told, but about two or three, I think my brother who's six years older than me, he was more concerned than I was because he could see this car and he kind of remembered something about it. But I can remember him asking a lot of questions about it. And of course I'm going to the cardiologists only very regular basis. And so I'm starting to kind of comprehend that something's different. But as far as the way that I felt at that age, you know, I ran and did what I wanted to. I guess my parents tried to limit me, but I didn't have a lot of you know, real memory of it until probably I got up in school that once you start going to Kindergarten Elementary School, of course that's a game changer, because now you are a lot different than everyone else. So I think that's probably the things I remember. Maybe seeing the scar and then beginning to understand that that scar had to be linked to something

spk_1:   3:07
right that

spk_2:   3:08
made me different.

spk_1:   3:10
So it seems like your childhood in early adulthood were spent pretty much unaware that you had any problems although it does sound like you had frequent cardiology visits, which most of our CHD patients. D'oh. Why did your heart start to develop those arrhythmias? And how did the doctors treat them initially?

spk_2:   3:29
Well, I was much older before heading. The difficulty is above stated. I did go to the cardiologists a lot as a kid, and my cardiology visits were very different in that one. I was going to a teaching university hospital, so they've got their own little way of doing things which includes not only a lot of real doctors, as I called him, but also student doctors. And I can always remember that when I had my cardiology appointments, every time I would go, they would not even actually use the normal examination rooms. Typically, my appointments would take place inside of a huge meeting room, and they would clear all the tables out and bring in the equipment into their echoes and EKGs and all, and actually do it in front of big crowds of people. There would be 25 doctors in the room that type of

spk_1:   4:15
like goodness 25

spk_2:   4:18
right, because my condition was rare enough, and more than that, it had been handled in a rare enough way through must procedure. And at my age, everything was a factor that made my condition difference. So all those visits were special. All of them were different. But the blessing behind that is, is each of those visits in childhood owner through my teenage years always went very well. The doctors were all there to watch the show, but there was nothing more to show then my surgeons and original cardiologists going through and describing what had been done to present my case is being an extremely successful case. My original cardiac surgeon who performed the surgery six months, he later told me after I made him after 32 years, that I pretty much made his entire career. Wow said his career in order because they did some things to me as a child that had not been done. So when I got to that 32 ish year mark, they had long predicted if there was gonna be a problem when it would come, how it would come and the first sign of a problem for me was going to be rhythm issues, different arrhythmias, which I started the have I started having PVC used to begin with, which is just skipped Beats mine were a little different. They were sustained. And so when my heart would pound a few times were hard and stop. It would stop for many, many seconds. Um, and if anybody was around like they were at one occasion, I was in the emergency room. With that, the people around me would get very upset and nervous because I would be flatlined right on the monitor. I mean, it would be sustained long enough to say that, but yet I would still be aware and talking and carrying on, you know, wedding start. It's part of my so the rhythm issues were first, but thankfully, because of all the visits and because of all the I guess you'd say professional opinion that was surrounding me, those 20 something doctors in the room at a time. It was something that we were looking for and somewhat prepared toe have happened.

spk_1:   6:18
Do you think it's because you had so many doctors with you for such a long time that you felt comfortable saying, I don't want to transfer it until it's absolutely necessary?

spk_2:   6:29
That had a lot to do with it, not the majority. But a lot of it was to do that because I had grown up completely understanding what was going on and completely comprehending just the amount of attention that I'd always gotten. So yes, that made me feel more comfortable that any decisions that they would make about me or I could've system and making which they were letting me do. By my adult years, they were letting me give input that we could probably make a good decision on that. And so as I started to go through and weakened because of the arrhythmias, because the muscle itself is becoming stiff, just different things were arising eventually, like many do ended up with an STD. I knew the purpose for that. I knew what it could accomplish in what it couldn't, and that was kind of a safety net is well to keep me from having the rhythm of death and hopefully to keep surviving. So when they started to talk transplant, I did not want to do that. But I knew it was something that would be there, and it was just gonna be my job as well as theirs to try to set the right time frame for that.

spk_1:   7:35
So what finally changed your mind and helped you realize now is the time.

spk_2:   7:39
Four evaluations. Basically, I went through the transplant evaluation process four times. Really, Over the course of six years, I guess you could say the majority of that fell in the last four. But I would go for these evaluations and even the very 1st 1 I landed what they would call very borderline where they would sit down and say, Look, we've got a really, really bad numbers here. We've got a few numbers that are positive. We've got some predictions we can make to this, and they were trying to help me to make a good decision. It's whale, and of course you've got to sign off on it. You're not doing it. So I was going to get to make that choice at the end. And those evaluations, the first to kind of film or on the side of we can wait. And so they would say, Let's wait six months and then we'll start the re evaluation process again. Repeat some of the tests that need to be brought up current, and we'll try to make a decision there first. He went that way. The 3rd 1 went a lot worse, A sw far as I had die aggressed some physically. My pediatric cardiology numbers were never accurate, and they knew that. So they knew that I would show certain numbers, say, for example, in the cath lab or the pulmonary labs. And then at the same time, I might have walked a mile and 1/2 from the parking deck, getting this huge hospital numbers that would show them that I should have been brought in on a gurney. Yet I walked that so they knew that these numbers were not gonna be accurate. But there's not enough case study to prove what's good. What's bad in my situation, anyway, So we had the evaluation went in for what they call Decision Day, which just means that the doctors supposedly have already made it all, made their choice, the list or not, and they're bringing that in. Presenting to you, they came in my room. They spoke for just a minute. Two of the doctors, they then excuse themselves and went outside my room and began to argue extremely loudly among themselves. one of them saying, I think we should wait six more months and evaluate him again. The other one's saying, No, he'll die before that. We've got to do something that we've got a listing his blood tissue type. We don't know how long the way it's gonna be. We got a listing, and so they came back in the room. Trying to put their game face back on is if that hadn't happened. But I'd heard it all and asked me again what I wanted to do. And I said, I won't wait If we can wait, we're waiting. And so they went ahead and reluctantly agreed to that, but told me then point blank. If we find anything that falls on the other side of this, we're doing it. And so I said, Well, I would agree that when it's time, I'm going to sign the paper, but I'm one of the way. So I did. We waited about trying to wait another six months. I don't know that I made it that far. I can't remember the dates, but finally I was waiting for the fourth time in this fourth valuation. The numbers were relatively about the same. But when I went in for a follow up appointment right after that, it wasn't actually Decision Day. It was just a follow up appointment. But they came in with certain numbers and said, Here's what we have And so what we're gonna do to you today is we're gonna put you in the hospital and you're going to stay in the hospital now until transplant, which I was already on. Ivy Miller, known 24 7 had been that way for 10 months. Had home help was coming in, and all the what they have to do to deal with that so that have been going on for 10 months, really sense that. 1/3 evaluation. But she came in that day and said, You're going the hospital. I argued that Snow. I agree that it's time, but same time we had a little family getaway planned that was going to start that afternoon. The minute I got out of the clinic and we're ready to go, I was traveling to Georgia. I'm a minister preacher at that point by trade that I had speaking appointments that weekend all weekend and we were gonna have a little vacation and such. And I refused and my doctor pushed back and she told me it would have to be nice to know I will be back Monday when I get back Monday, we'll do this, she kept arguing. Finally, she left the room. She came back in and she said, Look, if you walk out of this cleaning today, we're gonna put you down. It's non compliant. You're not going to be listed. We're taking you completely off of the list and your outlook. So you make a choice. So you know me doing what I need to do. Then I call my wife. I ask our permission. Of course, her answer was just a stern is the doctors. So I made a few more phone calls, cancel my plans for the weekend and got put the hospital where I remained until transplant

spk_3:   12:09
takes this hot industry. We're offering us a mechanical hot, and he said, now that I've had enough to give it to someone worthy, my father promised me, a golden dressed twirling held my hand and asked me where I wanted to go. Whatever stripe for conflict that we experienced in our long career together was always healed by humor.

spk_4:   12:30
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

spk_5:   12:37
moments 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 congenital heart defects. Join Music Home

spk_1:   13:13
Tonight Forever, Jim. Before the break, you were telling me a little bit about your medical history. So let's talk about you actually receiving the gift of life. When did it happen?

spk_2:   13:27
Ventral transplant date was made the 23rd 2013. So it's been a little bit over five years ago. Time of this recording again. I had been hospitalized as I just said, what I call condemned to the hospital by that point. For a while I've been in and out of the hospital. There not been a month in the last two years prior to my transplant that I had meaning in I'm being for 568 days of the time be out again and of course, continued on I V medications and all. But once they condemned the hospital, they put me in the hospital. I believe it was made a second, and so for made a second to make his 23rd. I remained there in the hospital and they had to do a lot of fancy tricks because of my anatomy. They could not list me in the traditional way. I was status one B to begin with, and they need to move me to a status one A. Because after 265 days of wait times total, I had not even got an offer for potential heart. So they knew they had to get me up to the status one a position and get me to the top of the list so my anatomy wouldn't allow them to traditional things what I wanted to go into. But it's just a little few hoops the doctors know to jump through to get to that, and so basically their only option left with me was to round from the Miller known that was already going in my body to ramp that up really high and to claim for an exemption status, as they call it, which just means that they're going to be able to not go through the same hoops but get me to the list anyway to top. So they did that, which is awful. Mommy ever known, was doubled, completely doubled. The dose is, was inside of about three days, and so that huge increase in dose of medication was very hard on my body. But I continued to press on.

spk_1:   15:07
What's this? That Dr.

spk_2:   15:09
There's fancy doctor talk for but more lance. It's what I call the I hate to use the term really go go juice, but is that it causes your heart to squeeze harder, and therefore it increases potential, your ejection, fractions and stuff like that. So it allows the heart to artificially work a little bit harder. They're mechanical things that can do to take care of some of the mechanical, the electrical like things like that I CD that I had defibrillator pacemaker is such, but when it comes down to the muscle itself becoming weak. It doesn't matter how many electrical signals were sent to that muscle. It just doesn't have the power to make well, this drug. They're a few others like it. Dopamine is in the similar family that you hear about a lot on television when you're watching a show where there's any our situation going on. But there are other drugs like it, with the mayor known causes the heart muscle to squeeze harder. So what you're doing when you get mail renown is, and one was sent saving and extending your life because it's allowing your body to do something that would normally do or wouldn't be able to do muscle wise. But this is very hard to explain. But while you're taking that drug, you're extending your life to an extent. But then you're also cutting it off at the end because the drug is not something your body is able to substandard for a long time. But I have been on it for 265 days there a lot of people that are on over a year, but not a whole lot more than that, it is damaging that heart muscle at the same time when it's forcing it to squeeze. When it's not normally anatomy wise able to do so, it's going to damage it. I compare it. It's not the same drug by any means, but I compare it to someone say, who used to use the antibiotics steroids to go out and get big muscles. Yes, they get the big muscles, but they're doing so much damage to those same muscles and tissue that the end is not only good. And so this is doing something similar. It's causing a muscle to overwork itself,

spk_1:   17:06
Right? So did that make you feel tired that your body was having to work so hard? It actually fatigue you?

spk_2:   17:13
That's a yes and a no for me. The mirror and I worked pretty well. It gave me an artificial sense of energy and the artificial sense of stamina. So technically speaking, and I've done programs on my video. Siri's about things like this, but I did what I can't keep my legs. Which is this the term of saying that when you're waiting on any kind of transplant, you've got to keep your body in tip top shape, especially your legs. It's very hard to do when you don't have that, get up and go. You don't have. You know, you just got up and win. But if you can keep your legs on you, that is your number. One way of getting out of the bed after surgery. So I was able to keep my legs by with the assistance of Milburn owning the high doses that I got to Once I was weaned up onto that, it wasn't so bad. It was just the winning process. I was averaging 3 to 4 miles a day walking the hospital halls leading up to my transplant. So for those 20 some odd days, I was in the hospital Any two days in the hospital this round, I was walking my little feet off and trying to keep my legs. That was when I had in my mind I've got to stay strong. I've gotta have enough left in my muscles to be able to get out of billions.

spk_1:   18:23
So after 21 days, you got your heart. It was that quick.

spk_2:   18:27
I did. I had 265 total 21 in hospital this round. So from May, the second to May 23rd if it's 21 days. I had a false alarm. I had a call that came in the week before that Turned out the heart itself was not for me. I got to shake the man's hand. Who got it? However, we're all in the same unit. And so I waited 12 hours or so to hear the word. And I knew that there were three of us that were potentials toc that organ and he got it. So I got to shake his hand on wood. Surgery is he went, But I missed that one. And then one week later, which was made the 23rd 22nd I got my call, but it takes a while to actually get the process going. But I was told that there was another potential hard on May the 22nd on 23rd I got it under the guise of keeping my legs. I literally walked all night on the 22nd. Wow, my doctors, one of them at least passed Min Ho and he said, You don't have to walk anymore. You're getting your heart. You know I do because I'm getting out of that bed. You know, you're gonna put me three. Serge, I'm getting out of bed and, uh, you know, I could tell you more about that in a minute, but I'll tell you, it was successful. I managed to accomplish what I wanted.

spk_1:   19:33
That's good. You certainly have the attitude that you were going to be successful with this. And I think a big part of the struggle is having the right attitude

spk_2:   19:42
it is. And with any transplant, I'm most for me with hearts, because I'm one of most for me belongs because I'm around a lot of long patients kidneys, somewhat for me, with all of them. I worked with him, but you have to have a heart of mental heart to really handle any of them. And that's why the psychological evaluation pre transplant is what it is. It's grueling. The whole process is girling. But the psychological part can be extremely difficult because they know statistically. If you don't have the mental heart to do this, you won't survive the physical side of it either, because you got to be able to drive and push and to go farther than you expect you can go.

spk_1:   20:22
Is that why you started your program because you saw how intense this experience waas and how maybe with your program, you could help others?

spk_2:   20:33
Yes, and a big sense it waas. The whole premise of my program is I like to repeat it. There's three things involved, a lot advocate, educate and motivate. And I think all of those things have to be there. You gotta advocate to first of all, advocate to get organs made available. People have to be donors. They have to be rich to donors. They have to tell their family their friends about the decisions. So I have to do a lot of that work. I've gotta educate because there's a tremendous a huge hole as faras transplant education goes, every center, a dozen, something on top of that. Not that they have their own guidelines. Please don't misunderstand that anybody but they've got their own characters. They've got their own people. And so, just like with any job, there are some people who come in to do their jobs every day, and they work their hind end off to make sure that you're doing their job to the best. There are other people that come in every day and get Jake, I mean, and that's in any profession. When you couple that with the fact that a lot of these transplant educators, the working hospitals, their transplant coordinators, their nurses there, even sometimes doctors there dietitians, their rehab guys and girls, they're all this. They're coming in a room. And giving you is much information as they choose to give you that day, and depending on their mood, it could be a lot. It could be a little, and depending on there experience, it could be a lot or a little. And none of these people, almost none, have any firsthand experience with this.

spk_1:   21:55
All right,

spk_2:   21:55
so there's a huge education hole. So I got to realize in that even pre transplant course again, growing up congenital, growing up with a heart condition, I already knew as much as most or more. And a lot of times pretty much impressed the doctors because I can't read my own echoes. Sometimes when technicians couldn't you know that kind

spk_1:   22:14
of wow Wow, that's pretty impressive. But to be fair, the architects job is not to read it. They're

spk_2:   22:21
our

spk_1:   22:21
job is to perform it, but how interesting that you were so astute that you could watch it and see for yourself. Here. This

spk_2:   22:28
is a

spk_1:   22:28
good actor. You are?

spk_2:   22:30
Yeah. They were there with my condition. They could not recognize the anatomy. The repair had made the identity. And so they would have to stop, leave the room, go get a cardiologist's come and assist them to trying to help them find the chambers and such. And I knew that, but us all a huge hole in the education side of things. And so physically I started going face to face and doing that. And then I started to research. And anybody really sting right now could try this out. You search for transplant, you search for transplant, help you search for a lot of different things with the word transplanting. And on YouTube or Google, you're gonna find two things You're either gonna find the levee, Debbie. Stories that I love absolutely love to watching the here pickles journeys their stories or you're going to find the medical side of things, which is very limited anyway. But white coats using language, we cannot understand that we're never going to figure out giving educational speeches to their fellows into their type and there's nobody in the middle. And you still searching you, Sarge? Transplant. You're gonna get a hair transplant. I mean, I saw a huge hole. And so my coordinators and such my transplant center, We're encouraging me. Why can't you make this available to more? Why can't you do videos or podcast? Which I was into podcasts and they knew that. Why can't you make this about a little more people and give them something that search? So that was the education and then motivation side. I know it takes a lot to live this life, and it takes a whole lot of putting all that, you know together. But that does nothing unless you can use it and practically work it out. So

spk_1:   24:04
right.

spk_4:   24:05
Anna Dworsky has written several books to empower the congenital Heart Defect, or CHD community. These books could be found at amazon dot com or at our website www dot baby hearts press dot com. Her best seller is The Heart of a Mother, an anthology of stories written by women for women in the CHD community and as other books. My brother needs an operation the heart of a father and hypoplastic left heart syndrome. A handbook for parents will help you understand that you are not alone. Visit baby hearts press dot com to find out more.

spk_0:   24:41
Oh, Theo,

spk_1:   24:47
Jim. Before the break, you were telling us about your transfer journey of why you started your YouTube program, The transplant helper. You sing in your show that you do face to face meetings to tell us why you feel it's important to do both face to face meetings and your YouTube program.

spk_2:   25:04
Why was it face to face meetings? They're limited physically because with my family demographic, five Children and a wife that works, I can only go so far. But I go to my transplants in the UK Big Hospital in Birmingham on a weekly basis generally, and I sat down with patients. Everybody's familiar with May. So when I walk on the transplant unit immediately, I've got doctors, nurses, coordinators walking up, saying, Can you go check on so and so So and so So and so and so and so and and you know that, you know, we got privacy laws. I'm not denying that. Silly as they seem, they can't tell me much, but they will say go to room number Mr So and So needs some encouragement or go here there, four days out of transplant. They'll give me enough information to walk in the door. To me, that has to be done. The thing is, I can't do it for everybody. I could go to you, baby. I'm in driving distance from a few transplant centers around the Atlanta Georgia areas I can get there. Could is a straight to get to Nashville, that type thing. I'm in a decent areas for us travel things I could do in a day and be back. But I think that's so needed because people just need someone at times to say I've been there and I've done that. Or as I like you said, I've been there and I'm doing that because it is a process and to be able to reach out and the stuff we're missing so much through the Internet. Put your arm around somebody and just let him cry their eyes out. Let him know that I'm walking today because of this. I'm doing what I do today because of this, and once they see that it's a gang changer. I've got several people really can take out of my You know, in my mind, I remember the first days I meet these people face to face, and I remember what they were like. One particular was I was contacted by one of her cousins and ask to go see yer. That was first. I was aware that she was even in the transplant process, and I was told that she's not doing good, that she don't think she could do this. And so I go in the room that day and I could tell when I came in the room, she was broken. Her husband was broken, her family was broken. They were all done and come to find out she was over a month out of transplant made almost no progress. And I remember within a 30 or so minute visit, I was told at least buy them later, turning that all around. And so that's huge.

spk_1:   27:19
Wow, that is huge.

spk_2:   27:21
I had a child just a few months ago. 14 year old that was just really struggling to understand what this is about. I mean, he hurt, he had just had surgery, was hurting a good move, and I talked to him for a while, him and his mother and he was still just roll around, moan and groan. And finally I just reached and snatch my shirt up and I said, I want you to look. You see that scar? That's the same scar you got. It's just five years older, and I'm doing what I'm doing because of that scar right there and the rehab people in the room, right then trying to get him to do some exercise, some long exercises and such. And he immediately reached and grab that up and started doing what he needed today that face to face matters.

spk_1:   28:08
It does matter. And so do you feel that the questions that you're asked by the people you're ministering to you face to face or different than the questions that you get asked on your YouTube channel?

spk_2:   28:19
I would say most of the time they're very much the same, really. I mean, I sat down when I started in the video, Siri's transplant helper. I sat down with intention. I wrote down 15 topics and they were 15 most common things I've had to discuss with people, and I wrote those down and I still get a lot of the questions that come right out of the same 15 topics, but I've done 240 different topics since then. Had no idea I ever would have almost all of them come out of very specific situations where somebody asked a question and I gave the answer. And then I turned around said, Hey, I think I'll make a video about this because this question keeps coming up.

spk_1:   28:58
Worry. I thought it was interesting that you did a show called Who Mr Moral and how you really opened up to your viewers from your heart. I mean, that's how I first got to know you really well. I had already reached out to you, thanks to Facebook and thanks to some of the other places that I had seen you, but actually going to see that one program helped me to know who you are so much better. How important is it for you to have been a transplant? Recipient yourself?

spk_2:   29:28
Everybody does better when they hear from firsthand information. As I said, I mean it go from someone who's been there and currently doing that, or who you can begin to get to know that is not only dealt with same struggles and problems and somehow defeated that and come up against it. But somebody he can also trust for that. In that program, which you've seen, others could see it, too. It is what it is. Who is Jim? Moral is just one of those 200 some programs, but a lot of people that ask Tell me more about yourself, whatever. And then finally I was like, Nobody wants here who I am. Nobody wants to watch that. That's not the kind of information I'm putting out. I'm educating mainly, but somebody finally said, We need to know who you are. Still, we can trust you,

spk_1:   30:06
right?

spk_2:   30:06
We're taking this information from you anyway. We're already listening, were already watching. So who are you?

spk_1:   30:13
All right?

spk_2:   30:13
And so I thought, OK, that's the best way to answer that question. I got a bit answered in the best way I can, and I got a lot of feedback. I don't know how many views that video had. It's probably just a few 100 but because people don't understand, this is what it is unless they collect, don't. But once the people click on it. A lot of people give a lot of feedback. Then they're like, Wow. Okay. You do know where you're coming from. You have been there. This is something, Really? You You'd be shocked at how many people that was. It's not first step, so they've ever seen. But it's the 1st 1 more. They contacted me and said, Okay, I can ask you this question now, Right? This may be a more personal question, but I can ask you this question now. I just think it's very beneficial.

spk_1:   30:52
Yeah, when I became a special ed teacher, my principal told me, People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And doing that program shows everybody why the transplant help her is so important to you because you've been there, done that. So what piece of advice do you think is the most important for somebody who's waiting for a heart to heed

spk_2:   31:17
someone who's waiting for a heart? This is actually going to eventually be a whole program for me because I've already kind of thought it. Three. I'm trying to think of the released is in process. Somebody's waiting for a heart has to focus on what's coming, not what's being and not how long it's been, either. They've got to focus on what's coming, so they've gotta look ahead and just picture themselves with their transplant healing, growing, improving. And as I say, staying stronger and being stronger is different than being strong's. Being strong is a momentary thing. Being stronger is to take everything in your past and to do it better. And I'll take that on the plains of the physical, the emotional and the spiritual. You've got to be better at all of that at one time.

spk_1:   32:01
But how can people do that, Jim, when they feel like they're at their lowest,

spk_2:   32:05
it's extremely difficult to do. It's almost impossible until you get the hindsight and the thing is when we're waiting on transplant, only thing in our minds is the transplant and you hear people here, the doctor said. Your family's certainly looking at you this way. If you don't get this transplant, no tomorrow he's going to die and so that's what it rings out. I get that I've been there, done that, but at the same time I was talking to someone just the other day who was asking the same question. I encouraged him by reminding him dead every day that he waits is the day that he had. And so my transplant wait. Times 265 days. Some people wait longer. Some people wait less time. There's no prediction for that, really. But every day that way was the day of positive time that I had and like I was able to go through four evaluations before I had to be transplanted, just had to happen. Those 1st 3 evaluations you were interested earlier and how I make the choice or something to turn those away. That's exactly how because every day I got on this side to me was mathematically added back to the other side. And so, with a guarantee, is what they are. Heart transplants, survival rates and people always want to discuss this, and that's fine. But average transplant survival rate When I had my transplant was about five years. Now they're claiming eight and 1/2 teen years. You take five years or you take eight and 1/2 13 years, and you add that to your age right now and then ask yourself if you're satisfied with you. You know, we all want to be thankful and grateful, but we're really not. We're not really satisfied with that. So what do I do? I choose to be thankful for the days that lead up to that, because when I was given a five year potential survival rate after transplant, I thought to myself, I'll take five But I'm gonna have three to it before I'm gonna wait three before I get it in that way, I'll be this age before I

spk_1:   33:57
Yeah, I

spk_2:   33:58
like this life. It's hard to be positive, very hard to be positive. But people all the time reach out to me, they're on the Facebook groups is a big place where they talk and they're like, Oh, my family member And you know, they're in terrible shape. They've had to put him on this, and now they're having to do that with him. It's awful, awful I can't even imagine. But same time there has to be a level gratitude added to the fact that they are on a respirator, that there was such thing as an ECMO device, that there

spk_1:   34:24
was such a

spk_2:   34:24
thing as an l that and instead of focusing on this piece of machinery for the terrible reason is there be focused on the wonderful reason that it's available,

spk_1:   34:35
right? Absolutely. I love that. Well, I think your show was fabulous. Everybody needs to tune into the transplant helper if you are looking for information. And Jim, as you can see, is very responsive. So if he doesn't have a show covering one of your questions, reach out to him. What's the best way for people to reach out to you? Jim.

spk_2:   34:57
One of the best ways it's just to find any random video that you like. If you find the video and you see it, maybe it's your topic. Maybe it's not comment below that video. I get those instantly. I'm always notified 100% of time that comets been placed on the video. I respond to that. Also respond to e mails and all that. I read every single comment, and I replied to every single comment, Everly Hello video. So that's a given my private messages on Facebook. Jim Moral J I m m e R r e l l you friend me on Facebook. Semi Prime Minister. I'm gonna get it as well as the communist below the video, 100% I read 100% I respond to. And it may be a response I give you. A lot of times I sit down and shoot short videos and send people back a video, just a personal, personalized video, because I sense in their question that that's what they needed. And then it may become a show later. It not that video, but I may do one on it, because if I'm asked a question twice, that's enough. I'm not looking to make videos that get him half 1,000,000 views. I'm looking for videos that the two people who ask needed it that day.

spk_1:   36:02
All right. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming on the program today. This was a lot of fun.

spk_2:   36:08
Definitely a pleasure asked you to appreciate it.

spk_1:   36:10
Well, that concludes this episode of heart to heart with Anna. Thanks for listening today by us on YouTube. Just look up my name and that Gorski J A W o r s k I and subscribe. Remember, my

spk_4:   36:22
friends, you are 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 C H T 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.

spk_0:   37:08
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, Dworsky can be heard every Tuesday at 12 noon Eastern time.