Sylvia describes her years-long battle with primary pulmonary hypertension, a rare fatal lung disease, and the dramatic day she received the call for her transplant just one day after being evaluated. Following surgery, she began experiencing unexplained cravings and personality changes that seemed to belong to her young male donor. She craved beer and chicken nuggets, foods she had never wanted before, and began having vivid cross-gender dreams.
Most remarkably, Sylvia dreamed her donor's name, Tim L., six months after the transplant and later confirmed it through his obituary. She discusses the concept of cellular memory, her eventual meeting with Tim's family, and the moment years later when she felt his spirit finally depart from her body, freeing her to form new relationships.
Key Moments
Craving a beer in intensive care: Asked by the press in ICU what she wanted most after her heart-lung transplant, Sylvia - a non-beer-drinker - blurted out 'I'd die for a beer right now,' and only later learned her 18-year-old donor Tim had been killed in a motorcycle crash.
Cross-gender dream and finding 'Tim L.': Sylvia describes her first cross-gender dream - becoming a man about to marry a blonde woman - and a later dream six months after the transplant in which she kisses and inhales a young man named Tim L., a name she later confirms via the obituary as her actual donor.
Chicken nuggets and the motorcycle jacket: Meeting Tim's family for the first time, Sylvia learns his favorite food was chicken nuggets and that he had to be cut out of a new motorcycle jacket - and recalls that the first thing she did when cleared to drive was visit a Kentucky Fried Chicken for chicken nuggets, something she had never done before.