Kylie Lam Wai Ting, 14

School: School of the Arts

Topic: Describe how you feel hearing someone close, receiving a heart transplant

Award: Special Mention, Junior Category, 2023

Heartbeat

My dad just had a heart transplant. He now lives with a functional heart.

I'm happy and thankful because he does not have to suffer anymore. He won't have to suffer from any more discomfort – feeling his heart bang irregularly against his chest wall 24/7 and causing constant chest pain; suffer the limitations from his condition – like not being able to leave the house for more than 10 hours because the LVAD and its 2kg battery pack attached to his chest will die; giving up his love for music because of the risks overexerting himself at concerts and performances; and suffer from the never-ending worry of whether he would suddenly collapse, his cardiomyopathy taking his last breath away from him, or his LVAD failing him, leaving him with a fatal hemorrhagic stroke. Not just the physical pain – he wouldn't have to endure the sadness of this reality; tolerate the exhaustion from fighting 24/7 for us; or handle the guilt for feeling like he let us down and that he's a burden to the family, especially when he's not.

However, I feel plagued by intense guilt. Human hearts don't spontaneously appear out of thin air – for someone to live, another person has to die. Somewhere out there, a kind soul has tragically left this world but chose to give my dad a chance to live, like a revival in a video game. This honourable decision granted my dad a year, a decade, or even more. They say time cannot be bought, but that doesn't apply to organ donation; and we had just defied this saying to save Dad and give him a better life. But the deceased's family is grieving the loss of their loved one, and they must be overwhelmed with pain and sadness knowing that that person is gone forever. I can't imagine losing Dad, but that is precisely what that family is going through.

And in the centre of it all, there is a lingering uncertainty. Dad isn't out of the woods yet – the test results were inconclusive, and no one can say with 100% confidence that everything is okay. His body could reject the new heart, leading to complications – inflammatory reactions, multi-organ failure – even death. What if, out of the blue, the heart fails? What if the transplant was unsuccessful after all? What if Dad died, and the heart had just gone to waste, proving the efforts futile?

What if, what if, what if?! My own heart started beating faster, quicker, quicker.

So many questions. Very few answers. And no one to provide assurance, because they don’t have answers either.

But I remember when we first heard about the transplant option. It was a huge risk that was potentially fatal, but if it worked, Dad could finally leave all his problems behind him. The lifestyle restrictions, sleepless nights, anxiety about imminent death and depression from his body being a wreck: all will be gone, eliminated, thrown out of the window and forgotten! He could be who he used to be – a happy, carefree man who welcomed challenges and new experiences with open arms. We could have a fresh start - and catch up on all the times and memories we had missed out on all these years. And realising this, we felt something new, something we hadn't felt in a long time since the diagnosis. It was like a broken light bulb miraculously flickering again, filling a pitch-black room with a steady, luminous light. Slowly but surely, it glowed, chasing the darkness and shadows away.

Hope. We felt hope – that fiery sensation burning in our hearts and coursing through our veins like electricity, because there was a chance for Dad to regain his old life and self!

Hope was the light that made all our worries and problems die down, at least a little. Remembering all this, my own heartbeat slowed a little, as I calmed down.

So here is a summary. Dad has lived with cardiomyopathy, a heart-related medical condition, for the last decade. It had cost him much pain, inconvenience, his old life and his happiness. But now, he has a functional heart from a kind donor, whose death had made it worthwhile.

And I feel a complicated, chaotic mess of emotions, including joy, guilt and uncertainty. But the strongest emotion I feel? It's hope.

And I believe that if we do not give up fighting and hold onto hope, there will be light at the end of the tunnel.

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions expressed in the essays for the Live On Festival 2023 are those of the participants and are not endorsed by the National Organ Transplant Unit (Ministry of Health). To learn more about organ donation and organ transplantation in Singapore, please visit www.liveon.gov.sg