My name is Jason Pablo, I am thirty-eight years old.
August of 2000, I was diagnosed with idiopathic cardiomyopathy. The bottom left chamber of
my heart basically died off, and the rest of my heart had to be working a little bit
harder. My wife and I were six months pregnant with my daughter, and it was somewhat of a
crushing blow, knowing that, I've got this condition with pretty much my parenting life
just beginning.
So for the first three years it was fine. And then in 2003, the bad days started to
come about. I didn't have the energy to do much. I was put on a diuretic and two other
heart medications.
So in 2005, I woke up in the middle of the night, cold sweat, and with every step just
getting weaker and weaker, and I got rushed to a hospital, they said I showed signs of
VTAC.
What they wanted to do was a PV ablation, they did correct it, but it only lasted about
a year and a half.
So, the second one took place in December of 2007. I thought—be the same thing, piece
of cake, next thing I know I wake up and I've got tubes goin' down my throat, and what had
happened was, the doctors actually tore, my coronary sinus.
Two or three months, healed up fine, but the bad days started to outnumber the good days by far.
And then, August first, I was rushed to the hospital. The doctors thought that it was
my gall-bladder that was causing me to feel lethargic. So then after having my gall-bladder
taken out they noticed that there was nothing wrong with the gall bladder. Two or three
days later, my cardiologist came back in and said we've exhausted all of our efforts, and
it's time that you get sent some other place to get evaluated for a heart transplant. And
one of the options was Stanford.
I was familiar with Stanford and the reputation that Stanford had as being an innovative hospital.
Knowing that I was going to a place where the first transplant took place, I felt good
about it because there are new remedies and new therapies that they may have available
to me.
When I first arrived at Stanford, they brought me straight to the Coronary Care Unit.
The surgery was so much easier than I anticipated. As soon as I woke up out of the surgery, everything
was different—how I felt, the fact that they wanted to take the breathing tubes out
of me within hours...and each and every nurse or a doctor made it known to me that they
were just there for me. I felt like a close relative who was watchin' out for me. The
whole entire experience was just amazing.
After, he did a lot more things with us, like, he played sports with us.
When he came back from the hospital, I was so happy that he came back, and he became
my Dad again.
The transplant has allowed me to think beyond the next day, the next week, or even the next
month—to even think about participating in my children's future. Now my dreams are
a little bit more simple, but they're a little bit more rewarding, knowing that I can share
a lot of things with my family.
I feel great. Life my life again.