[Locke]

Originally Posted by fotze2

So I wrote this letter to the donor family. Is it too cheezy? It's too cheezy and pandering.

May I?

Its an honour to speak with your family! On December 23, 2025, I was required to have heart surgery to swap out a poorly designed Aortic Valve which I've suffered with from birth, it had gotten clogged up over that time with calcification and poor flow regime over past fifty years. This is a procedure that I was informed was always going to have to happen as I approached fifty, which is when it started getting bad and approaching failure. I could not walk very far without exhaustion and weird pains which as I'm sure you can imagine caused some significant concern. The Doctor and I knew that it was time, and the testing numbers indicated the same thing.

I was then recommended to a surgeon Dr. William Kent who is an absolutely brilliant human being. This type of procedure was indicated to me as being quite recent and not often performed in Calgary until Dr. Kent got the qualifications. The Ross Procedure, as I'm told, is where they take your pulmonary valve and swap it into your Aortic valve that was failing and then replace the pulmonary with...(you might want to expound on this but I cant because I dont know jack about it)

However, unfortunately now I need a pulmonary valve and that’s where you and your loved ones come into the story, they call it a homograft or cadaver valve, which I believe is a macabre, albeit accurate term for that procedure, however it is a clinical and precise term so I guess it makes sense. It always seemed so flippant and disrespectful to the donor in my perspective, but as the beneficiary who gets to survive longer who am I to argue?

I just wanted you to know that it has been a year now and I am doing well, everything went well and the Surgeon told me I am likely good for the rest of my life, and this is all thanks to your family and your sacrifice.

They do not tell me anything about who the donor was but whoever died for me is now a living part of me and for that my family and I are extremely grateful. We are living together they and I, and I am their vessel.

I just want to thank you for your son/daughter/mother/father because they are me now. The ultimate sacrifice for some goof (I'd ditch this, but thats up to you, it might be better for them to feel its gone to a good cause rather than self-deprecation in this particular instance, but thats personal preference) Engineer in Calgary with a faulty heart.

Selfishly I would like to know who I am now a part of but if you have no interest in that, that is completely understandable. Thank you from the bottom of my heart which is being generously and selflessly taken care of by one of your loved ones. I just wanted to express my genuine appreciation of the sacrifice you and your family have so selflessly made on my behalf.

Maybe try some variation on that?