As Brooke Norman was about to put her life in the hands of a team of surgeons, a few thoughts came to mind.
There were the natural questions. How much would it hurt? How long would the recovery take? What possible complications lie ahead?
The day of the surgery, Dec. 15, she felt a tinge of anxiety, not unusual for somebody about to undergo a heart transplant.
But the doctors frequently remarked that Brooke’s demeanor was particularly cool and collected.
“They told me they’d never seen anybody this calm,” Brooke told the Register in a recent telephone interview.
A native of Moran, Brooke, 31, said she comes by that comportment naturally. She’s always been curious, remarkably independent and, as the oldest of three sisters, results-oriented.
See a problem. Fix it. Move on.
As for the surgery, “it was good to get some closure,” she said.
Perhaps the bigger reason Brooke was emotionally prepared is because this was not new territory.
It was 6½ years earlier when Brooke’s younger sister, Kayla Norman, had undergone a heart transplant of her own.
“She’s been through it all,” Brooke said. “There were times, as I was laying in the hospital, and there was a procedure coming up, I’d ask Kayla about it. And pretty much everything she’s answered has been spot on.”
“Oh, good,” Kayla responded in a separate interview. “I’m glad I didn’t lead her astray.”
AS THE one-month anniversary of her transplant nears, Brooke is well on her way to recovery,
She was kept in the hospital a few days longer than expected, through Christmas, to ensure her body’s immune system did not reject her new heart — a common concern for young transplant recipients.
