Wrapped in blankets from head to toe on the hottest day of the week, Craig Moreno looked at a contraption nicknamed "All Day Sucker" as if it were an annoying but old friend.
"They have a sense of humor here," he said from his bed at Stanford Hospital's coronary care unit, adding a bit of his own: "This is like an oil change."
The 39-year-old Morgan Hill man's body temperature had dipped, the result of All Day Sucker -- a plasmapheresis machine -- cleaning his blood of the antibodies that attacked the transplanted heart he received seven years ago. With treachery and without warning a few months ago, his body started to reject the organ.
"Sometimes they last one year, sometimes they last 15," said Barbara Ellis, a cardiac rehabilitation nurse who dropped in to say hello. "I'd say he's doing fine."
Moreno weighed his middle-of-the pack score.
"I had a good run, but it came quick."
He's actually looking at receiving two more hearts. The first would be a mechanical one as early as next week in San Diego, followed by another human heart later if doctors think he's strong enough.
If everything works out fine, Moreno would reach his 40th birthday with three different hearts.
"Do I think it's unfair and why me?" he asked. "I do have those moments. Mostly I feel sadness because of my son. I'm afraid of leaving him the most."
His son, 8-year-old Aiden, was sleeping on a roll-away cot in the room.
Moreno's wife, Janine, sat by her husband and confessed to having days when she'd like to kick something real hard, but only if nobody's looking.
"I'm the stoic one," she said.
Moreno had a lot of visitors that day. His mother Lois copes by having "a strong faith in God." But his uncle Fred Martinez said he's felt like burning something down once or twice lately.
As for the patient, Moreno plans on doing what he did after his first transplant.
"The doctors couldn't believe it, but he was out there jogging a few weeks after," said Allison Vargas, a friend who grew up with Moreno in the south county town's Paradise Valley neighborhood.
In a hospital garb, Moreno has the slightly diminished look of a husky, lifelong athlete and sports fanatic. He was a star linebacker in Pop Warner football and at Live Oak High. At about the same time he was crushing quarterbacks, he was giving his friends "buzz cuts" and "fades" with a hair clipper and discovering a talent for styling hair.
He looked for other things to do after high school until meeting Janine, also a hairstylist, who just happened to work in the same salon with Vargas. According to Vargas, Moreno was so smitten by Janine he'd show up at the salon two or three times a week for haircuts he didn't need just to flirt with his future wife. He eventually earned a degree in cosmetology and joined the salon.
A few weeks before their marriage in 2001, Moreno began to feel weak, which he blamed on a lack of exercise leading up to the ceremony. Three days into their honeymoon in Hawaii, they discovered it wasn't fatigue when Moreno challenged Janine to a race in the swimming pool and had to be pulled out of the water. Doctors later discovered that a virus had infected his heart, but they could never identify the type or strain.
"We'd get the Nobel Prize for medicine if we found that out," said Ellis, the nurse who attended Moreno after his transplant at Stanford.
As Vargas saw for herself, Moreno jumped back into his old, active life with the heart of a 21-year-old Modesto man who died in an accident. He played tennis and softball, bungee jumped and rode fast motorcycles.
When Aiden started playing soccer -- at age 18 months -- Moreno signed up as a volunteer coach and has been coaching ever since.
"I'll coach anything, you name it."
Moreno even went zip-lining with his mother in Alaska only last year. A boyhood friend, Heath Souza, said Moreno was always willing to volunteer or help someone out of a jam.
"If you needed someone to talk to, Craig was there," Souza said. "If you needed help of any kind, Craig was there."
"I was doing great, doing fine," Moreno said. "Then I got really bad."
After three months at Stanford and about eight dates with All Day Sucker, Moreno's doctors are leaning toward an artificial heart. That means sending him to a hospital in San Diego, where Janine and Aiden would stay at an apartment for patients' families. However, Janine said, the cost is $1,240 a month.
Craig Moreno used up his private health insurance a long time ago. While a special provision under Medicare will cover the transplant, the family must cover housing, transportation and child care. And they might have to give up their rented house in Paradise Valley.
"That's a real possibility," Moreno said.
To help, Vargas has organized a few fundraising events in town over the next several days. These include an all-day "cut-a-thon" on Sunday at the Shear Color and Design salon and a spaghetti dinner at Betsy's Cafe.
Heath Souza, the friend who banged helmets with Moreno in youth football, expects him to bounce back again after the next transplant.
"He's just overcame it, overpowered it and said to himself, 'This isn't going to take me down,' " Souza said. "He's got a big heart even though he needs another one."
"They have a sense of humor here," he said from his bed at Stanford Hospital's coronary care unit, adding a bit of his own: "This is like an oil change."
The 39-year-old Morgan Hill man's body temperature had dipped, the result of All Day Sucker -- a plasmapheresis machine -- cleaning his blood of the antibodies that attacked the transplanted heart he received seven years ago. With treachery and without warning a few months ago, his body started to reject the organ.
"Sometimes they last one year, sometimes they last 15," said Barbara Ellis, a cardiac rehabilitation nurse who dropped in to say hello. "I'd say he's doing fine."
Moreno weighed his middle-of-the pack score.
"I had a good run, but it came quick."
He's actually looking at receiving two more hearts. The first would be a mechanical one as early as next week in San Diego, followed by another human heart later if doctors think he's strong enough.
If everything works out fine, Moreno would reach his 40th birthday with three different hearts.
"Do I think it's unfair and why me?" he asked. "I do have those moments. Mostly I feel sadness because of my son. I'm afraid of leaving him the most."
His son, 8-year-old Aiden, was sleeping on a roll-away cot in the room.
Moreno's wife, Janine, sat by her husband and confessed to having days when she'd like to kick something real hard, but only if nobody's looking.
"I'm the stoic one," she said.
Moreno had a lot of visitors that day. His mother Lois copes by having "a strong faith in God." But his uncle Fred Martinez said he's felt like burning something down once or twice lately.
As for the patient, Moreno plans on doing what he did after his first transplant.
"The doctors couldn't believe it, but he was out there jogging a few weeks after," said Allison Vargas, a friend who grew up with Moreno in the south county town's Paradise Valley neighborhood.
In a hospital garb, Moreno has the slightly diminished look of a husky, lifelong athlete and sports fanatic. He was a star linebacker in Pop Warner football and at Live Oak High. At about the same time he was crushing quarterbacks, he was giving his friends "buzz cuts" and "fades" with a hair clipper and discovering a talent for styling hair.
He looked for other things to do after high school until meeting Janine, also a hairstylist, who just happened to work in the same salon with Vargas. According to Vargas, Moreno was so smitten by Janine he'd show up at the salon two or three times a week for haircuts he didn't need just to flirt with his future wife. He eventually earned a degree in cosmetology and joined the salon.
A few weeks before their marriage in 2001, Moreno began to feel weak, which he blamed on a lack of exercise leading up to the ceremony. Three days into their honeymoon in Hawaii, they discovered it wasn't fatigue when Moreno challenged Janine to a race in the swimming pool and had to be pulled out of the water. Doctors later discovered that a virus had infected his heart, but they could never identify the type or strain.
"We'd get the Nobel Prize for medicine if we found that out," said Ellis, the nurse who attended Moreno after his transplant at Stanford.
As Vargas saw for herself, Moreno jumped back into his old, active life with the heart of a 21-year-old Modesto man who died in an accident. He played tennis and softball, bungee jumped and rode fast motorcycles.
When Aiden started playing soccer -- at age 18 months -- Moreno signed up as a volunteer coach and has been coaching ever since.
"I'll coach anything, you name it."
Moreno even went zip-lining with his mother in Alaska only last year. A boyhood friend, Heath Souza, said Moreno was always willing to volunteer or help someone out of a jam.
"If you needed someone to talk to, Craig was there," Souza said. "If you needed help of any kind, Craig was there."
"I was doing great, doing fine," Moreno said. "Then I got really bad."
After three months at Stanford and about eight dates with All Day Sucker, Moreno's doctors are leaning toward an artificial heart. That means sending him to a hospital in San Diego, where Janine and Aiden would stay at an apartment for patients' families. However, Janine said, the cost is $1,240 a month.
Craig Moreno used up his private health insurance a long time ago. While a special provision under Medicare will cover the transplant, the family must cover housing, transportation and child care. And they might have to give up their rented house in Paradise Valley.
"That's a real possibility," Moreno said.
To help, Vargas has organized a few fundraising events in town over the next several days. These include an all-day "cut-a-thon" on Sunday at the Shear Color and Design salon and a spaghetti dinner at Betsy's Cafe.
Heath Souza, the friend who banged helmets with Moreno in youth football, expects him to bounce back again after the next transplant.
"He's just overcame it, overpowered it and said to himself, 'This isn't going to take me down,' " Souza said. "He's got a big heart even though he needs another one."
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