Personal Story

Lessons from an LVAD

July 22, 2025

8 min read

Heart of a Giant

Six years with a mechanical heart taught me more than medicine ever could, here are the lessons in resilience, routine, and radical hope.

Living with a Machine Inside You

An LVAD, a Left Ventricular Assist Device, is a mechanical pump implanted in the chest to help the heart pump blood. For many, it's a bridge to transplant. For me, it became a bridge to understanding what it truly means to live.

Every morning begins with the same ritual: checking battery levels, inspecting the driveline, ensuring connections are secure. It sounds clinical, but over time, these routines became a meditation, a daily practice of gratitude for another day.

Lesson 1: Resilience Is Built, Not Born

Before the LVAD, I thought resilience was something you either had or you didn't. Six years later, I know it's something you build, one difficult day, one small victory, one honest conversation at a time.

Lesson 2: Routine Is Freedom

When you depend on a machine to keep your heart beating, routine isn't a burden, it's liberation. The discipline of daily care freed me to focus on what matters: family, purpose, and community.

Lesson 3: Radical Hope Changes Everything

Hope isn't naive optimism. It's the stubborn belief that tomorrow can be better, even when today is hard. That belief carried me through hospitalizations, setbacks, and moments of deep fear. And it's what I want to share with everyone facing their own health battle.

Why I Share This Story

I share this not for sympathy, but for solidarity. If my journey can help even one person feel less alone in their fight, then every struggle was worth it. Heart disease doesn't have to define you, but it can refine you.

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