Incredible

Troy Golden is a man living without a heart!  The sentence of the day Tuesday.

I met Troy and his family at a press conference at Integris Baptist Hospital.

This man, a pastor, is about to become only the second person ever in the U.S. to be able to leave a hospital with a completely artificial heart!  He shows a flatline on hospital monitors, but he's walking around and will soon walk right out the door.

This picture to the left is the Total Artificial Heart, the device now keeping Troy alive.

Incredible.  Technology is so amazing.  He will still have to carry around a "Freedom Driver" which is basically an air compressor in a backpack that keeps the artificial heart pumping.  Isn't this crazy... it has a car charger so he can plug in to the car if his battery is low. 

The picture here is of the freedom driver.  This is what Troy will use.  Right now he's connected to the big machine seen on the left side of the first picture.  That machine weighs about 415 pounds.  The Freedom Driver weighs about 13 pounds.

Troy had a great sense of humor and told us that he just wasn't ready to die yet.  He had too much left to do.  He said that he has written a lot of sermons during his time at the hospital and can't wait to be able to deliver them to the congregation he works with in Geary.