Jeff Peyton's Life-Saving Transplant Recovery

Waiting for a new heart is killing me. My name is Jeff Peyton. I'm a newspaper publisher and, until a few weeks ago, an avid traveler who absolutely lived for the next big adventure. Since a massive heart attack just before Christmas, I'm limited to whatever my Life Vest allows (which isn't much!).

While working my way through the protocols for getting onto the waiting list for a new heart and kidney (did I mention that saving my heart wiped out my kidneys?), and I've learned that I will be hospitalized post-transplant for two or three months, and probably not allowed to work for two or three months after that. I never imagined myself someone who needs to ask for help like this, but I don't know how my wife and I will cover our basic living expenses while we go through this.

Don't get me wrong - I am grateful to be alive. I will be forever thankful that one benefit of my time in the US Army will be no charge for my $2 million transplant surgery. But while the VA has my transplant and recovery covered, they don't cover the car payments, phone bills or rent checks I won't be able to write.

Timing is apparently everything. By 2019, Elaina and I had built up a pretty solid emergency fund. Our plan was to be comfortable for six months between jobs. In late 2019, we moved back home to Hershey, PA, to be near friends and family. I had a great job lined up, and a nice condo rented a few blocks from our daughter's house. Then COVID hit, the state locked down, the job went away, and, oh yeah, I had a cardiac emergency that led to a pacemaker, and a year later our extremely stretched emergency fund was gone.

Since then, we've been just ahead of paycheck to paycheck. What little we've been able to save will not come close to what we need to go six months without income.

The hardest part isn't the medical side at all. It's having to ask for help. This is the part where GoFundMe wants to tell you that I've been a very generous and decent person, and that I deserve your financial support. The truth is, I've been extremely generous to causes that matter to me - the Lebanon Community Theater and SARCC Lebanon (Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center) are two examples that come to mind. But those were gifts - the return on investment was in people's lives, not some future quid pro quo.

Still, here I am, asking for your help. If you can, please donate to my fundraiser. If you can't, please share my story with your friends and family. I blog weekly at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreypeyton/ and I will keep updating you here as well.

Thank you, and God bless!