Author Amy Silverstein recently wrote a poignant New York Times Opinion essay about her needing to bid farewell to her ailing heart transplant. And therefore, her life.
See https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/opinion/heart-transplant-donor.html
“Amy Silverstein passed peacefully on Friday, May 13, 2023. She was 59.”
See https://amysilverstein.com/
The timing of Ms. Silverstein’s essay and passing has been eerily reminiscent to WFC Founder Glenn Lane, who marked the tenth anniversary of his father’s passing this past Memorial Day weekend. Glenn’s dad had a kidney transplant in 1993 and was given a 10-12-year life expectancy. Instead, he went on to live for twenty years. Amy Silverstein’s comments about living with an organ transplant and what she calls “the sorry state of transplant medicine” sound all too familiar to Glenn, based on his dad’s 20-year transplant experience.
Amy Silverstein’s Transplant Story
Ms. Silverstein lived with deep gratitude for each of her two transplants. She often said they gave her a new lease on life. The first heart transplant was in 1988 when she was 24. Twenty-six years later, in 2014, her first donor heart was overcome by vascular lesions that transplantation medications can cause. At age 50, she underwent her second transplant surgery. In both cases, the transplanted heart came from 13-year-old girls.
Her May 16th obituary in the New York Times recounted “the joys and miseries of living as a double transplant recipient.” In her April 18th essay, Amy Silverstein wrote: “My 35 years living with two different donor hearts — finishing law school, getting married, becoming a mother, and writing two books — has felt like a quest to outlast a limited life expectancy.”
“The Sorry State of Transplant Medicine”
Prolonged daily use of transplant drugs often has devastating side effects, including life-threatening conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney damage, and cancer. Amy Silverstein developed malignant metastatic lung cancer from her transplant drugs, ultimately leading to her death. She had been a staunch advocate for research funding to improve the state of transplantation medicine.
In a companion broadcast to her NYT Opinion essay on April 23, 2023, Ms. Silverstein went on CBS News Sunday Morning to promote the improvement of all organ donor drug regimens. Her mantra has been, “Organ donation is miraculous. Transplant medicine is not.”
She argues that life expectancy for heart transplant patients has not changed substantially since her first transplant in 1988. Worse yet, the federal agency metric for transplant success sets a low bar of only one-year survival. And Amy Silverstein argues that “research for new transplant medications is chronically underfunded. The science is stagnant, and the imprecise medicine is antiquated.”
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjnn2Cw5PFU
Glenn Lane’s Story About His Dad’s Transplant
Glenn Lane’s father had similar experiences with his transplanted kidney, albeit dating back twenty years. Glenn is quick to acknowledge that conditions for acquiring a transplant were more difficult in 1993 than they are today –
- The current automation of donor lists didn’t exist;
- There was no shared registry of donors.
- Procurement of the donor organ was more complicated;
- In 1993, the family took urgent trips up and down the East Coast to gain access to organs when they became available.
- Procurement of transplantation medications was a challenge.
In the end, Glenn’s Dad died of other complications. Like Amy Silverstein, however, his father’s body underwent similar transplantation complications from ten years of dialysis – such as hardening of the veins, vascular lesions, and cardiac issues.
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Westchester Family Care is an independent in-home care provider specializing in making the home a safe and accommodating place for your aging family members, no matter the condition. Our extensive network of professionals and issue-specific specialists are ready to help you maintain a healthy quality of life. Contact WFC for an immediate family need or when planning for future needs:
(914)223-8067 / www.westchesterfamilycare.com