New tonight. Former Pacer, Scott Pollard is out of intensive care after having a heart transplant surgery. Last Friday, we talked after he got settled into his new room at Vanderbilt Medical Center. I’m still very fresh, I’m still healing. There’s a long road ahead of me that Scott Pollard is out of
The ICU less than a week after his heart transplant is encouraging. And despite the massive scar and acclimating to a new heart, he says he now feels better, more like himself. And I would say mostly my brain, uh I was forgetting things.
I just, you know, there wasn’t enough oxygen going to my brain. I was tired and I’d run out of breath when I was talking and, and just, just this conversation would have worn me out. This is a critical time for healing and his wife,
Dawn is sharing much of the medical journey on social media. I am up and walking around and I feel really strong organ rejection and infection is a constant threat. Keeping the immune system from attacking the new organs requires vigilance. The family is now getting an apartment near the medical team.
Even after I get out of the hospital, I’ll be doing follow up appointments three and four times a week here, which makes it impossible to commute back and forth and, you know, they don’t want you missing any appointments and
You have to be on their schedule and when they have a biopsy that they need to get, they need to get it. Pollard is 49 years old, 611 and £300 to better his chances for a match. He got listed at multiple sites. Chicago, Indianapolis and Nashville,
But he declined during his screening at Vanderbilt and was hospitalized. I realize now how close I was, how in dire straits I actually was within two weeks a match was made. Don heard the helicopter come in. I was in prep already. So I don’t know this, but
Now every time a helicopter comes in, it’s like they’re maybe bringing a heart for somebody else and saving somebody else’s life. Uh because that’s how it happened. They, she heard the helicopter it landed. And then 30 seconds later, they said the heart is here. They were told the donor was a large man.
The Pollards hope to meet his family someday and say thanks, the average survival after a heart transplant is 14 years and that competitor and Pollard is determined to outscore the odds. I’m not even close to being finished. Uh And I may never be finished, you know, healing and, and being ready
To live life the way I, I plan on it but, uh, for now, I, it’s incredible how much better I feel and how much I just had ignored how bad I was doing and, and how crappy I felt honestly. Oh, he is so grateful, you know.
Right now there are so many people in a situation just like him. 3414 people right now on the waiting list across the country and here in Indiana, there are 64 people that are waiting for a heart right now. And the key is to increase the number of donors and organs that are available.
And it doesn’t take any time to do that two minutes to sign up to be a donor. And if you think, oh, maybe my body is not healthy enough or they wouldn’t want, I mean, the let the doctors decide, give them the option to decide whether or not you
Can give that gift of life to somebody else. We have a link where you can sign up right now. You could sign up and be a donor by the end of Angela’s next weather. You go to WT hr.com. My donors really are heroes and it’s really great that you’ve
Got this interview with Scott to bring us updated on. Um I’m, I’m so happy for the whole family. Father of four kids, dad’s dad’s coming back. That’s good news.
