Hallettsville native celebrates one-year anniversary of transplant

February is National Heart Awareness Month, and one Hallettsville native is celebrating his one-year anniversary of his heart transplant.

Richard Bludau had heart failure one year ago and he didn’t know what was about to be in store for him.

“I really didn’t know I needed a heart transplant at first,” Bludau said. “Back in November of 2023, I developed a dry cough. It was persistent. I went to three walk-in clinics and an emergency room. The diagnosis was upper respiratory bronchitis, and they gave me antibiotics. I wasn’t sleeping very much, and I could tell I was a little short of breath. At first, they thought it was the medicine I was taking. We kept going along and I could tell I felt a little bloated in my stomach. Finally, on New Years Eve, my wife and I decided to go to my deer lease on my river bottom and spend the night down there. I built a fire, cut some wood, and it was a nice and peaceful time. Then on New Years Day, that morning, I told my wife that something wasn’t right.”

“I made an appointment with my doctor’s office in Victoria. They did a lot of tests, and they had to admit me. I had heart issues. Unknowingly, that was the beginning of the end. They did tests on my arteries and that turned out to be crystal clear with nothing wrong with that. Then, they did the echocardiogram, and they found out my ejection factor was really low at 13 and it’s supposed to be at 55 or 60. A virus had attacked my heart.”

A low ejection factor typically means you have or are at risk of heart failure. Bludau then made an appointment in Houston on Jan. 9 in 2024.

“They told me there that I have two options,” Bludau said. “Option one was that I die, or option two was that I get a heart. I’ve never had a heart problem before. I’ve never smoked, did drugs, or dipped. I’m not obese either, I was healthy.”

The doctors told Bludau that this was one of the largest hearts that they’ve seen. This was all new to Bludau and he knew things would change.

“This was all very much surprising, I was like ‘wow,’” Bludau said.

During this time, there was a freeze. Bludau’s doctors were supposed to meet on a medical review board to approve him to be on the transplant list. They couldn’t meet the first week due to the freeze.

“It postponed the process for a few days,” Bludau said. “Once they met, I was approved. When I got on the transplant list, I was at a status five. This wasn’t much of a rush. However, they did put a pump in me to help my heart. My heart was not going to make it.”

Bludau found out in hindsight that he would have had two weeks to live without the pump.

“When they did the pump, I was bed stricken,” Bludau said. “I was now in the mercy of a donor. There was no guarantee. As general people, we don’t know what it all entails. It was overwhelming and frightening. I was filled with depression and sadness, but there were a lot of prayers. The whole community of Hallettsville and Shiner had prayed. It’s a testament that this world isn’t as bad as people say it is, there’s a lot of love and care.”

While Bludau was bed stricken, he lost about 40 pounds in less than 30 days. Bludau said he predicted that by Jan. 31 of that year that he would get a heart. Why? Because that was the day his dad passed away 20 years ago.

Turns out, about five minutes after midnight before that day, they told Bludau that they found a heart in Alabama.

“That just showed me that my parents didn’t want me just yet to be there with them up in heaven,” Bludau said. “The words can’t describe how I feel for the donor and the family. It lays in the back of my head that I’m here because somebody else is not. It’s truly hard to believe that I have something else inside of my body that wasn’t original.”

Once the doctors examined the heart and said it was a match, they had Bludau in the surgery room preparing him for the transplant.

“It didn’t feel like a very long time,” Bludau said. “My family saw the doctors come in with the heart in a cooler. About five hours later, I woke up in the recovery room. I then thought I was a living miracle. In just six hours later, I was walking in the hospital. I had been asked if I felt different with a new heart. Physically, I didn’t feel a difference; however, spiritually I did.”

It took about 9 days for Bludau to leave the hospital after his transplant. Bludau then stayed at a medical housing facility for about a little over a month.

“I had to be close by the hospital,” Bludau said. “I had issues with the body accepting the heart, so I did have to go back to the hospital for IV treatment. After that first incident, everything worked out good and I never went back to the hospital.”

It took Bludau about four months to return to his job.

“I’ve been fully back to work since last June,” Bludau said. “I do watch things differently and eat a little differently. I learned not to take things for granted. The truth is, I would have never made it without three things. One of those things was family and their support. That was the biggest thing, my family and people reaching out to me. The second thing is the medical side of things. I had the best quality care from the nurses to the girls that brought me my food. The staff at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston comforted and reassured me.”

“The last thing and the most important thing of all is God. My faith and what my parents instilled in us pulled me through it. Those are the three key ingredients for a good recovery. If you’re missing one of those three, you lose that moral support. Those three things made things a lot easier and gave me strength to continue.”

Bludau said the hardest part of his journey was accepting why and how this happened.

“Knowing that I haven’t finished living or thinking that I may not see my son get married or have more time and trips with my wife was very hard,” Bludau said. “It was hard to accept how and why and feeling that I will be leaving so many people behind. There were a couple of nights where I felt I wasn’t going to make it. I had some priests come by and I did confession, and, after that, I felt that whatever was going to happen was going to happen. I knew that everything was going to be okay then, whether I was here or whether I was not. It took a lot of strength to let go. All the fear left. I had no control over this, nor did my family or my doctors, it was all in God’s hands.”

Bludau said that in honor of National Heart Awareness Month, it’s important for young men to always get their heart checked out.

“If you’re a young man and you just had Covid, you need to make sure you do an annual physical and get an EKG,” Bludau said. “What they’re learning now is that one in every five people that have had Covid have a chance at a cardiac event. It’s important to be advanced on it and know more about it.”

Bludau said it’s important to have faith for those struggling with heart issues.

“God controls it and keep your faith up, prayers help,” Bludau said. “I can’t start to tell you how much prayer helps.”

Bludau sends best wishes and prayers to all the support to every person in the Lavaca County territory.

As we celebrate Heart Awareness Month this February, let’s commit to making heart health a priority. It’s never too early to take action – whether it’s scheduling a checkup, adjusting one’s diet, or simply learning more about how to care for your heart.