Laois man tells heart transplant journey - 'I am not just alive, I am living' -

My name is Nick Hines, I am a secondary school teacher. Originally from Minnesota, I had the chance to complete my practice teaching in Ireland in the early 2000s, while on that placement, I met my wife Tracey, and a year later we were married.

That was 22 years ago now and we have two grown sons and a teenage daughter.

Time is funny, 22 years seems plenty in some respects, but when you are told your time is up, it seems like a flash. I am here because I received a heart from an organ donor. I’d like to tell you a little bit about how I came to require this remarkable gift and how it has changed my relationship with time.

Growing up in Minnesota, I was always active, winter skating and playing ice hockey and in the summer swimming and playing baseball and basketball. As I grew older, moved to Ireland and started a family I did not slow down, continuing basketball, hiking and running.

In February 2020, seemingly out of nowhere, I had a mild stroke that brought me into the hospital, where a number of tests uncovered heart failure. I was treated with medicine and had a defibrillator fitted as a backstop. Within the year of getting my ICD I had a major ventricular fibrillation and dropped off of my chair at the dinner table on a Sunday afternoon in front of my wife and daughter, there was zero warning or indication that this was coming.

The thing is, my heart failure was asymptomatic, inwardly its function was in decline while outwardly to me and the world I was fine. My other systems were in overdrive, compensating and adapting to the low output from my heart. Living with the knowledge that at any moment you can leave it all without warning impacted me and my family immensely. I lived for three
years with the knowledge that the ‘rug’ could be pulled at a moment’s notice.

Each night I would assess my day in detail while trying to sleep and consider the implications of my not waking up. You have a bad day, have an argument, forget to do something or tell someone something, there is a fear that settles over you as you try to sleep; ‘please let me get another day, not tonight.’

Then you wake up and the scramble begins to make it a good one. MORE BELOW PICTURE.

Nick with his daughter Molly at the launch of Organ Donation Week.

Thoughts of the future or even next month disappear. One’s relationship with time is completely altered. The inspirational phrase – live each day like your last takes its toll on all aspects of life when it is your reality. My daughter was 10 years old when this reality became apparent to she and my wife that Sunday afternoon.

In September 2023, three years after that stroke, three years living that way I was walking my bins out to the road before school and I couldn’t breathe or move, I had ‘gone off the cliff’ as one doctor put it.

I remember thinking, this is it. I got to A&E that morning where it was decided that I could no longer live with my native heart, transplantation was the only hope. I was referred to the Mater and called after a week for an assessment and they deemed me ready for a workup to check my eligibility for receipt of a heart. 

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As they tested me they uncovered more and more problems.  The plan was get listed and go back to work and life and be called when a suitable donor came along. As I was my eligibility was in question, I began to consider returning home to be with my loved ones before I would die.

My doctors planned and implemented a strategy to treat my heart aggressively enough that I could get on the list and stay on the list, it worked! 

I remained in CCU Mater with the finest of care until an offer came. It did, I was woken up by my coordinator and told I had a donor, later the surgeon arrived and asked me, do you know what is happening? I said I did, but in reality, I had no idea
what this would mean for me and my family.

I have now passed a year with my transplant; I am not just alive, I am living. The expanse of time the thought of tomorrow and the wonder of how my children will continue on in this world is an emotion that I can now conceive; the concerns, the
joys and the hopes are things I can share in now in a real way.

For me to have this liberation of time -this new life, I have tried to calculate the volume of contributors; nurses, carers, dietitians, cleaners, psychologists, doctors, surgeons, physios, secretaries and coordinators, numbering in excess of over 300
professionals who had such compassion and dedication to their work my recollections of the process of transplantation are positive in the main.

None of it means anything, however, without one person’s selfless act. My donor and their family.

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Now, when I have a bad day, I thank my donor and family that I will have the time to heal it, and when the day is good, I thank my donor and family for the joy.

Thank you to the Irish Heart and Lung Transplant Association and the Irish Kidney Association for having me here today to share in my journey.

To find out more about how you can help read MORE BELOW PICTURE.

Nick told his story at Organ Donor Awareness Week 2025 (May 10th–17th) which was was officially launched at the Mansion House, Dublin, on Tuesday, May 6th, with a powerful national call to action “Don’t Leave Your Loved Ones in Doubt”.

Organised by the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) with support from the HSE’s Organ Donation Transplant Ireland (ODTI) office, the campaign shines a spotlight on the life-changing impact of organ donation for transplantation and the role that families play in ensuring that your wishes are carried out. www.ika.ie/donorweek/

With over 600 people currently on transplant waiting lists for organs including the heart, lung, liver, kidney, and pancreas, and over 500 of these waiting for a kidney transplant alone, the need for a national conversation about organ donation has never been more urgent.

Lots more HERE