The window pane in 22-year-old University football lineman Mark Lindsey's hospital room was decked out with all sorts of goodies; Halloween candies in mini Jack-O-Lanterns, a white University football complete with signatures from every guy on the team, bright orange-and-blue flowers and a get-well poster courtesy of members of the Pep Band and a small piano in the corner of the room. The nurses, too, even brought him several movies, including "South Park" and "The Mummy." Mark, at the very least, clearly can say he has many people who wish him well.
"Don't eat too fast, Mark," his girlfriend, fourth-year College student Katina Newsome, gently scolded him when he eagerly emptied the contents of the box of sesame chicken she had brought for him onto his plate, stubbornly ignoring her.
"Well, he is a guy," Newsome muses.
Despite the loud, systematic clicking and swishing noises of the LVAD machine -- Mark's artificial heart -- and the protruding of a tube connecting the machine (a small, blue, computerized box) and his body out of his chest, he appears suprisingly normal and healthy; so much so that one almost believes that this is merely a mundane, weekly stay in a hospital when, in fact, he has been here for almost four months.
"Mark's just going in for another tune-up," said Dottie Lindsey when her son was hospitalized yet again this June. He has remained there since, waiting in a line that, according to Life magazine, includes over 50,000 Americans: he awaits a heart transplant.
And the wait is becoming a lengthy, trying one. The average amount of time a person waits for a heart transplant typically is between 60 and 90 days. Mark has been waiting for over 160.
"You have to keep looking forward ... everyone has their trials, you get through them and are stronger," Newsome said.
Mark explained that finding a heart match is extremely difficult because the blood type and, most critically for Mark, the size must match as well.
"Because I'm 6'6", a normal heart won't work for me," he said.
So all he can do now is wait, and struggle to keep his mind occupied.
"I buy him things at Toys-R-Us," Newsome said. "Everybody else there was shopping [for their children], but [I'll do] anything to help keep him from getting bored."
Mark also has taken up piano lessons, and his instructor comes every week. "It's something I've always wanted to do but never had time [for], until now," he said.
Even though the instructor typically teaches 54 lessons per week, he has still found the time to work Mark into his schedule.
In the beginning
It was over three years ago -- in 1996 -- when Mark first got sick in the spring of the second semester of his first year at the University.
"There was a terrible [flu] epidemic, and there was even talk of closing classes," his mother said.
Mark soon fell ill, despite having received a flu shot.
"Everybody in my suite, Dunglison, had it. I was one of the last to get sick, and I missed over two weeks of school," Mark said.
Even though he thought he had fully recovered, he continued to feel tired for no apparent reason.
"I [got to where] I just couldn't make it. I finally passed out, and awoke to find myself on one of two cots at Student Health," Mark said.
He was administered antibiotics and soon recovered. At least, until pre-season training for football players began during the summer before his second year.
"I used to be one of the fastest linemen, and I was coming in dead last," Mark said.
During a routine, but nonetheless grueling workout, Mark collapsed, and a bloody, clear liquid began oozing from his mouth. In his own words, he "just couldn't take it anymore ... I felt like drowning."
He also couldn't stop himself from breathing heavily, and hyperventilated even in his sleep. Some of his friends on the football team rushed him to the hospital; then, the horrible truth of what was wrong was revealed: his heart was only functioning at 20 percent. An average heart functions at least at 60 percent.
"It was quite a shock. I [knew] I'd never play football again next year," Mark said.
His sickness, he explained, after all this time was diagnosed as advanced viral cardiomyopathy -- an extremely rare disorder in which the immune system programs itself to destroy heart tissue.
"I was one of the last guys in Dunglison to get the flu. By the time I had gotten it, it had mutated, and its protein strands were similar to those in my heart. My immune system couldn't tell the difference, and was attacking my heart," Mark said.
It was then that cardiologist Tim Pergan at the University Medical Center told him that his heart would have a 50-50 chance of recovering. The exact triggering mechanism (or what stimulates the heart to heal) is still unknown, his mother said. Otherwise, a heart transplant would be the only solution.
By December of 1996, however, the disorder's progression made it painfully clear that Mark wasn't going to recover on his own. He was then placed on the waiting list to receive a heart transplant the following year, in December of 1997.
Despite the fact that his health was rapidly declining, Mark continued to attend class and, according to his mother, did not even tell his professors about his condition; he wanted to feel like a normal student.
"He missed a lot of class ... He was in mild heart failure and was going to class," she said. "He would vomit in the mornings, then leave for class," Newsome said.
By the time Mark became a third year, he was extremely weak, and was forced to take a bus and rely upon Newsome to drive him everywhere.
"We got some strange looks ... because he still looked so healthy," she said.
When Mark reached the second semester of his fourth year, however, he realized that he was going to have to stop.
The darkest hour
"I was taking over 30 pills a day, and just couldn't stand it anymore," Mark said.
Within three weeks of final exams during his fourth year, Mark was forced withdraw from the University - only one semester away from receiving his diploma.
Mark suffered from kidney failure.
"I needed to go to the hospital for good this time," he said.
Because his heart was rapidly failing, other organs in his body consequently were failing. An LVAD -- an artificial left ventricle for his heart -- was the only thing that could save his life.
But, after the LVAD was installed, something went terribly wrong.
"I started to get very ill, and could feel the machine inside me," Mark said.
It was soon learned that the LVAD given to Mark was defective and blood was oozing out of the heart valve at a rapid rate.
Exasperated, cardiologists called the manufacturer of the artificial heart; they soon learned that the heart had not been cemented together properly. Mark said he was given over 100 units of blood.
After the LVAD was sealed, Mark's chest cavity was kept open for three days to ensure all the leaks were blocked. During this time, he was in a drug-induced coma.
Even after overcoming this, Mark still faced yet another massive hurdle. He began to swell rapidly. He became extremely pale, and told his mother, "Mom, something's horribly wrong."
Mark could not move his legs or arms. The doctors were baffled, and did not know what else to do.
"I can't begin to describe it. My husband and I were at [Mark's college] apartment on our knees. We looked at each other, both of us in tears, and said, 'I don't know how to let go of a child,'" Mrs. Lindsey said.
Finally, doctors learned what was wrong. Fluid was building up in the pericardium sack surrounding his heart, literally smothering it. Over 1.5 liters were drained from the sack, and the swelling then began to subside. Once again, Mark persevered.
"My weight dropped from 320 to 275 pounds after the operation," he said.
Because of the damage this had caused, however, Mark had to use a breathing tube for over a month. Even worse, he had to learn to walk all over again.
The road to recovery
"I had to use the wheelchair the first month. I couldn't really do anything. After I took the first step, everything was okay -- the first step was the hardest. Since then, I've been healthy-well, except for this," he said with a terse laugh as he slapped the LVAD machine.
He has enjoyed numerous visitors besides his family and girlfriend, but perhaps the most consistent of these is friend Casey Crawford, a fifth-year College student and football player.
"Mark met [Crawford] in the first week of his first year and has liked him ever since," Lindsey said.
Despite his demanding athletic schedule, Crawford visits Mark often, sometimes playing his Nintendo-64, or just talking to him.
He also has a wealth of support in the form of his parents, who alternate turns living in Mark's old U-Heights apartment and Glenn Allen, the Richmond suburb they call home. Mrs. Lindsey stays in Charlottesville throughout the week; Mark's father, Tom Lindsey, stays in town on the weekends.
"It's just when it looks hopeless that something happens. Despite how traumatic things have been we've always been able to get through them," Newsome said.
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