Hampton assistant coach continues to improve after heart transplant
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Ron Gooden, an assistant football coach at Hampton High School.
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Ron Gooden, an assistant football coach at Hampton High School, slept through Thanksgiving last year, but this year promises to be a different story.
The 55-year-old spent turkey day recovering from a heart transplant.
Mr. Gooden was able to enjoy a turkey dinner three days after Thanksgiving, but his fiancee's mother told him that everyone would celebrate the holiday this year as his second birthday -- celebrating the day he was given a second chance at life.
It's been three months since the operation, and Mr. Gooden has continued to improve and return to a normal life, visiting with friends, eating what he wants and walking two miles daily.
For him, every day has seemed like Thanksgiving.
"I'm very blessed to be given a gift of life that is so very important," he said. "I feel better. You don't realize how sick you are until you start feeling well."
The 12-year veteran of the coaching staff knew he had hereditary congestive heart failure and that he was battling a condition that had shortened his father's life and is shared by his sister, Brenda Howze, who lives in Buffalo, N.Y.
It was about a year ago during an examination at Allegheny General Hospital when the doctor told him, "You are a very sick man. Your heart is not doing well at all."
Mr. Gooden already had a pacemaker and defibrillator in place, but that was the first time the word transplant was mentioned. Afterward, doctors implanted an intravenous pump that delivered a dose of medication every 15 seconds.
He had informed his colleagues about his condition but hadn't told his players. When players reported to training camp in August, the team noticed the pump and could hear the machine working.
Then in September, a heart pump was installed.
"When I spoke with the surgeons, right before I got the heart pump, the doctor asked if I would donate my heart for research," he said. They wanted to study a heart that had worked so well so long, even though it had grown to the size of a softball. He agreed.
First Published February 16, 2012 6:02 am
