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A Change of Heart - Claire Sylvia

Sometimes Amara [her daughter] had to remind me to get enough rest. For all my love of parties, I used to go to bed fairly early. But alter the transplant I seemed to be turning into a night person. So maybe it’s not surprising that I found myself spending more time with younger people and less time with friends my own age.  I still had my social group from before the transplant, but increasingly, I was attracted to people who were younger than I was. I also noticed that the men who were flirting with me were considerably younger than they used to be.

Perhaps it was my heart, and this new presence that seemed to come with it. Or perhaps I was unknowingly projecting my increased libido - a change that has affected almost every transplant recipient I've known, especially if they received the heart of a younger donor. Once, in the supermarket, I saw a tabloid whose headline read Woman Gets New Heart, Goes Sex Crazy.  It was ridiculous, but it did contain a grain of truth.

As I slowly grew accustomed to this new me, I felt funny being out in the world as a fifty-year-old woman who carried within her the heart and lungs of an eighteen-year old boy.