And my brother-in-law died last night because he didn't. The bravest, strongest person I've ever known is gone and Darth Vader goes on.
No, I don't blame Dick Cheney for John's death. I know his family is happy and relieved. But I'm railing against the unfairness of life.
John fought so hard to stay with his family. He wanted to see his kids graduate. He wanted walk his daughter down the aisle. And he wanted to grow old with the wife he loved so much. The oldest son graduates this May and the youngest son is still in middle school.
All the family's hopes were pinned on a transplant. But John's condition never got good enough or bad enough to make the list.
John's mother and grandmother had the same condition but in him it was exponentially worse. He spent years with a pacemaker. The first surgery two and a half years ago was to "shave" muscle from the enlarged chamber of his heart. Always a goer, textbook type A, John put off treatment and didn't make time for tests his doctors wanted. It was worse than they expected and he had a pig valve implanted instead. A reaction to heparin nearly killed him then. By Super Bowl he was recovered enough for the kids to spend the day with him in the hospital watching the game.
For 90 percent of heart patients that invention would have put him on the road to a normal or seminormal life. It was not to be.
Last year he received an LVAD (left ventricle assist device) same as Cheney. We joked with him about having no pulse. Seventy percent of heart patients would have improved after this. The LVAD nearly killed him when its pacemaker malfunctioned and started to zap him.
Expenses, even with insurance, drove the family near to bankruptcy. John sold his business and his wife was laid off right in the middle of everything.
For John it was a slow recovery that didn't last long. Another Super Bowl in the hospital. His kidneys, weakened by a series of infections, functioned sporadically and finally shut down. He had to have dialysis six days a week and since the dialysis unit at our community hospital wouldn't assume the risk with his LVAD he had to drive two hours each day to another facility. His sisters and an army of volunteers chauffeured him.
His long battle ended last night. Another infection was too much for his weakened system to overcome. There was enough pressure in his circulation to do dialysis. They shut off the LVAD and he slipped away.
John is gone and Dick Cheney lives. Rest in peace, John. I'll never know another person as strong and brave as you.