Learning to appreciate the value of life, after facing sudden death

There I sat in the hospital emergency room, waiting somewhat impatiently as the cardiologist silently maneuvered the cold gel over my heart for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he stood up and said the last words I ever expected to hear as a 16-year-old girl: "She's having a massive heart attack." I felt a rush of panic and disbelief.

I looked the doctor straight in the eye and asked, "Am I going to die?" He stared at me without saying a word.

So began the third week of my senior year in high school. Before that, I had been the co-captain of my tennis team and had no history of heart problems or any health issues, for that matter.

That initial diagnosis erupted into a flood of surgeries and complications over what my parents have called the most turbulent week of their lives. I was crashing. The last rites were said for me that very first night.

Later in the week I had my leg amputated in order to save my life. I was faced with a heart transplant, but in the interim I lived on the "heartmate," a nine-pound mechanical device implanted in my abdomen that pumped the left side of my heart. For nine months I was literally the bionic woman and ran on batteries during the day.

It wasn't until I saw my picture on the front page of a newspaper next to a caption that read "Teen's Life Turned Upside Down by Massive Heart Attack" that reality started to sink in.

There were moments when I wondered what more could possibly happen to me because I didn't know how much more I could handle. I constantly had to remind myself that I was lucky to be alive and that I could not change the past, but I could make the most out of the present. I fought my way through nine weeks of intense physical therapy and returned home with a prosthetic leg and the ambition to return to school and take part in almost everything I wanted to do during my senior year. I managed just about everything except graduation, as I had received my heart transplant just days before.

Three months later, I started college at Princeton. Having had such radical changes in my life in such a short time, I did not know how I would handle college life. The hardest adjustment has been learning to live with a prosthesis. We don't realize how much we take, even the simplest tasks in life, for granted until we lose the ability to do them. Where I once was able to run up three flights of stairs, I now am forced to take them one at a time.

Still, I challenge myself to do just about everything else — I've taken salsa dance classes, ridden on rollercoasters, given campus tours and gone parasailing. I also give motivational speeches, promote organ donation and encourage others to take full advantage of all life has to offer.

On the whole, I've been happy with my time at Princeton. I admire how most professors here are truly interested in their students. Many care not only about my academics, but also about my health and wellbeing. I've had the opportunity to meet some of the most fascinating and sincere people here, and I really believe that most of your learning stems from those around you. On the other hand, I've also encountered people who are more concerned with their social status than with the world around them.

One of the greatest benefits of my experience is the way in which it has enriched my perspective on the value of life. So many people on the heart transplant waiting list I knew have passed away. These people were not as fortunate as I was. They never left the hospital with their transplants. While they could have commiserated (a day in the hospital feels like an eternity — imagine a year), they instead formed a family who looked out for one another and boosted each other's spirits.

I once met a young girl at rehab who was confined to a wheelchair with cancer of the spine and underwent a daily battle with nausea from her chemo treatments. Yet she had no self-pity. She was so selfless that she told my mother I would be okay because she would pray for me.

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All too often I see people consumed with the most trivial things in life. While I myself fall into the same trap at times, I'm more aware of it when it happens and I have to remind myself to put things in perspective. I think young people especially have a tendency to think we're infallible. Yet having stared death in the face, I can clearly see that we are not. To be perfectly frank, I don't know if I will ever need another transplant. I'm not worried about it. I live for the moment rather than preoccupying myself with that possibility. And I worry more for the people who take a semester off because they did not get into their favorite bicker club. Jessica Melore '03 is a psychology major from Branchburg, N.J. She can be reached at jmelore @princeton.edu.