Interview with Ms. Dawn (Episode 013 - OPO Insights Podcast)

So that was a crazy thing because, you know, like I started, you know, in the ICU as a brand new nurse.

And of course, you know, when you're 20. one years old you think you know everything you think you've got you know the tiger by the tail and then uh all of a sudden you see such a different world you know and so my first um actual personal experience with organ donation was uh we had a young lady who was not much older than me at the time she was in her early to mid-20s i suppose and in ended up with um gestational cardiomyopathy.

So as soon as she had the baby, she came to ICU and was waiting on a heart and she was not going to make it much longer.

And I remember we got the call and I worked nights at the time.

We got the call in the middle of the night that they had a heart for her.

And look, I still get chill bumps now thinking about it.

It was the most because she had not really gotten to see her baby hardly.

And she hadn't got to hold the baby or anything.

And so anyway, and she got her first heart transplant.

I say first because there's more to that story.

But she did well, went home and got to be a mom.

And it was phenomenal.

And I transferred hospitals and went to which was Baptist Central at the time to our main hospital downtown.

And I worked in the cath lab there.

So in the cath lab, we with our heart patients, we had to do heart caths on them looking for rejection and different things at regular intervals.

And so I got to take care of her post transplant as well when I worked in the cath lab.

So I got to see this woman over the course of many, many years.

And she eventually did get rejection and needed another heart transplant.

She was so fortunate.

She got a second heart transplant and did remarkably well with that one as well.

She used to bring us cookies all the time.

She was just the sweetest person.

But working in the ICU and then working in the cath lab, you know, I took care of patients on the transplant list.

I saw a lot of them not make it.

you know, more of them not make it than did, you know, unfortunately, and back then, so this was a long time ago when patients had to, the drips that we had to have them on, and those LVADs, you know, they couldn't go home with those, so, you know, we took care of these patients long term, and we got really attached to them, so we would get to know these people and their families really well, and it was heartbreaking, you know, to watch them waiting and waiting and waiting, and you know, deteriorating and eventually not getting what they needed to survive.