090: Amanda DeJesus is the Chef With A Heart (Transplant)

Amanda DeJesus was the recipient of a heart transplant at the age of 15. Inspired by her need to eat heart-healthy, she developed a passion for cooking and trained as a chef, graduating from the Art Institute of Houston in Texas. With her friend and stroke survivor Kelly Fucheck, she is co-host of the podcast Unfiltered Survivors. In 2017, Amanda served as a spokeswomen for the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign; she continues to volunteer with the AHA, and is also affiliated with Donate Life America and Lyfebulb. As a chef, she continues to serve clients seeking to find heart-healthy alternatives to their favorite dishes, assisting patients who are undergoing lifestyle changes and providing support and education — from shopping to cooking lessons. She is currently on the list for a second heart and kidney transplant, so tune in and join us in wishing her luck!

Tune in as Amanda shares:

that Amanda’s sister was also born with a heart defect — which was repaired when she was a baby that Amanda had her first open-heart surgery at 7 days old that at 12 years old, her doctors discovered she had dilated cardiomyopathy — and gave her a pacemaker that her heart was failing by age 13, and she had her transplant at 15 that most heart transplants last a decade — and Amanda’s has now lasted well beyond expectation that she needs a kidney transplant along with her heart — and the kidney transplant is necessary because of long-term use of anti-rejection drugs that she’s currently doing dialysis 3 days a week that heart attacks have traditionally been regarded as a “white man’s disease” — and that only recently has research shown symptoms to present differently in women her experiences of discrimination in the medical system that the privatization of healthcare has threatened her family’s stability on numerous occasions the importance of bridging the gap between pediatric and adult healthcare that she lost friends who were lost in the system during the transition to adult care the problems with the US healthcare system, and how it’s linked so closely to education and access to healthy food how understanding her own mortality has made her bold and live life without regrets the importance of mental health support when living with chronic illness how joining her community and speaking about her struggles has given her strength that she’s had to learn that spontaneity is OK

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