Latest / HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN® / Personal Testimonies Chapter 2 Ep 3 The 2nd Heart Transplant

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Personal Testimonies Chapter 2 Ep 3 The 2nd Heart Transplant · HAVE FAITH LET IT BEGIN®

• 0:00
  Last week on Personal Testimonies, Chapter 2, Episode 2, We Have a Heart.
• 0:06
  Like, and still, I don't know if it was from the shock or everything that was going on.
• 0:11
  I wasn't worried. Like, I wasn't scared.
• 0:15
  I was just laying there. We were all talking and stuff like that.
• 0:18
  The surgeon came out. We got to meet with the surgeon who was going to do the transplant.
• 0:25
  And he was assured that everything was going to be good. Everything was going to be great.
• 0:30
  And I sat there for probably about 15, 20 minutes, and then they wheeled me
• 0:34
  into the operating room.
• 0:36
  And that is where we're going to stop.
• 0:38
  And that is where we begin. Episode number three, chapter two,
• 0:45
  the second heart transplant.
• 0:47
  Personal testimonies starts right now.
• 0:56
  This is a special primetime edition. Have Faith, Let It Begin, and Endless Hope, Inc.
• 1:03
  Presents a new series entitled Personal Testimonies.
• 1:08
  Here is your host, Angel Santana, and special co-host, Clinton Knapp.
• 1:19
  Personal Testimonies is back on the air. We're not going to make you wait.
• 1:23
  We left off where Clinton was being wheeled in to have his second heart transplant.
• 1:30
  Ladies and gentlemen, we call him the MMC. I just made that up today.
• 1:34
  And that's miracle man, Clinton.
• 1:36
  Clinton, welcome back. The floor is yours.
• 1:39
  Good evening. Good evening. How are you? It feels great to be back.
• 1:42
  Yeah. So they wheeled me into the back, into the operating room.
• 1:45
  Again, it was quick, you know, I don't want to say quick procedure,
• 1:49
  but quick process getting set up. I moved from one bed to another.
• 1:53
  I laid back. They started talking to me about anesthesia, asking questions,
• 1:58
  whether like if I lose teeth and dentures or anything like that, they could come out.
• 2:02
  So I answered all the questions. And then as the doctor was putting in the IV, we were talking.
• 2:09
  And next thing I know, I'm sleeping.
• 2:12
  This is where, you know, for me, it's just like nap time for everybody else.
• 2:17
  It's worry time. You know, all the families out in the waiting room.
• 2:21
  You know, they're waiting because this is a long process. Thank you.
• 2:24
  They're, I'm out. And while I'm out, they're prepping me to remove my heart
• 2:29
  and to put the new heart in, but they can't start to remove my heart until the
• 2:34
  new heart has already been removed and is there.
• 2:38
  So, which is information that no one knows other than the doctors,
• 2:43
  they don't know, you know, no one to meet me, my family knows where it's coming
• 2:46
  from, how long it's going to take to get there.
• 2:48
  So from what was explained to me afterwards is the doctors came out about 4
• 2:54
  30 in the morning and said that they were starting the procedure so at 4 30
• 2:58
  a.m is when they started to open me up again it's my second transplant so it's
• 3:03
  a little bit more difficult because there's already wires in place from holding
• 3:06
  the ribcage together from the first,
• 3:08
  procedure scar tissue that they need to cut through and all that stuff.
• 3:13
  Do you mind if i ask you a quick question i know i don't mean to interrupt you
• 3:15
  but maybe it's just it's just somebody that somebody like has had back surgery
• 3:20
  my question to you is did i'm Forgive me if this is too graphic.
• 3:25
  They had to recut you in the same... Is it the same opening from the last surgery?
• 3:31
  Is that... So, yeah, they went right on top of the old scar.
• 3:35
  And so primarily, like, if you were to look at me now, it wouldn't even...
• 3:38
  It wouldn't be two lines. It would just be one line.
• 3:41
  The only difference is now there's a couple more other scars,
• 3:44
  which I'll get into as I tell that part of the story.
• 3:47
  So, yeah, right down the same scar. They opened me up.
• 3:52
  They remove all the tissue and all of that stuff then they get to the rib cage.
• 3:57
  At that point they cut all the wires because there's six wires holding me together,
• 4:02
  my rib cage together at that point in time they remove those,
• 4:05
  recut the rib cage open the sternum and they do what they do,
• 4:11
  the doctor steps in he starts to dissect the heart however he has to to get
• 4:16
  the old one out so he can get the new one in.
• 4:19
  So from that point, it's like I said, it was a long procedure.
• 4:23
  They say it's usually an 11, 12 hour procedure, sometimes a little shorter,
• 4:26
  depending on the surgeon.
• 4:28
  My surgeon has done this several times. He's actually a very great surgeon.
• 4:33
  He's actually, I wish I could say his name because he's renowned on the East
• 4:38
  Coast for several serious accomplishments when it comes to heart transplant.
• 4:44
  But. And, and, and for the record, we are going to do our very best to reach
• 4:48
  out from you and I to see whether or not we can get them on the show.
• 4:51
  So hold on to your hats because we're going to try to get those names.
• 4:54
  Cause I think it is well-deserved.
• 4:56
  I have a question for you. I know that you're trying to relive this moment and
• 5:01
  then I appreciate you doing that. Cause it's not easy.
• 5:03
  You said it's a long procedure and you just gave a couple of hints as to how
• 5:07
  long, obviously for you, it's a blink for anybody who's had a surgery,
• 5:11
  your, your lights go, you know, your lights go out, but then you open your eyes
• 5:15
  and X amount of hours go by.
• 5:17
  So my first question to you, and then I'll let you continue.
• 5:19
  So just answer and keep going is was, was the planned amount of time,
• 5:25
  actually, what is the average, according to what they say, average time that
• 5:30
  they said it was going to be?
• 5:31
  And what was the, what was the outcome? What was the total amount of hours?
• 5:35
  Eight to eight to 12 hours.
• 5:38
  And then I believe it was about 10, somewhere between eight and 10.
• 5:44
  Now, as you mentioned, yes, when you're going for procedures, the blink of an eye.
• 5:48
  But for me this time, it wasn't the blink of an eye because for this,
• 5:51
  this time it was different because again, it's my second transplant. So it was a re-out.
• 5:56
  So what normally would have taken eight to 12 hours, and then you go into recovery
• 6:02
  and you wake up, some people wake up the same day.
• 6:05
  Some people wake up the next day, usually the same day, usually in a few hours, they wake you up.
• 6:09
  They start to wake you up. But for me, they left me open.
• 6:13
  So my chest was left open. I went from transplant, from operating room to the CTICU.
• 6:19
  And they had to leave my chest open because they weren't sure.
• 6:22
  They didn't want to close me up and then have to go back in for anything and then reopen me.
• 6:27
  So they just left me open with some type of sterile film that they put over top.
• 6:32
  So I went back to the CT at ICU with two open wounds, the sternum,
• 6:37
  and then one on the right shoulder where they had the bypass because I was on bypass.
• 6:43
  And for me, it was a four-day nap. I was out for four days.
• 6:48
  I came out of surgery Thursday evening. I went in early Thursday morning,
• 6:52
  2.30 in the morning. I came out Thursday afternoon, evening.
• 6:57
  Friday, I went back to have my chest closed up and everything like that because everything was fine.
• 7:01
  And then I didn't officially wake up until Sunday. I mean, they woke me up every
• 7:06
  12 hours during shift change to make sure that there was no issues that I was,
• 7:11
  didn't have a stroke or anything like that, but I didn't officially wake up until Sunday.
• 7:15
  So question, you were, you had come out of the surgery, right?
• 7:20
  They, they leave you open. I would presume, please correct me if I'm wrong,
• 7:23
  because it's your second heart transplant. that is considered,
• 7:28
  that is, that is protocol.
• 7:30
  Yes. Okay. So they left you open. Obviously they covered you up,
• 7:34
  but it was your wounds were open in case they had to go back in.
• 7:37
  So here's my, my follow-up question to that is you said you had a four day nap,
• 7:43
  but you also said that on occasion they did wake you up.
• 7:46
  Do you recall at any point in time?
• 7:48
  I know that when I had spinal surgery, they told me that if they didn't physically
• 7:53
  tell me that they're going to wake me up, I wouldn't have any recollection of that.
• 7:57
  I do recall being woken up on my end for them to wiggle my toes when they inserted red rods.
• 8:02
  So do you recall any of those wake ups?
• 8:05
  Yes, I do. I recall each and every one of them during each wake up.
• 8:08
  I remember the nurses asking me to squeeze their hands, wiggle my toes,
• 8:13
  wiggle my fingers, stuff like that.
• 8:14
  So they can make sure that there was nothing neurologically wrong.
• 8:17
  Again, like I didn't have a stroke or anything.
• 8:19
  Also during that same time, my wife was there and she would have me do little tests,
• 8:23
  like squeeze my hand once to say yes
• 8:26
  squeeze it twice to say no stuff like that i wasn't awake
• 8:29
  for long it was literally two three
• 8:32
  minutes and then right back out they sedated me and
• 8:35
  sent me back to sleep but that was every 12 hours until
• 8:37
  i woke up officially on sunday when i
• 8:41
  officially woke up it was a little bit of a struggle when you're under sedation
• 8:45
  for so long i didn't expect it i mean they kind of warned me a little bit but
• 8:49
  i didn't know too much of what was exactly going to happen but when you're under
• 8:54
  for so long you experience some crazy things like i started to,
• 9:00
  feel like i was awake all the time and things
• 9:03
  were happening but they weren't really happening i was sleeping and it
• 9:06
  was just dreams and when i woke
• 9:09
  up when i officially woke up on sunday i thought
• 9:12
  those dreams were real and it took me
• 9:15
  a day or two to when for the sedation to wear off and stuff like that for me
• 9:20
  to realize that they weren't real it was just dreams that i was having and none
• 9:24
  of it was again none of it was real can you elaborate on those dreams are you
• 9:29
  allowed to share that or do you feel comfortable sharing that or were they more like hallucinations.
• 9:34
  Hallucinations what what was happening i can some of them they they i want to
• 9:37
  say yes hallucinations but then some of them were it was kind of like i recalled
• 9:43
  an incident that would happen and then my brain would form a story around it
• 9:48
  so like for example one of them was,
• 9:52
  You see all the time commercials on TV for like Ozempic and stuff like that
• 9:55
  and how those commercials have certain side effects.
• 9:59
  So one of the dreams that I had was that I was hurt.
• 10:05
  I was in the position that I was in and that I couldn't see or speak because
• 10:10
  of the side effects of these medications and that I was actually removed from
• 10:17
  the hospital and taken to a different facility where they were running tests.
• 10:22
  And stuff like that. Yeah. It gets a little crazy.
• 10:24
  I mean, I can go on and on and on, but no, I get it. And I appreciate you giving an example.
• 10:28
  And I will be here to first to tell you that what he's talking about is actually accurate.
• 10:33
  And real quick, 10 seconds when I had my back surgery and they, I was under a lot myself.
• 10:39
  I dreamed that I was, I dreamt that I was on a, on a boat, somebody punched
• 10:42
  me and I fell off the boat and all of a sudden the water froze up to my neck.
• 10:48
  And then I actually woke up thinking I was drowning.
• 10:50
  So, you know, I can relate to Clinton, you know, that the hallucinations can occur.
• 10:57
  There's a lot of side effects that do happen.
• 10:59
  While we're waiting for Clinton to gather his thoughts, I want to remind each and every one of you,
• 11:04
  this is just a few seconds as we're kind of like readjusting microphones,
• 11:07
  that personal testimonies will continue on for the next couple of Wednesdays
• 11:12
  as we continue to tell the story of Clinton Knapp's second heart transplant.
• 11:17
  But we want to remind each and every one of you as we're waiting for the adjustments
• 11:21
  of the microphones that the personal testimonies from the original chapter one
• 11:26
  will also integrate with chapter two.
• 11:29
  So I just want everybody to know that as we're readjusting our microphones.
• 11:32
  But yes, back to what your story was, thank you for elaborating on the hallucinations.
• 11:37
  Let's get past that. But yeah, thank you for that.
• 11:40
  Yeah, so again, so after a couple of days, after like the second day,
• 11:44
  And I was fully off the anesthesia and it wore off and everything like that.
• 11:48
  I was able to distinguish real from fiction. And there was a lot of fiction.
• 11:53
  One of the things that did occur is when I did wake up, I woke up in such a
• 11:59
  frantic state that I reached out to pull the breathing tube out.
• 12:05
  But at the same time, I was talking.
• 12:07
  So because I was talking and the breathing tube was in, the nurses were trying
• 12:12
  to restrain me from pulling it out because you can hurt yourself.
• 12:15
  You can destroy your esophagus and stuff like that. And, you know,
• 12:18
  some people get hurt that they can't ever talk or anything like that again.
• 12:22
  But because I was doing some screaming and yelling, because of the hallucinations,
• 12:27
  I felt like I was in danger.
• 12:29
  So I was screaming and yelling because I was in fear when in all actuality the nurses were helping me.
• 12:35
  So I started to resist and started to fight. So they had to hold me down.
• 12:39
  They had to restrain me for a few minutes to get me to calm down.
• 12:43
  But from talking, the actual breathing tube popped out on its own.
• 12:47
  And at that point, now I have nothing in there too. So now they're just like,
• 12:52
  okay, you know, they let me go and I was able to calm myself down by talking
• 12:57
  to one of the other nurses and stuff like that.
• 13:00
  And everything, you know, she cleared everything up.
• 13:04
  You know, she explained to me how she had explained to me that I had been to
• 13:07
  sleep for four days and stuff like that, which I was unaware.
• 13:11
  And I, like I said, I moved on.
• 13:15
  So now I have family coming and visiting me.
• 13:20
  The wife and my mother came in first. And then, you know, I spent some time
• 13:23
  with them and then they rotated out and stuff like that.
• 13:27
  Within a few hours, I want to say two to four hours, I was able to,
• 13:32
  you know, to ask the nurse, like, how long did I need to be in bed before I
• 13:36
  could get out of bed and sit into a chair?
• 13:38
  Because even though I was asleep for four days and I didn't know it or whatever, your body feels it.
• 13:43
  So now my body is like, my back is killing me. I'm restless.
• 13:46
  So the nurse was like, we can get you out of bed now.
• 13:50
  We just got to make some room because the room I was in had a lot of machines.
• 13:54
  I have machines that are checking the input, the output of all the pressures
• 13:57
  of my heart, the new heart and stuff like that.
• 14:01
  Unfortunately, at the time, I was having some issue breathing.
• 14:04
  So I was on very heavy oxygen because, The new heart is a lot bigger than what my old heart was.
• 14:12
  So it was actually protruding into the areas of the lungs.
• 14:16
  So my left lung was actually somewhat, what's the word they use?
• 14:23
  Was it, was it, was the, was the heart was so big that it was maybe,
• 14:27
  was it collapsing the lungs?
• 14:29
  It collapsed. It was collapsing the left lung. So I wasn't able to breathe.
• 14:33
  So I was on high flow oxygen for a while until I could build it up.
• 14:37
  I stayed in the chair for, now this is Sunday when I woke up,
• 14:42
  Sunday, the 9th, March 9th when I woke up was Sunday.
• 14:50
  So I woke up, now I'm up, I'm in a chair, I just slept for four days.
• 14:56
  I didn't sleep for 36 and a half hours, 38 hours almost.
• 15:01
  I just sat in the chair watching TV, fooling around on my laptop,
• 15:06
  binge watching some shows on Netflix on my laptop.
• 15:09
  And you still had time to text me happy birthday. God bless you for that one.
• 15:13
  Yes, I did. Yes, I did. I definitely did.
• 15:16
  Yeah, I made sure I reached out to a lot of people to let everybody know that
• 15:19
  I was awake and I was okay and that I was ready to get back to life.
• 15:25
  They cleared me for ice chips. and then the nurse came, actually one of the
• 15:30
  head nurses from the floor came in and was like, we're going to see if we can
• 15:35
  get you cleared for liquids, but you got to go slow.
• 15:38
  I said, all right. I said, because I'm hungry.
• 15:41
  I didn't eat in almost five days. I'm hungry.
• 15:45
  So they came in. She said, here, here's a cup of water.
• 15:49
  She said, if you can drink this and not choke or anything like that,
• 15:53
  then we can clear you for clear liquids. And I said, all right, cool.
• 15:56
  I said, drink it straight or like, no, no, no, go slow.
• 16:01
  So I said, okay. So I took the cup, small cup.
• 16:05
  I want to say it's probably a four ounce cup. And I was so thirsty.
• 16:09
  I just, I actually chugged it.
• 16:12
  And it felt, she, she asked me afterwards. She's like, how do you feel?
• 16:14
  I said, amazing. I said, that was probably the best cup of water I've ever had in my life.
• 16:20
  Then a little bit later. Now this is obviously Monday.
• 16:25
  I don't think I mentioned that, but this is Monday. So then a little bit later,
• 16:28
  later on in the late afternoon, early evenings, she came in and she handed me
• 16:33
  a fruit cup, diced pears. I believe it was diced pears.
• 16:38
  And she said, if you can eat this and you're all right, then we can clear you for food.
• 16:43
  And I said, you mean like regular food, like whole food, or you mean like puree?
• 16:47
  She's like, no, whole food, like hamburger, hot dog or something.
• 16:50
  She said, not hot dog, but hamburger or something like that.
• 16:53
  So I said, all right, cool.
• 16:54
  I ate it. Everything was good. It felt a little soft, but,
• 16:59
  It wasn't like hard pears. They were soft. But I ate it. Everything went fine.
• 17:02
  So then they cleared me. And they brought me up a meal for dinner.
• 17:06
  And all right, everybody's going to want to know, man, what did you eat?
• 17:10
  So I didn't order it because I wasn't, they weren't sure if I was going to be
• 17:13
  cleared. But they brought me up that night. It was salmon.
• 17:18
  See, Mediterranean salmon over cilantro rice and roasted potatoes.
• 17:26
  Or sweet potatoes. Roasted sweet potato wedges.
• 17:30
  And I know everybody's thinking hospital food But let me tell you something,
• 17:35
  This hospital food The whole stay I was there I never had a bad meal The only
• 17:39
  thing horrible that they sent me Was the chickpeas I hate chickpeas,
• 17:44
  But other than that The food down there was amazing Alright so for the record
• 17:50
  No chickpeas anymore at this hospital No.
• 17:55
  But you know what I ate them I actually added them to my chicken noodle soup
• 17:59
  And I ate them Because they told me I needed to eat them My fiber I said alright I'll eat them.
• 18:06
  So now it's just a waiting game. You know, now it's how long before this can
• 18:11
  come off, you know, because I had four chest tubes as opposed to the first time I had two.
• 18:17
  But this time when I went in, I had a lot more fluid buildup.
• 18:20
  I was retaining water and I had a lot of water weight.
• 18:25
  I was almost, from what they said, I was almost 300 pounds.
• 18:28
  I didn't realize that I was that big. I thought scaling home told me I was way
• 18:32
  less, but apparently that scale was lying to me because it was stroking my ego.
• 18:36
  So when you say water, where were you retaining the water?
• 18:40
  Where? What do you mean? Like, so there was a lot on my chest and then my legs,
• 18:45
  my legs were really, really big, especially on the left side because the left
• 18:50
  side is where your heart is.
• 18:50
  So that's where everything's more affected when you're in heart failure.
• 18:54
  But like my ankles were probably like four or five times the size that,
• 19:00
  I mean, if you'd see my ankles, like now I look like a walking skeleton compared
• 19:04
  to what I looked like when I walked into the hospital that night.
• 19:08
  So when, after transplant, when they weighed me, I was down to 276, I'm close to 300.
• 19:18
  So almost 25 pounds of water and fluid.
• 19:22
  So that was a good accomplishment.
• 19:25
  So yeah, I had four chest tubes now because, you know,
• 19:29
  there was more fluid to remove stuff like that as opposed
• 19:32
  to the first time i only had two but i also had the
• 19:35
  pacemaker those wires are run through your through
• 19:38
  your chest and into the heart i also had a foley to pee and then you know ekg
• 19:45
  wires and iv for this and i had a iv in my right my left wrist iv in my right forearm and then the,
• 19:56
  J-line in my neck so they can check all my pressures and stuff like that and
• 20:00
  certain medications needed to go through there and stuff like that.
• 20:04
  So I had wires and tubes everywhere.
• 20:07
  Now, Tuesday, occupational therapy comes in. She comes in. She has me do little things.
• 20:14
  And then she tells me things that I should do, like move my arms constantly,
• 20:21
  move my fingers, wiggle my toes, my feet, stuff like that, lift my legs.
• 20:26
  So I'm like, all right. She says, and these are all things you can do from the chair.
• 20:30
  So then she leaves, and shortly after, physical therapist comes in, and he gets me up.
• 20:37
  And we do some, some standing for a few seconds. And then, you know,
• 20:42
  he asks me how I feel. And I said, okay, great. And he says, okay.
• 20:46
  He says, let's try walking in place. And I said, let's try walking down the hall.
• 20:50
  And he says, I think you're moving a little too fast. And I said,
• 20:53
  listen, I told him the same thing I told my other guy. I wouldn't tell you I could do it if I can't.
• 20:58
  And we walked to the end of the hall. And for the first time in nearly a week,
• 21:03
  I was able to look outside the window and see it wasn't the best.
• 21:07
  Day. It was a gloomy day. And I got to see another building,
• 21:11
  but I also got to see a bird in sunlight.
• 21:14
  You know what I mean? I was in a room where I had no windows.
• 21:16
  And the only thing I could see was the patient across the hall,
• 21:20
  the nurses and doctors running up and down the hall. I couldn't see anything.
• 21:24
  So it felt great. We walked to the end of the hall. I looked out the window
• 21:26
  and then we went back to the room.
• 21:28
  I'm laughing. The reason why we're laughing is because if you haven't heard
• 21:32
  chapter one, this is not normal.
• 21:35
  This is Clinton at his best. being stubborn in a good way.
• 21:39
  And you got to understand, you got to go back to chapter one and understand. Yeah, definitely.
• 21:44
  Some of this is kind of repetitive from chapter one, but it makes for a good
• 21:48
  time, you know, because some people, you're probably listening,
• 21:51
  you're like sad, but it'll help bring up your spirits because it's not all bad.
• 21:57
  So now it's kind of the same thing every day for the next few days.
• 22:03
  I mean, with the exception of my biggest hurdle was the oxygen, was breathing.
• 22:10
  They would reduce the medications that there were certain medications that I
• 22:15
  was on to help the body so that I could breathe.
• 22:18
  Like, I forget the name, but one of them was like epinephrine.
• 22:21
  So I had to be on that. And then I had to be on this other medication.
• 22:25
  Uh it was they were giving it to me with the oxygen it was like nitrogen or
• 22:29
  something like that how long did it take for them to take the fluid like you
• 22:33
  said it was fluid right yeah so.
• 22:36
  Like and the breathing how long would you say it took for that to to you know
• 22:41
  to reach the right levels where you were a little bit feeling better or well
• 22:45
  enough off the air so fluid wise,
• 22:49
  they took the catheter out i mean they took the
• 22:52
  chest tubes out probably two days before
• 22:55
  i went upstairs so now i don't know if i mentioned this
• 22:58
  already but my first transplant i'm from first
• 23:01
  day of hospitalization to day of home it was
• 23:04
  18 days this one was 16 days so i
• 23:06
  shortened it by two days i literally went
• 23:09
  upstairs on day 14 because
• 23:14
  i did day 14 i did i went up
• 23:17
  half i went up about one o'clock and then
• 23:20
  i did day 15 and i came home on day 16 so i
• 23:24
  want to say the chest tubes came out on day 12 and 13
• 23:27
  they took two two of them out on day 12 and then the other two on day 13 but
• 23:32
  they left them in just as just to be safe they wanted to make sure that there
• 23:37
  was nothing else coming in i mean draining but for a few days i want to say
• 23:42
  for at least i'm telling they took them out day 12 and day 13,
• 23:46
  probably day 10 and 11 there wasn't really much drainage so you know they were
• 23:51
  happy but they wanted to just be play safe.
• 23:55
  So I had to remain in the CT ICU because of that, which, you know,
• 23:59
  was a little bit depressing. But once I got upstairs, everything moved a lot faster.
• 24:04
  By this point, I'd already had two biopsies.
• 24:08
  And, you know, one of them was great. And the other one, there was a little
• 24:12
  bit of rejection, but it was expected because of.
• 24:15
  So now if you hold your fist, you make a fist, that's the size of your heart.
• 24:21
  So now my heart is the size of my fist but the heart I have is probably almost double the size,
• 24:26
  my heart came from somebody who was a gentleman who I overheard a conversation
• 24:32
  or something like that but my heart came from a gentleman who was way bigger
• 24:37
  than me probably twice my size,
• 24:40
  now mind you I'm telling you about 260 so you're talking about somebody 4 or 450,
• 24:47
  so this is the big heart which is why it
• 24:49
  was protruding into the lung space and collapsing
• 24:52
  the one lung so now the rejection
• 24:55
  that i was having wasn't bad rejection it was good rejection it
• 24:59
  was cellular rejection but it was because of the inflammation
• 25:02
  at the bottom of the heart and stuff
• 25:05
  like that because as i mentioned in the beginning when they
• 25:08
  called me they told me i needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible because
• 25:11
  it was it was a time crunch like they needed i could if i couldn't be there
• 25:16
  in a certain amount of time they had to send the heart to somebody else because
• 25:19
  the heart was already it was already almost expired like too late so and i got
• 25:26
  lucky because as i mentioned,
• 25:28
  being a status for i should have never gotten this phone call but what happened was the heart,
• 25:34
  there was no the heart when it went through all the people that were matched.
• 25:39
  One of the good things i like about my hospital is that it passed all it passed
• 25:44
  however many people for whatever reason, which I don't know because of HIPAA law and stuff like that.
• 25:50
  But when they released it to local hospitals, the plus side for me is that my
• 25:55
  hospital, Westchester Medical Center, always keeps a cardiac team on call.
• 26:01
  There's always a cardiac team in the hospital 24 hours a day.
• 26:06
  The other hospitals didn't have one. They don't.
• 26:09
  So when this heart came available popped up in the system my surgeon and my
• 26:15
  cardiologist both looked at the heart together and the information on it and
• 26:19
  said you know what this heart is a perfect match i like it i like it it's his
• 26:24
  so they took it then they called me and they told me they had it and,
• 26:28
  again it was kind of like the first time it was caught me off
• 26:30
  guard so there was no time to think or anything like that so i was just like
• 26:34
  yeah i want it and that's when i shot home took a shower stuff like that shot
• 26:38
  down there so now we're at this point to where i'm in recovery in the icu and
• 26:43
  you know thank god i did because look at me now i'm home but.
• 26:49
  We took it day by day and slowly, and each day something else came off.
• 26:55
  But again, like I said, the oxygen, my breathing was the problem.
• 26:58
  It's because when they took me off oxygen, my saturation was like 80,
• 27:04
  and it would bounce between 80 and 88, which is not normal.
• 27:08
  A normal person, they say 90 to 95 is okay, but anything lower than that is dangerous.
• 27:14
  So mine, when they took me off the oxygen, it kept dropping too low.
• 27:18
  So I had to use that little thing that they give you when you go in for surgery, the census parameter.
• 27:24
  You have to blow into it. Well, the one I had, the first one I ever had, you blew into it.
• 27:30
  This one, you had to inhale to keep the ball up.
• 27:33
  And then you had to, you know, he wanted me every day to go higher and higher.
• 27:38
  And I think the highest I got was like 3,500. But by that point,
• 27:43
  I was already able to breathe on my own.
• 27:47
  But for the remainder of the time down there
• 27:50
  it it bounced i went from
• 27:53
  they took me off the oxygen i didn't
• 27:56
  do too well well i mean i thought i was doing well but the level drop so then
• 28:01
  they put me on the just a regular nasal canyon but they were watching me and
• 28:06
  the doctors didn't like that it was still dipping so then they put me on c-pad
• 28:10
  high flow which is is annoying and And I mean,
• 28:15
  it worked because after wearing that for two days,
• 28:19
  I went back to the regular nasal canyon on five liters of oxygen or however they call it.
• 28:25
  And then after that, I went in for a biopsy on Wednesday, which was day 14.
• 28:32
  I came out of my biopsy. I went back to my room and I was in my room probably
• 28:37
  maybe 20 minutes when the nurse that was taking care of me that day was like, you're leaving us.
• 28:43
  You're going upstairs to the recovery floor. And I was like, yes.
• 28:47
  Not that I don't like you and I don't want to be here with you,
• 28:50
  but this means I'm going home soon.
• 28:53
  So I figured another week before I went home because the first time when I came
• 28:58
  out of ICU, I was on the recovery floor for like a week, week and a half, something like that.
• 29:05
  But this time it was shorter. For me, I knew the medication.
• 29:09
  So like the first time around, I couldn't be released unless
• 29:12
  I knew every medication that i took the name
• 29:15
  the dosage positive side effects negative
• 29:18
  side effects she wanted my nurse practitioner at the time wanted me to know
• 29:22
  two positive side effects and three negative for each medication and i took
• 29:26
  a lot of medications i take just as many now except for i take now i take insulin
• 29:34
  because of the steroids i take it causes my sugar to rise.
• 29:39
  But this time it wasn't like that. I didn't need to do that because I already know the medications.
• 29:44
  I've been on these medications before. I was on them for two years and then some of them fell off.
• 29:49
  And now a lot of them are back, but they'll fall off as well.
• 29:53
  And then I'll just go back to the other ones. The only thing is now some of the dosages are higher.
• 29:59
  So I was like one of the medications.
• 30:03
  I was on such a low dose for so long. Now I'm on such a high dose.
• 30:07
  I have tremors in my hands. my handshake stuff like
• 30:10
  that but i so now
• 30:13
  day 14 he tells me i'm going upstairs about
• 30:16
  an hour later i go upstairs and i got a private room
• 30:19
  with big windows and nice
• 30:23
  new bed it's not so rough looking stuff like
• 30:26
  that i spent a day with my wife
• 30:30
  she was there with me when i went up and then
• 30:34
  she had to go home take care of the kids and that
• 30:37
  was probably that night i slept
• 30:40
  in the chair but i had a different it was
• 30:43
  more relaxing i was able to rest i felt
• 30:47
  like it was just more peaceful i can't explain it so i got got some pretty good
• 30:54
  rest that night the nurses up there were pretty good you know i explained to
• 30:57
  them that i you know listen i'm not here to bother you don't don't think don't
• 31:03
  Expect me to call you because I got everything I need.
• 31:06
  I'm not going to call you. I'm not going to need nothing, really, to be honest.
• 31:11
  And it just, I didn't know when I was going to go home.
• 31:16
  And then the doctors came up, my nurse practitioners, they're taking care of me.
• 31:21
  And one of the cardiologists from the cardiac team came up and they were like,
• 31:25
  listen, you're going to go home in a few days. We're thinking maybe Saturday.
• 31:29
  We'll see. And I said, all right, whatever you say.
• 31:33
  To me, that was normally me being me. I would be pushy and stubborn.
• 31:39
  Oh, well, why can't I go home now and stuff like that. But they said Saturday.
• 31:44
  It was only a few days away. So I didn't. I just said, okay, it sounds good to me.
• 31:48
  I was able to, being in this room, I was able to do more than I could before.
• 31:53
  I was able to get up and move around the room.
• 31:56
  See, downstairs, if I needed to use the bathroom, it was a year.
• 32:00
  Well, I had a catheter in pretty much until I came upstairs,
• 32:05
  with the exception of a day or so.
• 32:07
  And then if I needed to have a BM, I had to use a commode. So it was a chair.
• 32:13
  It took a matter of two steps. I wasn't moving down there. I wasn't walking
• 32:17
  except for when the physical therapist came and that only happened like two or three times.
• 32:23
  So now I'm upstairs. I can actually walk to the bathroom, which is on the other
• 32:26
  side of the room, which for someone who's just had a heart transplant,
• 32:29
  it's pretty, pretty decent distance, but I don't need, need a nurse's assistance.
• 32:34
  I just unhook myself and go to the bathroom and I'm like, all right,
• 32:38
  cool. So that's what I did.
• 32:41
  And for, I had some visitors. My mom came now.
• 32:46
  Stuff like that. My wife visited and stuff. And then Thursday,
• 32:51
  my nurse practitioner came in to go over.
• 32:54
  She came in with all my medicine that I was going to take home.
• 32:57
  She said, even though you have some of these at home, she said,
• 33:00
  I got you all new meds. We're going to just start fresh with these.
• 33:03
  I want you to put those to the side and those you can use as extra if you need them.
• 33:08
  Anything that you're taking at home that you're not taking now,
• 33:11
  I need you to just bring to me or, you know, you know how to discard it. And I said, okay.
• 33:18
  Usually, you know, I take it to the doctor and give it to a doctor and then
• 33:21
  they discard it because it is medication. So,
• 33:26
  sit and we go over all my meds and she has me sit down with her and we fill my pill case,
• 33:32
  for the one you know it's a one-week pill case i gotta take meds four times a day so
• 33:37
  we go through the whole pill case day by day we fill
• 33:40
  it and she watches me to make sure i put the right doses and
• 33:43
  stuff like that after that we go
• 33:46
  over she gives me a list and she
• 33:49
  says regardless of what's on the bottle you follow the list this
• 33:53
  is how you're going to do this this and this we also got
• 33:56
  you a scale because we want you she gave
• 33:59
  me these papers and i put them into a folder kind of
• 34:02
  like a binder type of folder and it's a log she wants
• 34:05
  me every day daily to log my weight my temperature so weight once a day temperature
• 34:12
  three times a day blood pressure three times a day sugar three times a day breakfast
• 34:16
  lunch dinner so i do so i she gives me the papers i put them in the folder.
• 34:23
  We go over all of that. She explains to me how she wants that done. And I say, okay.
• 34:27
  So then she says to me, she says, well, based on your biopsy results from earlier
• 34:32
  this morning, yet earlier the other morning, everything looks great.
• 34:35
  There's no reason for us to keep you here.
• 34:37
  What we're going to do is this morning, well, there was some mild rejection,
• 34:43
  but again, it was nothing to really worry about.
• 34:45
  So what they did was they started me on some IV steroids that morning.
• 34:49
  So I did Thursday, Friday, and then Saturday she said, no, I did Thursday and
• 34:55
  Friday and she said Saturday you'll take him at home.
• 34:57
  And I said, at home? She said, yeah, you're going home Friday.
• 35:00
  And that is where we're going to leave us.
• 35:03
  Because Clinton is going home on Saturday. Obviously that we're talking about
• 35:08
  the story. He's home already.
• 35:10
  And what happens next in the next couple of days will shock all of you.
• 35:17
  To get a text message from Clinton letting me know that for some reason,
• 35:24
  he's headed back to the hospital.
• 35:26
  For all of you out there, we thank you for listening and we want to remind you
• 35:30
  that Endless Hope is all about finding a heart,
• 35:36
  believing that donors can actually extend lives, but more importantly, putting family first.
• 35:44
  On behalf of all of us here at Personal Testimonies and Endless Hope Inc.
• 35:49
  And Have Faith Let It Begin, we'll see you next Wednesday night because something
• 35:55
  does happen that puts Clinton back in the hospital. Have a good night.
• 36:01
  Thank you for listening to Personal Testimonies.
• 36:06
  Join us next Wednesday for Part 4 with Clinton Knapp.
• 36:28
  Music.