E.R. Nurses is the 2021 book of over 100 personal stories of E.R. nurses all over the United States. Victoria Lindsay served in the US Navy as a gunner’s mate for several years before she left and decided to become a nurse. She began working with heart-transplant patients and now specializes in cardiothoracic surgery nursing.
Lindsay gives a first-person account of a special incident with Ken, a patient, who she is prepping for a heart transplant. She advises him he now needs a serious change in lifestyle:
“‘Whatever you were doing before, you need to really come at it from different points and change. You need to be able to eat healthy and exercise to the best of your ability.’
“Ken nods in agreement, but he doesn’t know what I do.
“Not everyone who gets a new heart actually takes care of it. I’ve seen heart transplants ruined pretty quickly over a few years because patients didn’t control their diabetes. They end up basically throwing the whole … heart away.
“I’ve had heart-transplant patients come back in and say: ‘You know what? I’m just not going to take my immuno-suppression medication anymore.’
“And I say: ‘You do realize someone died for you, right? That this heart you’ve got could have gone to anyone a little bit healthier or younger – someone who could have done something more with their life. But it was given to you, and now you don’t want to take your … drugs?'”
As of the book’s publishing in 2021, Ken has followed her advice. Not everyone does. In the same way, some believers and non-believers alike adopt a callous and ungrateful attitude toward a certain Someone who died for them and offered them a new Life.