Flying Closer to the Sun: A Heart Transplant Story 5 Years On
Photographic Essay, Heart Transplant, Heart Anniversary, Inspiration, Survivor
Today I'm celebrating my five year heart transplant anniversary. It has been a remarkable journey. This is my story.
Ten years ago, out of the blue I suffered a sudden cardiac death on a Sunday evening, before an international business flight. This led to the insertion of an internal cardiac defibrillator. I settled into a new normal, but my heart had other ideas and in that first year I had thousands of ventricular tachycardia (VT) events. An ablation procedure considerably calmed my heart down.
I was able to get back on the water on my paddleboard. However, the work I had been doing lost its meaning and I left my dream job as a futurist advising Fortune 100 companies.
In 2017 I published my first book - Fierce Reinvention - a motivational book encouraging people to explore their goals of consequence.
It felt like I'd achieved a new normal. But then, on first day of a November 2018 holiday on a remote Barrier Reef island, I had a VT storm, which is when your defibrillator shocks you multiple times in succession. Three times is classified as a storm. I was shocked eight times in quick succession. It was intense, to say the least. As night fell, a critical care team was lowered from a rescue chopper and they had an hour to stabilise me and winch me onto the helicopter, which was circling. I was in exceptional hands and they got me to the wharf and, with the helicopter hovering overhead and spray flying everywhere, the former combat doctor whispered in my ear that I'd reverted to normal sinus rhythm. I breathed a sigh of relieve as they winched me up and flew me to Cairns.
What followed was a recurring scenario of VT activity plus ablation operation, while I progressively got weaker and weaker. My body couldn't cope with the sixth ablation and I ended up in ICU at Westmead Private.
I was then transferred to St Vincents in end stage heart failure and the work up for heart transplant began in earnest. On my birthday I was told I was officially on the transplant list. I had days to live.
Four nights later I got the call to get ready. They had a heart for me. That was five years ago - May 15, 2019. I agreed to participate in research and was the first person to have a titanium heart inserted. It was subsequently removed and my donor heart inserted. I am eternally grateful.
Post transplant I spent forty days in ICU, much of that on ECMO, a form of life support. I ended up with peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage) and drop foot and was so weak I couldn't lift my head off the pillow. I spent many months on the ward and then four months in rehab relearning to walk. The first two months in rehab were slow, but then I remembered how I'd used manifesting to become South African lifesaving champion, and at other times in my life. And so I began visualising getting out of there by Christmas - I'd been told I wouldn't get out before February the following year. I doubled my rehab sessions and was discharged on December 20, 2019. I'd been in hospital for 12 months.
In 2020 I published my first collection of poems written over the course of 40 years - At Thievery End.
At the end of that year I had a setback when I developed a fungal infection - aspergillosis - in my chest wall. I had to have two ribs removed and a chest reconstruction. The pain as the infection ate into my bones was like Stage 4 cancer - very intense.
As I recovered I began writing novels. While I'd done a lot of writing over the years this was a first for me. It was something I'd always wanted to do, but life always seemed to intervene. I serialised my first novel weekly over 6 months and did the same with its audiobook. I wrote a sequel, but have since changed tack and I'm now finalising the first three books of a thriller series.
Writing for me is like climbing to mountain climbers - I am compelled to do it. It is a form of art therapy for me. My other passion and form of art therapy is photography, which I became enthralled with back in the 70's when I inherited my grandfather's Leica camera. I grew up surfing and love shooting seascapes and waves, preferably with surfers riding. However, I get the most buzz from hanging out of helicopters and light aircraft and doing aerial photography. This love of flying was instilled in me when I flew with my father in light aircraft in the 70's. I was chosen to be a pilot in the South African Air Force, but declined for political reasons ( I was not a big fan of apartheid ).
In 2023 I flew over Noosa, the Hunter Valley and Sydney and in 2024 so far I've done a Shark Bay, WA Expedition in which I travelled solo for the first time in 11 years. I love the freedom of being on the beach or soaring through the air. I seek to capture this feeling in the photos I make. Freedom my overarching motif.
In everything I do I try to both honour my donor and inspire people to live their best life. I am so grateful to everyone who has helped me on my journey especially my beautiful wife with whom I recently celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary and I'm loving watching my two boys growing into young men.
Continue to soar with me and I pray you too can fly higher on your journey through life. I know it can be tough, but visualise things you want to achieve and set your mind to getting there, however incrementally.
:: Rand
Slow walk to freedom, on the ward - 2019
Learning to walk - 2019
If you'd like to delve deeper into my photography visit my website and Instagram (@randleebdutoit). Please reach out if you'd like to suggest a collaboration.
All images are copyright Rand Leeb-du Toit, 2024, unless where attributed to other photographers.
Wow!