Dean Young, New Book & Hopefully, a New Heart Soon...

A few months ago I posted about Dean Young needing a heart transplant.  I had read the letter on by Tony Hoagland about it, but really didn't know much more.  Today I saw an  an article about poet Dean Young and exactly what he's going through and how he needs a heart transplant.  The full article is in here:  The Austin Chronicle, The Heartsick Poet.

There are two things that never leave Dean Young's side – his mobile phone and an odd-looking machine that resembles a piece of carry-on baggage, replete with tubes and amplified sound. Any day, or week, or month, or – God forbid – year, a call could come in on Young's phone that will send him and his wife flying out the door on the way to free themselves from this peculiar machine, its noise, and its assortment of tubes. . .


. . .Trying to negotiate every daily task with a clunky machine is an enormous hassle. "It's like taking a mower with you, or a vacuum cleaner, wherever you go," Young says, raising his voice slightly above the rhythmic tick-tick of the BiVAD. "You get into bed, you try to bathe, you go to the grocery store – you have to take the vacuum cleaner with you."




He has a humorous, wonderful response to all this, but I can only imagine how hard it must be to go through, for him and his family and friends.  Anyway, the article also mentioned his new book has been released--



from Copper Canyon Press. Fall Higher




I will definitely have to check it out as I so enjoyed his book Skid.


~

Other useful information for you--

You can donate to National Foundation for Transplants here.  




By the way, the next time you're getting your license renewed, become an organ donor.  Or sign up here.


(20 people die each day waiting for transplants that can't take place because of the shortage of donated organs.)