General Discussion

pnwmom

(108,980 posts) Fri Dec 6, 2019, 06:28 PM Dec 2019

How an ICU nurse adopted a 27 yr old homeless autistic man so he'd qualify for a heart transplant.

https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=27618

After passing out and ending up in the hospital last year, 27-year-old Jonathan Pinkard learned that he needed a heart transplant — but that he couldn't go on the transplant list because he was homeless and had no support system to help him recover. "It was a pretty scary situation to be in," Pinkard told The Washington Post. "I had no idea what I was going to do." But when he met 57-year-old ICU nurse Lori Wood, who had been assigned to care for him, his life changed forever: Wood invited him to come live with her. Today, following Wood's adoption of Pinkard last summer, the pair are officially mother and son, and Wood has been honored by the hospital for her dedication to ensuring Pinkard received the care he needed. "He would have died without the transplant," she asserted to Today. "I had to help him. It was a no-brainer."

Pinkard, who is autistic, had been working as an office clerk and living in a men's shelter in Warm Springs, Georgia when he had his health crisis. His grandmother, who had been his guardian, had passed away in 2012, and with his mother in a rehab facility, he had no family support. That made him ineligible for the transplant list, explains Anne Paschke, spokesperson for United Network for Organ Sharing.

"If you get a transplant and don’t take your immunosuppressive drugs, you’re going to lose it," she points out. "They’re going to look at things like do you show up for appointments and follow doctors orders?" For someone like Pinkard, with an unstable living situation and no help, following the complex post-transplant drug regimen and recovery instructions would be almost impossible.

Wood first met Pinkard last December when another health crisis landed him back at Piedmont Newnan Hospital near Atlanta. In 35 years of nursing, Woods has always kept her personal and professional lives separate, but Pinkard's case gnawed at her. "That can be very frustrating if you know a patient needs something, and for whatever reason they can’t have it or receive it," Wood observes in a video shared on the hospital's Facebook page.

SNIP