To Go Go, You're Not the only One...

I decided to write and share. I don't know if I'm going to put my old stuff back up — transplant feelings are complicated.

Right after you get your surgery, people tell you how grateful you should be for your second chance at life. Everyone has this romantic idea that you've had a transplant, and now you're fine, and everything is great, and you feel happy and grateful. If I'm being honest, I wasn't grateful for the first two years. It had nothing to do with my donor or the many people who worked so hard for me — but having a transplant is a very complicated thing, and in the wheel of emotions that you cycle through every day, gratitude doesn't always hit.

As for a second chance at life — where was my first? Having a single-ventricle heart wasn't living; it was surviving. And after everything I'd been through, right after my transplant, it didn't feel like a second chance at life. It felt more like yet another insane thing I had to do to survive.

Recovery was awful. There were days I didn't get out of bed, and plenty of times I wished I hadn't gone through with it. Recovery is like taking two steps forward and one and three-quarter steps back. For me, almost an entire year was disappointing, heartbreaking, painful, and lonely. On top of that, you have a crowd of people telling you how grateful you should be and listing all the things you can do now — and there's no way to actually explain how you feel physically, mentally, and emotionally. It's like trying to explain three dimensions to someone who lives in a two-dimensional world.

And yes, I did feel great. I had more energy. I was more curious. I was trying to do everything I could, and I was so incredibly happy — but again, it's complicated. I lost the biggest piece of my identity. That identity had gone from who I was to a 32-year trauma I had endured, and I no longer saw it as something good or as what made me me. I saw it as a heartbreaking ordeal that I was lucky enough to survive.

There's no doubt that gratitude does surface — but it's not the only feeling that surfaces, and it doesn't surface all the time. Wherever you are in your transplant recovery, just because you feel something different or unexpected doesn't mean what you're feeling is wrong.