I Don’t Want to Die!!— The Days a Heart Transplant Survivor Fought to Live

I am weak. I am pathetic.
But I have never once made the wrong choice.

— The morning after I nearly died, I thought to myself:
“This is actually getting interesting.”

“This Is Getting Interesting”

There was a night when my arrhythmia wouldn’t stop.

My heart was raging. I had no idea what would happen in the next moment.

That’s when I felt it for the first time.

Death was truly right in front of me.

I trembled with fear.

I want to see my son grow up.

I want to be happy with my wife.

There’s still so much I haven’t done.

I DON’T WANT TO DIE!!

I’ll be honest. Until that night, I had never once thought “I want to live.”

Before I got sick, I took living for granted. Wake up. Go to work. Eat. Sleep. I never once questioned whether it would continue.

That night, I realized — I actually wanted to live.

I’m embarrassed to say it, but that night was the first time.

The morning after the storm had passed, the world around me was eerily quiet. The hospital air. The light through the window. The sound of the IV drip. Morning had come, as if nothing had happened.

I lay there, thinking vaguely. This is a serious situation. What’s going to happen now? The bills. The money. I was anxious. I felt pathetic. There I was, lying there, unable to do anything.

And yet —

“This is actually getting interesting.”

That’s what I was thinking.

Even I thought it was strange. How could I think “this is interesting” the morning after nearly dying? I was pathetic, weak, and completely helpless.

But I really did think it. It wasn’t bravado.

I just wanted to be the kind of person who could think that way. Maybe I couldn’t accept reality head-on at that moment.

I was watching myself from a slight distance — like watching a TV drama.

“So, what’s going to happen to this main character next?” That’s how I looked at myself.

If I accepted this situation, I would lose. This story is far from over.

A weak man who could still find it “interesting.” That was all I had.

EF12 — A Cliff’s Edge No One Could See

My ejection fraction was 12%.

Normal is 60–70%. It measures how much blood your heart pumps with each beat. I was at less than one-fifth of normal. Medically, I was in the territory of “severe heart failure.” My doctor told me it was remarkable that I could stand and walk.

But I looked completely normal.

The human body is astonishing. Every cell, every nerve, every muscle was working overtime to keep me alive.

Despite the fear of relapse, despite knowing in the back of my mind that I might die — I still looked normal. I could walk outside. I could shop at the convenience store. I could hold a conversation.

So people around me treated me like fragile glass. They asked nothing. Pushed nothing. Just quietly kept their distance.

I understood why. But it still felt wrong. Lonely.

I felt as though I had fallen off the timeline everyone else was living on — left behind by the world.

I wasn’t angry. I didn’t blame anyone. It’s just — I’m here. Living on the edge of a cliff called EF12%. Carrying the reality that I might die, completely alone. And yet the world keeps spinning like nothing is wrong.

That “gap” was the true nature of loneliness.

Not being noticed is not the same as not existing.

Your pain is real. It’s there.

Just like I was there, alive, at EF12%.

Monitoring My Own Heartbeat in the Supermarket

I became afraid of raising my heart rate. So I couldn’t walk.

Not “couldn’t run.” Couldn’t walk.

I went grocery shopping with my wife. Just a regular supermarket nearby.

Walking behind her, I was constantly listening to my own heartbeat.

Is it getting faster?
Does something feel off?
Is it safe to take the next step?
I monitored every single beat.

Standing next to my wife as she picked out vegetables, I was only listening to the sound of my heart. That was my grocery shopping.

My son was two years old at the time. I pushed the stroller around the block. What if something happened right now? He’s only two. If I collapsed, no one could help him. So I couldn’t go far. I just kept circling our neighborhood.

Eventually, I started walking in circles inside our apartment. Six tatami mats wide.

Is this okay? Is this really okay for me?

Days of endless self-questioning. I felt pathetic — paralyzed by arrhythmia, unable to do anything.

Not moving is bad for my body. But moving terrifies me.

I lived inside that contradiction every single day. Until I got the LVAD. It never stopped.

Four Shocks at a Sushi Restaurant

It was a day off. “Why don’t we eat out for a change?” — just an ordinary evening, the kind that happens anywhere.

Just sitting around the same table, laughing together as a family — that was enough. “Today was a good day,” I was thinking.

That’s when it happened.

SHOCK!

An electric charge exploded inside my body. My heart was raging.

SHOCK! Second one. Stay calm. What do I do next?

SHOCK! Third. “Come on, that’s enough...”

SHOCK! Fourth. “Please, just stop...”

My wife immediately called for a staff member. “Excuse me, please call an ambulance.” Her voice was remarkably calm.

She became this way because of me.

As I was carried out on a stretcher, all I could think was: “I’m so sorry for interrupting your meal.” That was the only thought in my head.

The doctor explained later. The cause was “potassium deficiency.” The solution was simple. Eat a banana. Eat an apple. That was it.

Even when it’s life or death, the answer is often surprisingly small.

The hard part isn’t knowing what to do. It’s whether you actually do it or not.

Six and a Half Years with My LVAD

Until my heart transplant, I lived for six and a half years with a Left Ventricular Assist Device — an LVAD.

An LVAD is a device that connects a motor directly to your heart to forcibly pump blood throughout your body when your heart is too weak to do it on its own. I also had a CRT-D implanted. Essentially, my body was kept alive by machines. I was, in every practical sense, a cyborg.

Every morning, the first thing I had to do was switch from the 100V wall outlet to the portable battery I carried with me.

It sounds simple. But it was a ritual that could not, under any circumstances, go wrong. A task I could never let myself get careless about.

My wife was always there for the battery exchange. Even when she was in the middle of cooking, the sound of the knife on the cutting board would suddenly stop — and she would sit down in front of me.

I never asked her to. But she never once treated that moment carelessly. Thanks to her, I never failed the ritual even once.

I carried the LVAD in a special shoulder bag, hanging from my right shoulder down to my left hip. Over time, that spot on my jeans would wear thin and fray.

My own one-of-a-kind patina.

When I see that worn denim, I remember the long, painful — but somehow special — years of waiting.

I was waiting for my turn for a heart transplant. But I could never say “I hope it comes soon.” Because “I hope it comes soon” is the same as saying “I hope someone dies soon.”

So instead, I prayed the opposite.

“I hope you’re happy today.” “I hope you’re healthy today.”

For the donor I had never met, who was certainly alive somewhere right now. I prayed every single day.

If I hadn’t prayed, I don’t think I could have stayed sane.

That is the reality of waiting for a heart transplant.

Thank You for Being Alive

One day, I received a heart transplant.

The day before, I was admitted to the hospital, made all the preparations, and waited for the surgery the next morning. After six and a half years of waiting, the day had finally come. I felt a rush of joy — and at the same time, a guilt I couldn’t quite shake.

I knew where that guilt came from. The donor.

They were loved by so many people. They were worried about. They lived a full life. And now I was taking a piece of that life.

But I chose to believe that the donor had made the decision to donate, and that they had chosen to come to me. I made a promise from the bottom of my heart — to live a life that would make them glad their heart ended up with me.

I took my medication every day. I went to every checkup. But none of those things were what healed me most.

It was my wife’s words: “Thank you for being alive.”

She said it quietly. In that moment, something inside me shifted.

Just being alive is enough.

I had been blaming myself for everything I couldn’t do. Can’t run. Can’t earn enough. Can’t play soccer with my son. The list of failures kept growing. But with those words, the whole list disappeared.

My wife had been by my side for years. She called the ambulance every time my heart acted up. She carried the financial burden with me every month. She raised our son almost entirely on her own. She said those words after living through all of that.

This was not consolation.

That’s why those words cut deeper than any medicine ever could.

The Day 25 Years Ended

I was called into the company on a cold day in late January. When I walked into the conference room, what was waiting for me was an ultimatum.

“We’ve seen no improvement. Starting next month, you’ll be reassigned.”

What? That’s it?

They showed me a pay stub. A 50% cut from my previous salary. I couldn’t believe it. After everything I went through just to come back — this is how it ends?

The “lack of improvement” they cited was real. I knew it. My stamina hadn’t returned. My concentration kept slipping. I kept making mistakes. And the worst part — my lack of composure had shown. A customer had seen it.

When I was a manager, I would have said the same thing to any employee who behaved the way I did. I no longer even knew the basic professional conduct I used to take for granted. I was truly pathetic.

There was nothing left to say.

Everything I had built felt meaningless. Being dismissed like this — I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. I had never been denied like this in my life. It cut deep.

I wanted to say something. But I knew the moment I opened my mouth, I would cry. I didn’t want to hurt myself any further. So I said nothing.

My pride came crashing down with a grinding noise.

I waited for my wife to pick me up. A vending machine was lighting up the ground nearby. It seemed to be saying, “How about a warm coffee?” Late January. Pitch-black sky. Bitter cold. I drank a canned coffee.

I kept replaying everything — what they said, the mistakes I made — over and over in my head.

The regret and shame were so overwhelming that I crushed the can in my hand.

My wife arrived. As I climbed into the car, I said:

“I’m sorry. I tried my best, but I couldn’t do it. I’m going to quit.”

All those years of holding on. I had done everything I could.

Twenty-five years ended in that moment.

The next morning, I submitted my resignation. I said goodbye to a few close colleagues over the phone and walked quietly out the gate. Despite how I felt inside, it was a clear, sunny day. As if the weather was celebrating my new beginning.

I still felt unsettled. But honestly, it felt like a weight had been lifted. The abrupt, forced ending — that’s actually what I needed.

Whatever the circumstances — it was over. Time to live brightly, with the donor’s heart. That’s what I promised myself, and it turned out to be the perfect opportunity to make that vow.

I Was Simply Born

At some point, I asked myself:

Why was I born?

The first answer that came:

I was simply born.

No grand mission. No special meaning. I stopped thinking that way a long time ago.

Just live life with curiosity. Find it interesting. That’s all there is to it.

Giant cell myocarditis. LVAD. Heart transplant. Leaving my job. Starting to write. None of it was chosen. But none of it could be escaped. It all came with me.

Surrender.

That’s how I live — surrendering to fate. Accepting everything without question.

I never made the wrong choice. Every path I walked was the right one.

Life is a blank canvas. You can paint it however you want. Or not at all. Right now, I have things I want to do. So I’ll just do them. The future will follow on its own.

Living today, with the donor’s heart.

Whatever state you’re in right now — I want you to know this:

You, exactly as you are, are wonderful.

Live the way you want to live.

Do that, and good things will find their way to you naturally.

Every day, this heart beats strong.

Every day, I laugh with my family.

Aki

About the author: Aki is a man in his 50s who survived giant cell myocarditis, lived for six and a half years with an LVAD, and received a heart transplant. After his son started university, he ended his 25-year career as a company employee and now writes full-time. He shares his story of illness, recovery, and life on note and WordPress.