The Weight of the Wait

When you’re waiting for a heart replacement, time drags on. But with HeartMate 3, you can live your life again.

Healthy Heart|Nov.04, 2019

NOTE TO READERS: Tyrone Morris received a new heart on Jan. 13, 2021. We're proud to bring you his story of how his HeartMate 3 helped give him the time he needed while living with heart failure.

There are times when you're just going to wait.

You'll be delayed.

Immediate expectations? Unmet.

Instant gratification? Postponed.

This is that lag.

So you bide your time.

Deferred if not detoured.

What’s to come? Just wanting for word of what's to come.

You can't leave.

So you linger. And loiter. And lurk.

There is no stay from the staying put.

The moment is always overdue.

And so are you.

Anxiousness builds.

Reading this? Patience.

The Weight of the Wait

It's just a small taste of what it feels like when you're living with heart failure and waiting — extolling the universe for the fortune of a new heart.

Tens of thousands in the U.S. are diagnosed every year needing heart transplants. Just a fraction are available to meet the demand. So they wait, hoping for the day good news comes their way — which means bad news already came to someone else.

That is the weight of their wait.

Tyrone Morris knows it well. He’s in line for a new heart, but he's not waiting for anyone.

Not now that his HeartMate 3 left ventricular assist device (LVAD) — commonly known as a heart pump — is extending and improving his time between now and whenever a suitable heart comes.

HeartMate 3 was built to get patients like him back to living their life. Approved for bridge-to-transplant (short-term) and destination therapy (long-term) use, the device takes the place of a new heart. HeartMate 3 is the leading heart pump available with unparalleled results in overall survival, quality of life and a reduction in adverse events (such as stroke and thrombosis).

That is the intent of HeartMate 3, to take some of the weight off the wait.

For Tyrone, to remove the delay of living his life again.

His expectations met.

Gratification propelled.

No lag.

Imbibing his time.

Delivered, not deferred.

What’s to come? He’s out living his life.

He can't leave.

Stay put.

His moment has arrived.

And so have you.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

RX ONLY

BRIEF SUMMARY:

Prior to using these devices, please review the Instructions For Use for a complete listing of indications, contraindications, warnings, precautions, potential adverse events and directions for use.

INDICATIONS:

The HeartMate 3™ Left Ventricular Assist System is indicated for providing short- and long-term mechanical circulatory support (e.g., as bridge to transplant or myocardial recovery, or destination therapy) in patients with advanced refractory left ventricular heart failure.

CONTRAINDICATIONS:

The HeartMate 3™ Left Ventricular Assist System is contraindicated for patients who cannot tolerate, or who are allergic to, anticoagulationtherapy.

ADVERSE EVENTS:

Adverse events that may be associated with the use of the HeartMate 3™ Left Ventricular Assist System are: death, bleeding, cardiac arrhythmia, localized infection, right heart failure, respiratory failure, device malfunctions, driveline infection, renal dysfunction, sepsis, stroke, other neurological event (not stroke-related), hepatic dysfunction, psychiatric episode, venous thromboembolism, hypertension, arterial non-central nervous system (CNS) thromboembolism, pericardial fluid collection, pump pocket or pseudo pocket infection, myocardial infarction, wound dehiscence, hemolysis (not associated with suspected device thrombosis) or pump thrombosis.