Please Support Tim's Need for a Second Transplant

Whether you call him Tim, Bam, or even Doc from his time with the Marines, everyone he meets calls him a friend. Tim Bammes is the kind of guy you want in your corner. No matter what you need, Tim says YES and then pours his heart into it 10000%.

Tim received his first heart transplant on 03/20/2020 at age 35 when he went into sudden onset cardiac failure. With no personal or family history of cardiac issues, this rocked Tim's world, particularly when doctors determined he would need a new heart. Thankfully, he received his new heart after only 7 days on the transplant list and recovered remarkable well.

Since then, Tim has led a relatively normal and active life, thankfully every day for the second chance he was given. He has traveled, including his bucket list trip of a lifetime spending a month in Italy and continued his work supporting the VA Mental Health Service.

With virtually no immune system, Tim caught the flu In February of this year and his heart went into minor rejection and was hospitalized for several weeks at the Indiana University Hospital in Indianapolis. Doctors continued to monitor him as he seemingly bounced back to normal - that is until November 20 when his world literally stopped moving.

While working at one of his company's developments (more about that below), Tim collapsed. His heart stopped and he stopped breathing. Thankfully his mom, Veronica and one of his team members, Jose, were nearby and immediately began CPR while 911 was called. Paramedics arrived 10 minutes later and took over. It took the team some time to get his heart beating and he was immediately transported to IU.

The IU Team determined Tim was in advanced heart rejection and complete cardiac failure. Unable to get Tim's heart to work on its own, the cardiac miracle workers at IU put Tim on ECMO Therapy (Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) which is a life-support treatment that temporarily takes over the function of a patient's heart and lungs. ECMO is used when a patient's heart or lungs are too sick or weak to function on their own. The team also began the five-day process of Therapeutic Plasma Exchange (TPE), a procedure in which the plasma in your blood is removed and replaced with new plasma and other fluids (think oil change but for humans!). The goal of TPE is to remove any foreign antibodies causing the rejections.

Tim had a battle ahead of him. For two days his heart refused to function on its own. He remained in a coma and on 100% life support. Doctors did not think he would survive and had to shock his heart more than 30 times in those first two days. The prognosis at that point was that even if Tim survived, he would not be a candidate for a new heart and would be sent to Palliative Care until his heart finally gave out. There were also concerns about whether Tim had lost significant blood flow/oxygen to his brain causing any cognitive issues.

ECMO did its job to keep his heart and lungs working while the TPE started to do its thing and then on Day 3, there were signs of Tim's heart starting to work on its own. Each day Tim's heart and lungs worked a bit more on their own and it was finally time to wake him up. Even though he was still on ventilation and had a bunch of tubes in his mouth and nose, Tim was able to respond to commands with his eyes, hands and head and it was clear he was cognitively OK.

Once he completed the 5 days of plasma exchange, Tim's heart was working primarily on its own and doctors began scaling back and ultimately removing the ECMO and ventilation equipment. This was nothing short of a miracle. Doctors who had little hope previously were reinvigorated at the possibility of what could be next. More and more testing, combined with Tim's unrelenting progress revealed that he could be a candidate for a re-transplant. We were all cautious to get our hopes up as much more testing needed to happen. Over the following week, Tim continued to progress and got stronger by the day.

Doctors finally reported that while Tim remained in a state of rejection and failure, they identified a significant amount of damage to his heart as a result of all of the trauma, and he was now a candidate for re-transplant, Hallelujah!! Light at the end of the tunnel.

Over the following week, Tim underwent several surgeries including a stent for the repair of a left superficial femoral artery pseudoaneurysm and the implantation of an ICD or Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator into the left upper chest, which is a small, battery-powered device that's surgically implanted in the chest to monitor and regulate the heart's rhythm. The ICD detects abnormal heartbeats and delivers electric shocks to restore a regular rhythm. Having the ICD in place buys a little time while Tim goes through the lengthy process of getting on the transplant list and gives a little peace of mind that should his heart stop again, the device will kick in while we await paramedics.

With the ICD in place, and his heart stabilized, Tim was amazingly discharged from the hospital on December 6 to rest and await his transplant at home. He is currently scheduled to report for his pre-transplant procedures on December 30.

One catch in all of this is that Tim's transplant will be at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, about 5 hours from his home in Indianapolis. Fortunately, Vanderbilt University has one of the best known and highest quality transplant programs. Unfortunately, this will cause Tim and his mom to have to relocated for about 3 months to the Nashville area.

With Tim unable to work, the loss of income in his new business alongside his mom has had a huge financial impact. That loss, combined with now needing to establish a temporary residence in Nashville (while still maintaining his residence in Indianapolis), for 3-4 months and all of the costs associated with that, is the reason for this Go Fund Me Fundraiser. Nashville is crazy expensive, and he is required to be there for a minimum of 3 months post-transplant for weekly testing, appointments, and cardiac rehab. Tim needs our help and is asking for your support to help cover the additional expenses of travel, housing, meals and additional expenses over the next several months.

Tim and his family is so thankful for your support prayers and well wishes! Please help spread the word about Tim's journey.