Making a Differencehospital’s shelves, Dr Roberts would
sometimes take a curious patient
to visit his or her old ticker. But the
doctor discovered that the visits
could provide a kind of teachable
moment. “Many of the patients are
overweight, and I show them the fat
on the heart,” he says. “Some people
have so much fat on their hearts that
they float in a container of water.”
There’s a larger, almost existential
lesson too. “I try to stress to these
people that they are very lucky. They
are one of the few that get a heart,”
Dr Roberts says.
Bell had suffered 25 years of
heart problems, beginning with
triple-bypass surgery at the age
of 50. Then, in March 2014, he
underwent transplantation because
of congestive heart failure, in which
the heart is unable to sufficiently
circulate oxygenated blood
throughout the body. While
recovering, he asked if he
could view a video of the
operation. Bell was even more
thrilled to find out he could
see his old organ in person.
He remembers holding his
heart in front of his chest at
approximately the same place
it had lived just 12 days prior,
though it had since been
sliced into pieces as part of
the operation and for further
study. He was expecting
something more akin to a red
heart you’d see in a valentine,he says. Instead, the flesh was a pale
grey. The whole organ was covered in
yellow adipose tissue, or fat.
Bell was shown the original vein
and artery grafts from the bypass
surgery he’d had in 1993 and how
two grafts were carrying the load of
a third that had not worked properly
from the start. His family members
also got to see his heart, and the
experience had a dramatic impact on
his son, who vowed to start making
healthier choices. Bell had a similar
reaction. He now exercises as much
as his age allows and maintains an
almost vegan diet. Holding his heart
also gave him much-needed closure.
“It had caused so much pain and
misery,” he says. “I guess I just
wanted to get a last look at it and
s ay, ‘He y, I won .’”
ATLASOBSCURA.COM (FEBRUARY 17, 2017),
© 2017 BY ATL AS OBSCUR A INC.PHOTOGR APH BY MAT THEW COHEN COURTESY BAYLOR SCOT T & WHITE HE ALTH
John Bell, far left, with other transplant patients