‘GOD HAD OTHER PLANS’
Family of Foundation Academy alum says he feels ‘blessed’ after having an emergency heart transplant
This was not how Denzel Irvin expected to spend March 29.
The 26-year-old personal trainer had clients lined up at his Charlotte, N.C., training facility. After using up his eligibility to play football at the University of Charlotte, he was making people better.
The former Winter Garden Foundation Academy standout even had several NFL players on his client list. He was in tip-top shape, or so he thought.
That day in March, Irvin was sprawled on the floor of his Charlotte apartment. He made a call to Lauren Bryant, his former girlfriend and mother of his 5-year-old daughter Maya, asking that she take him to the hospital. He left his door ajar because he knew he would not be able to answer it.
Through years of playing football at Foundation and at Charlotte, Irvin never had to deal with injuries. Now he felt helpless.
“I was with a client at the gym, and I just didn’t feel well,” Irvin said. “I was like, ‘I got to go home.’ I had that client at 5 a.m., and before 5 a.m. I had thrown up at least 10 times, but I still went to the workout.
“About halfway through it I was like, ‘Nah, I can’t do this.’ So I went back home. I knew I couldn’t drive so I called Maya’s mother to pick me up there because I felt like I was going to pass out, which I did.
“I thought I had COVID, honestly. I had COVID once before, last year, and I was having the same symptoms,” Irvin said. “I thought it was just a more severe case.”
Irvin had to be transferred via ambulance from a Charlotte hospital to Atrium Health at Carolinas Medical Center, known for its heart doctors and heart transplant successes.
While doctors tried to figure out what was wrong two weeks into his hospital stay, Irvin had a stroke.
“They still don’t know what was wrong with me. They’re doing genetic testing. They were saying this term called noncompaction syndrome, which is genetic and it’s like having a hole in your heart,” Irvin said. “They checked me for everything, and it all came back negative. They tested me for COVID, and that was negative.
“Finally, they said it was the fact that I never rested, and it was stress-induced because I would go and go and go and not get any rest. That was their best assessment. I was always on the go.”
Plenty of reasons to fight
Noncompaction syndrome is a heart muscle disorder in the left ventricle, which helps the heart pump blood, and it occurs when the muscle does not develop correctly. The doctors would lean on that diagnosis.
Eventually the prognosis was simple: He needed a heart transplant and the sooner the better. Through it all, Irvin said he never contemplated death.
“The whole time, I knew I was going to make it,” Irvin said. “For me, I felt like this was happening for a reason, like for a greater purpose, so I never doubted it at all.”
He had plenty of reasons to fight. There was his daughter, Maya Faith Irvin, and her mother; twin brother Darius Irvin, who also played at Foundation and Charlotte; close friend Ben DeLuca, who is a former Bishop Moore and Charlotte standout and Maya’s godfather; and his parents,
Gwendolyn and Djuan Irvin.
And, of course, Irvin said, there was his faith in God.
“I was a little bit nervous, but I wasn’t ever scared,” Irvin said. “I had my faith and my parents, they made a lot of difference, and I also thought about my daughter a lot. My family never left. They were always there for me.
“I thought about God every time I was in pain and I would think about my daughter and literally say her name out loud over and over again. It took me to another place where I didn’t think about my pain. I feel like a lot of it was mental because I could have panicked and then I would have had a lot of adverse consequences, so I never panicked.”
He received his donor heart quickly, but plenty took place before it finally arrived.
“I was placed on a machine called the ECMO machine,” Irvin said. “They put it into an artery in my groin and that machine basically sucks blood into the machine, oxygenates it and pushes the blood back into my heart.
“It is a very critical machine and if you are on that machine you become a Status 1 on the transplant list, which means you are right at the top. Prior to that I was a Status 2.”
The machine, which facilitates extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, is likened to a heart-lung bypass machine used in openheart surgeries. While it pumps and oxygenates blood outside the patient’s body, the heart and lungs can rest.
“The ECMO machine looked like a car engine and it was very loud,” Irvin said.
During his nearly weeklong period at Status 2, Irvin was on another device called the balloon pump. He went through four of those devices because it kept erupting.
“Then my heart started failing once again, so they were telling me that if I stayed on the balloon pump, the odds of me surviving would be slim,” Irvin said. “I was on it for six days and I was stabilized, but then my heart began to fail again.
“The ECMO machine, I ended up only being on it for two days, and after that second day I got my heart.”
His donor heart arrived April 25 and after a six-hour surgery.
“I woke up April 27th from sedation from the surgery and I was released on May 3 ... six days after the surgery,” Irvin said. “They told me it was going to be months. But I’m a trainer, so I was always doing a little bit more and pushing myself a little bit harder.
“I was healthy and I was young and all of those things, and God, of course, were all factors in my success. I was in a lot of pain when I woke up and I had this breathing tube down my neck and I’m awake. It was crazy.”
Home again ... almost
It had been less than a month since Irvin passed out after leaving his training facility early, and he already had a new heart.
“It’s unreal, like a miracle,” Irvin said. “You would have thought I’d be in there for two, three, four months, but God had other plans,” Irvin said.
Irvin has plenty of words to describe how he feels now.
“Blessed, grateful, humble ... a combination of those things. A lot of gratitude,” Irvin said. “As of now, for the first three to six months I have to be in like a quarantine. I can’t go around people because my immune system is suppressed ... my body can reject this heart at any time.
“So I’m in quarantine now and I’ll be on a low-sodium diet for the rest of my life and I also have to take these meds for the rest of my life.”
The anti-rejection medications are Tacrolimus (Prograf ) and CellCept and he’s on a weight-gaining steroid similar to Prednisone.
“I lost like 40 pounds in just one month,” Irvin said. “But it feels so good to be out now. Just the things that you take for granted like being in a bed, taking a shower, eating regular food that’s not hospital food, not being woken up every two hours to take your vitals and get bloodwork.
“It’s great. I am so grateful to be home.”
He’s not quite home yet, however. He’s staying in a Charlotte hotel until he has fewer trips to make for doctor’s visits. Eventually, however, he will return to Orlando.
“I have to go once a week for two months, to get a biopsy of my heart, so it didn’t make sense to go back to Florida when I would have to come back here every week,” Irvin said. “Then, for the next two months after that, it’s every other week, and after that once a month.”
It’s been about 45 days since he first felt ill and he has a new heart, new lease on life and a new perspective.
He posts daily inspirational messages to social media. There was plenty of support from his circle.
DeLuca, who spent last season on the practice squad with the Los Angeles Chargers, was a constant visitor.
“He has already started working out and walking miles, LOL,” DeLuca texted from Los Angeles, where he is taking part in Chargers rookie mini-camp. “He’s doing really well, all things considered.”
DeLuca described his feelings when he first heard of his friend’s illness.
“It was one of those feelings you can’t really describe. My heart just hurt for him,” DeLuca texted. “You are dealing with all sorts of thoughts and emotions. I just wanted to make sure I was there for him and encouraging him in the faith.”
Irvin appreciates the support and friendship.
“That’s my guy. He came to see me a lot and he bought me a PlayStation. He’s just a good dude,” he said of DeLuca. “My whole family was a big help to me. During my physical therapy I’d walk around the ICU and see all these patients with no family and it was just so sad.”
Not Irvin. His parents rarely left his side. And of course there was Maya. There was a reason Faith is her middle name. Irvin leaned on his like a crutch and it kept him strong.
“I’m just so blessed,” he said.