Brendan's Story

 Brendan, Dad, Kieran and FX

Almost nine years ago, in April, I wasn’t feeling so good, or breathing right.  We were getting ready to go on a trip to Florida.  My mom took me to the pediatrician.  They knew something wasn’t right and told us to go to LIJ Hospital.  They admitted me to the hospital and put tubes in my arms and groin.  The next day I had a biopsy of my heart.  They found out that my heart was in bad shape and that I had to be on medicine and would probably need a heart transplant.  I was on fourteen different medicines at that time and I was only 5 years old. 

Two months later I was back in the hospital, my heart was getting worse and I needed a heart transplant.  I was transferred to Columbia Hospital in NY, and that night I almost died.  They gave me medicine to sleep and I couldn’t move they put me on an IV and stuck a breathing tube down my throat.  About 3 days later they put me on a machine that pumped my blood for me.  They put four tubes through my chest into my heart.  Two tubes were to pump my blood in and two to transfer it out.  They did this because my body was no longer working the way it was supposed to.  My liver and kidneys were shut down. 

On the eleventh day I was at Columbia at three in the morning I had my heart transplant.  They took out my old heart and put in a new heart.  The heart that was given to me from two very generous parents was from their 6-year-old son who died from drowning in Florida. 

It took me a long time to wake up after my surgery.  They found out that I had stroke while I was waiting for my heart.  I couldn’t walk anymore, I could hardly sit up. They thought I was going to be blind.  Also something had happened and I couldn’t talk.  But after about a week I could see again and I learned how to talk again.  I went to St. Mary's Hospital in Queens for about one week, and then I went home! 

Now I had to learn how to walk again.  My mom helped me everyday and soon I could walk again, too.  I was going to Saint Charles Hospital for PT almost everyday and I was getting stronger everyday. 

It was very hard having to go through all this, especially when you are only five.  But I went back to school again, and played on a baseball team that summer. 

Today, I get bad migraines and run out of breath pretty easily, and I get sick a lot because the anti-rejection medicine I take suppresses my immune system.  But the good news is that I only take 7 different medicines each day now instead of 14!   

I can play street hockey longer than most other people and I am so glad to be around and having fun. 

This is the story of my heart transplant