stop, that I was killing myself,” she shares.
Then, in August 2018, doctors wanted to implant a left ventricular assist device, a machine that essentially does the work for the left side of the heart. An LVAD is often used before a patient goes on the heart transplant waiting list.
However, there was another obstacle. Tiara needed to lose weight to become eligible for the list.
Working with a nutritionist, she learned to cut out fried and fast foods. She ate more meals at home, many of those including more vegetables than before. She also dabbled in intermittent fasting. Meanwhile, she began the process of getting an LVAD. She received it in March 2019 and continued her weight loss journey.
“I’ll never forget. Her name was Val. I kept the recording all these years, just to remind me what I went through,” she adds. “She called me and she was almost in tears. ‘If you don’t come back to this hospital, please, you have to go somewhere because you’re too sick to live at home at this point. I’m talking to you as a mom. Not as a nurse, not as a medical professional. I’m just talking to you as a mom. You need to get help.’ And so I got right back in the car and went to the University of Michigan Hospital. A few days later, I had my HeartMate 3 LVADTM.”
By April 2021, she’d lost 110 pounds. She’d reached the acceptable range to receive a heart transplant, so the process of getting on the list began.
She received a spot on Oct. 14. Two weeks later, she was hospitalized because of a severe leak of her aortic valve. Doctors feared she would soon need open-heart surgery. Instead, on Nov. 5, she was moved closer to the top of the transplant list. She also was sent home.
The next day, Tiara was waiting in the car while her husband, Gvon, went into a store to get cold medicine for their older daughter when her phone rang. Caller ID showed it was the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor.
“I couldn’t believe it was happening,” she says. “This is what I had worked hard for all this time and now I was going to get a new heart. Even when I got to the hospital, it was hard to process.”
Life after her transplant
Several days after the transplant, Tiara was