Hope remains while there is will and love.

After his ICD operation and 3 weeks Daiki was able to leave the hospital and come home. However, after a magical week together he was readmitted after suffering from chest and stomach pains and bruising. Returning to the hospital itself was like a kick to the stomach.

After another month Daiki was referred to Osaka University Hospital in order to have more specialist, professional care. Turns out poor little Hiroshima didn’t have to capacity or know how be able to deal with this rare heart condition. Roughly,148 people are diagnosed out of 100,000 people per year world wide with DCM (according to Clinical Key.com) . Of people with this disease only in very severe cases require a heart transplant. Daiki’s was the worst case of DCM that the doctors had seen (we laugh now that he always has to be no.1 in anything he does). But hope remains while there is the will and love.

To date Daiki has now gone through the second largest challenge of this journey and had an artificial heart operation. お疲れ様でした indeed. Although the operation was ‘a living hell’ and did not go as smoothly as I had thought, he is now recovering and adapting well to his new Heart mate Ⅱ.

No regrets

Daiki believes having an Artificial heart was the best option as it will allow him to leave the hospital and live a better standard of life. Now he seems to want to break some kind of world record for being the fastest person to be acquitted from hospital after an operation haha, but we’ll see.

Although this journey will never really end and we will have lots of challenges to face in the future Daiki, me and his family are doing the best we can everyday. As Daiki will from now be required to live within 2 hours of the hospital I decided to move to Osaka to be with him. I quit my job and moved into a temporary flat near the hospital recently. It took about a month to move everything out of our old apartment but I am grateful to Daiki’s mom and dad for their indispensable help. Once out of the hospital Daiki is not allowed to be alone so his mother will live with us in order to help care for him.

There is nothing like a tragedy to bring people together. Two positive things have arisen out of Daiki’s illness. One is the bond I now share between him and his family.

Alone we are only as strong as our minds allow us to be, but together, reunited, we are limitless.

Secondly, me and Daiki have a new found appreciation for the small things in life which normal people can not realize. For example; the joy of being able to walk, a stroll outside just the two of us, a home cooked meal, the smell of the kinmokusei on the breeze during autumn, the fragility and preciousness of good health, friends and life etc.

First time allowed outside of the hospital without nurses.
First time to use Heart mate vest belt too.

Daiki continues to be an inspiration to all and my hero. However, although he would never say he needs your encouragement. Please cheer him on, support and share his blog, sending only positive energy our way.

Thank you for reading and for the all good vibes. We feel blessed to have such a supportive family and friends.