It’s 2026 and I haven’t updated since 2021.
Wow.
If you haven’t forgotten about us, thank you — and I’m sorry.
Truthfully, we haven’t really had anything to share, which is a good problem to have.
Zoe’s annual cath & biopsy took place last April, and her results were 1R/0. In the world of biopsy results, these are near perfect and pretty much line up with past results, so no surprises — which is just how we like it. Dr. Boyle is retiring, and since Zoe is 23, we’re working on her transition to the adult team now as opposed to waiting until she’s 26. More to come on that.
In December, we celebrated Zoe’s 17th heartiversary. No fireworks. No big party. We were both at work.
This is what life 17 years post-transplant looks like for us. It looks so much like your average day-to-day that sometimes we forget. Just for a moment.
All it takes is a phone call to send me right back to that dark, quiet ICU.
A couple of weeks ago, I received a phone call from Sandra at Lifebanc asking if Zoe and I would be interested in doing an interview for National Donor Day — 2/14/26. She was going to send out some feelers to the local news stations to see if anyone was interested in running a story. We’ve done some things for Lifebanc in the past, and she read the blog and checked out Zoe’s photography site, so she thought we would be great for the story. Since we love to help with donation advocacy, we agreed, and I gave her permission to share my contact information.
Just over a week ago, Sandra called me again to let me know that Lindsey Buckingham from WKYC wanted to pick up the story and feature Zoe and me on her Heartstrings segment, set to air on February 13th.
Watch our Heartstrings interview here.
My dogs did NOT make the interview easy, so shoutout to Lindsey and Randy, the cameraman, for putting together something so wonderful.
Our interview and the story that accompanies it are such small pieces of Zoe’s story and the reality of our lives during that period. I’m eternally grateful for the opportunity to get lost in the day-to-day of life.
On a very related side note: my older sister, Zoe’s Aunt Nik, is currently being worked up at OSU for a heart transplant of her own. Nikki got this blog started and has been my partner in awareness and advocacy for the entirety of Zoe’s journey. She practically lived at the hospital with me, and now she’s on a journey of her own. With her boys living on the other side of the country in Alaska and her only local child pregnant with her first child, I find myself riding shotgun again for another heart transplant.
Just over seventeen years ago, we were hoping for a miracle.
Today, we’re living in one — in the ordinary Tuesdays, the biopsy reports that read 1R/0, the heartiversaries that pass quietly while we’re both at work.
And now, as we stand on the edge of another transplant journey — this time for Nikki — I’m reminded that none of this is guaranteed. Not the stability. Not the peace. Not the privilege of forgetting, even for a moment.
If you’re still here after all these years, thank you. Truly.
Please keep Nikki in your thoughts as she begins her evaluation at OSU. Send her all of the good juju for strength, for clarity, for timing, and for the family somewhere out there who may one day say yes.
We know firsthand what that yes can mean.
And as always — if sharing Zoe’s story, Nikki’s story, or registering as an organ donor reaches even one person — it’s worth it.
More to come. 💚