Update on Dean Young

It's from the Austin Chronicle, an article by Amy Smith entitled "The Heartsick Poet" --

There are two things that never leave Dean Young's side – his mobile phone and an odd-looking machine that resembles a piece of carry-on baggage, replete with tubes and amplified sound. Any day, or week, or month, or – God forbid – year, a call could come in on Young's phone that will send him and his wife flying out the door on the way to free themselves from this peculiar machine, its noise, and its assortment of tubes.

Young, a poet who teaches at the University of Texas, is on the waiting list for a heart transplant. Under normal circumstances, Young and his wife, Laurie Saurborn, who is also a writer, might be popping the cork on a bottle of bubbly to celebrate this month's release of his new poetry collection, Fall Higher (Copper Canyon). "I have a special feeling for this book," he says, thumbing through an early release that he's laying eyes on for the first time. The poems, most of them written three years ago, have a different "kind of music" to them. Writing, he says, usually comes easily for him. But he's had a few other distractions that have taken up his time.

He has spent the last four months tethered to a biventricular assist device, a mobile apparatus that weighs about 50 pounds and stands roughly 18 inches high. If you have a "pissant" heart like Young's (his words), the BiVAD is a 24/7 necessity. Strangely enough, even Dick Cheney, the famously unpopular former vice president, has a stronger heart than the popular poet. Like Young, Cheney also has an implanted "assist," but only on one side of his heart. "Mine is on both sides," says Young, cheerfully one-upping the war hawk.

To read the article in its entirety, click here.

Online donations can be made at www.transplants.org/donate/deanyoung.

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