On April 5, 2000, I got the Big Call while I was shopping in the middle of the grocery store. I had a cart full of groceries, but my son Ethan and I ditched it and ran full speed out of the store out to my car like a couple of petty shoplifters about to get busted.
My wife had just received word from Abbott Northwestern Hospital that a possible donor heart had been located for my twelve year son Turner, who at that point, had been waiting for a heart transplant for 199 days. As soon as I got home, we loaded up the family and headed for the hospital.
There was a lot of waiting around, but sometime during the middle of the night on April 5/6, the transplant surgeons determined that the donor heart was good, and that it would be Turner’s.
The surgeons did the transplant on April 6. Since then, we celebrate that day as sort of a “Heart Birthday” for Turner. He’s now a 20 year old student at the University of Minnesota. He takes a handful of meds everyday, and he always will, but he’s in pretty good health these days.
Happy Heart Birthday Turner! We’re glad we still have you around.
