W<$c$>ell-loved Bermuda heart transplant recipient Calvin Ming will celebrate the 14th anniversary of his successful surgery tomorrow. He is one of the two survivors in a group of 14 patients that received heart transplants around the same time. Ironically doctors had deemed he and the other survivor the two least likely to make it. “We were the two worst cases,” he said.

Today Mr. Ming leads a full life working as a Senior Probation Officer with Court Services and continuing to be active in his much loved Salvation Army Band. He has not suffered any major complications since the surgery but may now have to be fitted with a pacemaker.

Next week he will return to Pittsburgh Presbyterian University Hospital where he had the transplant and where he goes once a year for a check-up.

“I am going up for an assessment for a pacemaker,” he said.

Mr. Ming said doctors had wanted him to have a pacemaker inserted three months after the transplant. “But I wanted to try to work at conditioning the heart and give it a chance to work in my body,” he said. “It was a challenge for me.”

And a challenge Mr. Ming is today happy that he faced.

He is a fervent believer that patients should listen to their body and play an active role in their healthcare. “It is vitally important that you do what is right for you,” he said. “Know your body.”

Taking heed of his own advice, Mr. Ming said he has been feeling very tired for the last year. This is an indication that the heart is not pumping blood efficiently and tests have shown the electrical impulses in his heart have declined.

He said the tiredness has meant he no longer exercises. “I used to walk several miles a day and go to the gym two or three times a week. I don’t do any of that now. I am simply too tired.

“But most of all I cannot play my instrument the way that I would like to,” he said. Mr. Ming plays the coronet in the Salvation Army Band and while he still attends weekly practice on Tuesday nights, he would like to be able to blow harder.

He said a pacemaker, which is a mechanical device to ‘jump start’ the heart, will at this stage improve his quality of life.

“My work schedule has not abated since the operation,” he admits. “What can you do? You see a need and you do your best to do your part in fulfilling that need.”

In addition to his 9-5 work day Monday to Friday, on Monday evenings he feeds the homeless, on Tuesday nights has Band practice, on Wednesday nights he helps teach a course at Bermuda College and on Thursday attends to business that crops up during the week. He sets Friday nights aside for family that often includes playing with his three- and five-year-old grandsons — quite hectic. Such a schedule might tire those with perfectly healthy hearts.

Strong in his Christian faith, he is confident all will go well if tests determine he needs a pacemaker.

“I’ll undergo four to five days of testing, including stress tests, electrocardiograms and electrophysiology,” he said. “Then if I need a pacemaker they’ll do the procedure there and then. It’s so common a procedure today that surgeons can almost do it blindfolded,” he said.

“They know exactly what they are doing and I am confident about the surgery. I don’t know how my body will respond but I am confident God didn’t bring me this far to give up on me.”