Sweet Hearts
by Christen D'Alessandro
It’s a cool, crisp New Year’s Eve day in 1996. With no sign of clouds, the sun illuminates the sky, and all is well at the Schultz residence. Lloyd Schultz, a retired firefighter with 28 years on the force, is sitting on the couch, watching TV, while his wife, Gayle, is in the kitchen, cooking food for the celebrations taking place later in the night.
The phone rings, and Lloyd, 65, answers it. He’s surprised to hear the voice of his cardiologist on the other end.
“After looking over your lab work,” Paul Greenberg says, “I think it would be a good idea for you to check yourself
into the hospital today.”
Feeling reasonably healthy, Lloyd lightly replies, “I think I’ll be OK for now because I have a party to go to tonight.”
Greenberg believes Lloyd has picked up a virus, which is starting to affect his heart.
“I think you should rethink your decision,” Gayle, 59, tells him.
She convinces him to go to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center. Lloyd checks himself in. He spends the night there.
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It’s now 1997, and as celebrations come and go, the first day of the new year shows no threat to Lloyd’s life. His concerned family comes to check on him, but besides a little dehydration, everything appears to be OK. The doctors are simply taking precautionary measures
to ensure his well-being. He spends most of the day visiting with his family and watching the Rose Bowl with his grand-
daughter as they sit together in his hospital bed.
But, on Jan. 3, Lloyd gets worse. The virus is causing his heart to deteriorate. Lloyd’s heart is losing strength and doesn’t have enough power to pump blood on its own. He needs to be in a hospital that specializes in treating his condition, so an ambulance rushes him to Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego. He’s at a high risk of cardiac arrest.
In the weeks that follow, his health deteriorates. He is emaciated. His weight drops from 215 pounds to 165. His
skin is ghostly pale. As Lloyd suffers several problems in the hospital, Gayle faces problems of her own.
She and Lloyd live in Long Beach, so Gayle drives more than 100 miles back and forth to San Diego nearly every day.
It becomes too much of a drain, but she doesn’t want to sell the home where their kids grew up and where they have lived for nearly 50 years, so she rents an apartment close to the hospital.
Before she can rent the apartment, the managers want to see her individual credit report. But because she was 17
when she married Lloyd, she doesn’t know if she has one. After scouring her records, Gayle finds a minuscule credit report under her name only. Now Gayle has to get help moving into the apartment. She also has to learn the chores that Lloyd had always taken care of, such as checking the oil in the car.
It’s Feb. 12. On the fifth floor of Sharp Memorial, as Lloyd lies motionless in his hospital bed, Dr. Robert Adamson motions Gayle out of the room and into the hall.
He tells her that Lloyd has 48 hours to live. His heart is deteriorating, but the doctor is going to attempt surgery
that could extend Lloyd’s life.
The next day, Feb. 13, it’s time for surgery. Before the surgeons take Lloyd into the operating room, Lloyd’s family and friends gather around his bed, holding hands as a pastor leads them in the Lord’s Prayer. After the prayer, Lloyd is wheeled down the hall and out of sight.
First, Adamson replaces Lloyd’s aortic valve; then, he repairs the tricuspid valve.
The next procedure is one that only eight facilities in the United States can perform, and Lloyd is only the third patient at Sharp Memorial to undergo it. It consists of inserting a pump underneath the heart.
A device is controlling Lloyd’s internal bleeding during surgery and providing enough blood to make up for the amount he is losing.
Gayle watches as representatives from the blood bank walk back and forth through the waiting room during the day. Lloyd has used 12 pints of blood. The average human body holds 10. Members of his family donate blood throughout the day.
After 16 hours of waiting, Gayle finally gets the news: Lloyd is alive and in recovery.
Over the next week, Lloyd is confused and doesn’t recognize his own family. His frail body appears to have aged 20 years. His two granddaughters, ages 11 and 13, aren’t even allowed to see him because the rest of the family thinks it’ll be too scary.
As the weeks go on, Lloyd gets stronger and healthier. The pump is doing its job. He’s getting his color back and putting on weight.
While Lloyd is in recovery at the hospital, Gayle is preparing for his release. Lloyd’s heart pump runs on batteries. When the batteries are about to die, they emit a loud beep. From that point, Gayle has five minutes to change the batteries before they expire. Because of this, Gayle takes
a two-week training course to learn about the pump and how to take care of it.
Lloyd is added to a heart donor list, released from the hospital and moved into the apartment with Gayle. He has
to stay close to the hospital so doctors can monitor his condition. The only thing left to do is wait.
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Three hearts, either too small or too weak, come and go, all unable to fulfill Lloyd’s needs. But at 7 a.m., on April 16, nine days after Lloyd turns 66 years old, the heart transplant coordinator at Sharp Memorial calls Lloyd at his apartment.
“Lloyd, have you eaten breakfast yet?”
“No,” he replies. “Me and Gayle are just about to go out and get some.”
“Good, don’t eat anything,” she says, “because we have a heart that we think will work for you, and you need to come down to the hospital so we can prep you for surgery today.”
Earlier that morning, a 37-year-old man was taken off life support. All of his personal information, including the cause of death and his name, is confidential. Lloyd and his family know only that this man has a healthy heart and that Lloyd
is the right candidate. As nurses prepare Lloyd for surgery, Gayle informs the family of the encouraging news.
Lloyd and Gayle are excited. They don’t know exactly what to expect, but they’ve been waiting for this day so they can finally get on with their lives. Lloyd’s second procedure poses no complications. In many heart transplant operations, surgeons must use a defibrillator to start the heart, but sometimes the patient’s warm blood will hit the heart, and it will start on its own. Lloyd’s heart started by itself. Lloyd awakens six hours later to Adamson’s voice.
“Congratulations, Lloyd. The surgery is over, and you have a new heart.” Lloyd sees Gayle after the surgery and tells her, “Now we can start making plans for the future.”
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Lloyd and Gayle continue living in their San Diego apartment until it’s certain that Lloyd’s body won’t reject the new heart.
On July 1, 1997, seven months after the ordeal began, Lloyd and Gayle return to their home in Long Beach. Lloyd knows he’ll be able to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary, attend his granddaughters’ high school and college graduations, see the birth of his great-granddaughter and travel.
It has taken months for this day to come, and now that it has, Lloyd and Gayle have an odd surprise awaiting them.
As they pull into the driveway, they see the house is still covered in Christmas lights left from the hurried rush to the hospital seven months earlier.
That night, the multi-colored lights blink to life, illuminating the front yard and the nearby homes where families sit around tables, delighting in each other’s company. Lloyd smiles, feeling his heart beating rhythmically inside his chest. Like the Christmas lights that never burned out, he’s been given the greatest gift of all: time.
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