We all grow up believing the heart is the thing that keeps us alive.
The motor of our body.
Our brain determines the way we think.
Whether we are excited about things, or not at all.
Whether we are motivated to live, or not at all.
But what if these two are fighting?
There are too many people whose hearts are failing them.
While their brain keeps telling them to keep living, their hearts just want to stop working.
Easter Monday 1991, my grandfather is sitting on a stool behind his black piano at home. Trying to teach himself to play the piano. Practicing the notes to an old children’s song.
When suddenly, everything stops.
My grandmother is in the kitchen when she hears a thump.
She rushes over to where the sound came from.
And there he is, laying on the ground.
Just then and there his heart stopped beating.
My grandmother saved his life.
Resuscitating him until,
Boom, Boom, Boom
His heart started beating again.
My grandfather spent the following months in the hospital, surviving several heart attacks and suffering from short-term memory loss. Until, eventually, he got a new heart.
It was a new experience for that time, a procedure not often performed yet.
It was a weird realization to be living with the heart of another person. Some people believe in souls, but some believe your ‘life’ is in the heart and brain. What happens then if you get the heart of another person?
My grandfather had some dreams about dying in a car crash, and his hair changed.
He never got to know whose heart he received or met the family, but he owed his life to this person.
After research was done, it turned out that my grandfather suffered from phospholamban (PLN), this is a change in the DNA, a mutation, causing serious cardiac arrhythmias. Research has shown that all Dutch people with PLN have a common ancestor and are therefore related to each other. The mutation is said to have originated in the north of the Netherlands about 600 years ago.
The chance your children will get the gene is 50%.
My family was given the choice to test themselves or not.
Everyone that wanted to test and was old enough to, turned out to have the gene as well.
This mutation became the biggest stress factor in our family.
Ironically enough, stress is known to be very bad for the heart.
My grandfather changed.
He was given a second chance at life. Although it felt like he gave a curse to his children, and all the grandchildren that would follow, he also learned how precious life is and how it can just stop at any moment.
He learned how to enjoy every moment and he never complains.
I look up to him, he is the strongest man I know.
I believe everyone is aware of how important their heart is, but sometimes there’s simply nothing you can do about it.
I believe we can all learn from my grandfather.
Being grateful and living life by the day.
Look after your health, consider becoming a donor and consider taking first aid classes.
But most importantly, enjoy your life, for as no one knows how it will go.
