Up to date Feb. 17: Scot Pollard acquired a donor coronary heart and the transplant was a hit, based on his spouse Daybreak.
“Surgery went well and I’ve been told the heart is big, powerful and is a perfect fit!” she posted to X/Twitter.
Pollard was final ready within the ICU at Vanderbilt Medical Middle for a brand new coronary heart because of its well being lowering within the final three years due to a virus he contracted.
Former NBA large man Scot Pollard wants a coronary heart transplant because of a genetic situation that half of his siblings and his father had. Due to his dimension, getting a coronary heart is tougher.
Pollard is 6-foot-11 and weighed 260 kilos when he performed basketball. Few donor hearts can pump blood by way of his physique. If Pollard receives a coronary heart from somebody smaller than him, it may have a fatal outcome. He’s at present within the ICU at Vanderbilt College Medical Middle whereas he waits for one to floor.
“I’m staying here until I get a heart,” Pollard mentioned in a textual content message to The Associated Press on Wednesday night time. “My heart got weaker. [Doctors] agree this is my best shot at getting a heart quicker.”
Samurai Scot performed for 11 seasons on 5 NBA groups in his profession and gained a championship with the Celtics in 2008, although he suffered a season-ending harm in February of that 12 months. Whereas taking part in collegiately for Kansas, he helped lead the Jayhawks to 4 straight Candy Sixteen appearances. He served as a broadcaster and appeared on the truth TV present Survivor after his taking part in days.
Pollard’s coronary heart has been beating an additional 10,000 beats a day, and has seen his well being lower within the final three years. He has talked about up to now that he looks like he’s always strolling uphill. His father died at 54, when Pollard was 16. He’s the youngest of six, and everybody in his household is simply as tall as he’s. A few of his siblings have the identical coronary heart situation. He has at all times recognized that his coronary heart was in danger as he acquired older, since that second his father died.
“That was an immediate wake-up call,” Pollard mentioned in a latest phone interview with AP. “You don’t see a lot of old [7-footers] walking around. So I’ve known that my whole life, just because I had that seared into my brain as a 16-year-old, that — yeah, being tall is great, but I’m not going to see 80.”
As his well being has declined, he has tried medicines and ablations, that are non-surgical procedures the place a catheter is inserted into the guts and tries to interrupt up the alerts which might be inflicting the guts to beat irregularly. He has had a pacemaker put in, however Pollard and his medical doctors agree that the perfect transfer is to get a transplant. To maximise the possibilities of getting a coronary heart rapidly, he was suggested to register for the transplant checklist in as many locations as attainable inside a four-hour radius.
“They can’t predict, but they are confident I’ll get a heart in weeks not months,” he texted to AP.
