Eric De La Cruz Makes the "List" for a New Heart

This was posted by Veronica De La Cruz on Twitter today:

Eric has not been doing well. He has a tube in his chest and cannot speak. I have been a total mess. He has been undergoing some pretty rigorous testing; on a lot of meds and not completely coherent. He notices when we are in the room and he looks a little startled. My mom says its hard for her to be in the room because she doesn’t like to see her son like that. I keep telling her to be stronger so he knows we are behind him 100%...

I’m trying really hard to keep it together but its been increasingly difficult. On a good note, they finally listed Eric today. He is status "1a," so he is now on the list for a heart. When (they) told me I started crying hysterically, I’ve been such an emotional mess. Waterworks…waterworks. I finally just went to the bathroom to wash my face because my mom was tired of looking At my mascara stained eyes and cheeks. So there you have it. He is on the list.

We made it to another milestone.

I only wish Eric was better so he could celebrate with us. All I ask now is that you please help us pray/hope — for Eric to get better and for a new heart to arrive.

These are the words of a loving sister at the point of emotional exhaustion. She has been campaigning tirelessly, trying to beat the odds and help her younger brother survive.

"He has not been doing well."

All of us who have sat in an I.C.U. with a family member on the narrow fence between life and death know how this feels. You keep hoping they will make it, but you fear the worst, even as you hope for the best.

I remember my frantic flight to Michigan 33 years ago after my mother suffered a brain aneurysm. With me was my wife and my infant daughter, and all I could think was, "would my child ever get to know her grandmother?"

Mom was in a coma when I arrived and I freaked out. I screamed at her to wake up, for what seemed like hours. Somehow, she did. It had been an unconsciousness not caused by the blood clot on her brain but by an adverse reaction to a drug they had given her.

Ten years ago, I again raced to a hospital, this time in Florida, in the middle of the night before my father was to have first met my youngest daughter, then barely two months old.

He'd suffered a massive stroke. He did not survive the night and he never met his granddaughter.

My sympathy and empathy is with Veronica and her family tonight. It can go either way, but her brother is still so young (27) that if he gets a heart, he should survive. Of course, it will be a bittersweet situation because someone's healthy heart has to stop beating soon for Eric to survive.

Life is full of such tragedies and ironies. Congratulations to the Twitter community, "Eric's Army," which at least has given this young man a chance to continue his life.

May the energy they've generated carry over to press for reform the U.S. health care system. Because it never should be this hard to save a life.

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