At the heart of gratitude
Simple acts of kindness lifted Tonya and Larry Hedleston during one of the lowest points of their lives.
It was 2012 and although Larry had undergone a quadruple bypass in a Beaumont hospital two years earlier, he had never fully recovered. He had been unable to participate in the prescribed cardiac rehabilitation program, and he felt terribly weak. As he lay in the ICU, Tonya knew he needed a higher level of care. She asked that the hospital transfer him to a Houston hospital – any hospital – where she believed the care would be better. Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center answered the call.
Larry’s new care team implanted a left ventricular assist device to buy Larry time. But the long-term prognosis was hard to hear – Larry would need a new heart. Soon.
Tonya remembers how the team worked to cheer Larry, starting with a picture she had brought of their beloved dogs.
“We had that picture, and it was like a security blanket for Larry,” Tonya remembers. “So that whenever he would open his eyes he could see that and recognize something familiar. And when he got his heart transplant, I asked the nurse, would you just put this somewhere he can see it? When I went in to see him, they had put it on the ceiling. That is caring.”
One of his nurses also insisted that Larry celebrate his birthday from his hospital bed. “The nurses on that floor were just amazing,” Tonya says. “I was so worried, because he had been so depressed, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know. Do we celebrate, do we ignore it?” Tonya decided to pick up some cake and balloons, and when she returned to Larry’s room, one of his night nurses was waiting.
“She was so precious,” Tonya says. “She knew I was a little hesitant, dealing with the whole thing. She got everyone gathered up, went in there and just kind of woke him up to sing to him. And it just ended up being a great night.”
It was later that night Larry received the call that would change his life.
“I always remember because it was my birthday,” Larry says. “That was my birthday, and you don’t get those but once in a lifetime, I don’t think. But I got a pretty good God.”
Larry was on a call with someone else and initially didn’t answer the incoming call. “I was on the phone with a home health nurse when a staff person came in and asked if I was going to answer my phone. I said, ‘I’m on my phone’ and they said, you might want to take this call!”
After his transplant, Larry made swift progress and was quickly moved out of the intensive care unit. Tonya is certain the compassionate care he received each step of the way played a role in his recovery. Today he and Tonya lead active lives.
“Every morning I would come in and he was already clean, shaved, hair washed, breakfast eaten,” Tonya says. “If you’re clean that makes you feel good. That really impressed me a lot. He looked good every morning and he was in a good mood.”
It was that level of personalized care that has motivated the Hedlestons to make generous gifts annually since 2020 in support of the transplant program at Baylor St. Luke’s. Their giving funds education and training activities for members of the transplant team.
Larry’s cardiologist Dr. Reynolds Delgado calls this type of support critical to the team’s continued growth.
“They go to meetings and they learn invaluable information,” Delgado says.
Delgado is deeply appreciative of the Hedlestons’ generosity, noting that the type of care Larry received then and that patients receive today is the result of excellent surgeons, strong hospital leadership, innovative work and a supportive nursing team.