Prince George, B.C.- Shane Dehod of Prince George is now a member of a very exclusive club. He is one of just four people in this city, who has undergone a heart transplant and the enormity of the gift he has received is  overwhelming “There is a tremendous responsibilty that comes with receiving this heart” says Dehod as tears well up in his eyes “Someone’s misfortune, a family’s tragedy, means I have a chance at a future.” 

 

He wants to make sure he does   everything right to make sure he takes the best care possible of his new heart.

 

He says he had no time to first adjust to the insertion of the Left Ventricle Assist Device (L-Vad)  which was inserted in his chest in September, and its constant whirl, whirl, whirl, took over the job of pumping blood through his body. 

 

It would be about 6 weeks later that he would get the call telling him he needed to get to Vancouver asap as   there may be a heart for him.

 

Being in   a room, waiting to go in for the transplant surgery, he says he and Lorin were trying to be supportive of each other, “But at the same time, you are trying to say good-bye, just in case things didn’t turn out. It was very, very emotional.”

 

Dealing with the side effects of the anti-rejection drugs  has  also been a  surprise.  "I looked in the mirror one day, and WHOA  I looked like a woodchuck, my face was so swollen  from the prednisone.  I called  my nurse  and asked her if  my head was going to explode and she told me the swelling was normal."  The swelling has come down a great deal says Shane, but there is still a ways to go.

 

And while he has been recovering in rapid fashion from the October 28^th transplant surgery, recovering from the financial impact of the transplant is also a major challenge  and he isn’t out of the woods financially and  physically yet.  It will be  the better part of  a year with more trips  back and forth to  Vancouver before  he gets any green lights to resume his  normal life.

 

Because Shane owns a small business,   neither  he nor his wife qualify for any of the assistance programs available. It has meant that their life savings have been depleted  for travel and accomodation as Shane and his wife  travelled back and forth to Vancouver for a variety of  tests, hospital stays, clinic visits and the transplant itself.  Although they often travelled on the Northern Health Connections bus, it’s schedule didn’t always match up with his clinic appointments, so there were hotel bills to cover for the overnight stays leading to those appointment times.

 

His anti rejection drugs, at a cost of about $4 thousand a month, are covered by the BC Transplant program, but if it wasn’t for friends and family chipping in what they could, there is no telling where Dehod and wife Lorin  would be today. The couple has exhausted their life savings, and their emergency funds.

 

Shane is overcome with emotion as he talks about the efforts his friends and family have made  “Our  friends said to us, ‘you’ve come this far,  we are not going to see you go down in flames’ this is just so different for us,    we help people, we don’t ask for help, it’s been very humbling.”