One of my lifelong best friends had one of those pumps (Impella) implanted when his heart failure suddenly worsened. He was in the hospital for about six weeks with it (yeah, I know they’re only supposed to use them for 14 days, but what are you gonna do, remove it and let them die? Take the risk of replacing it? ) Anyway, he survived on it long enough for a donor heart to become available (a miracle , really, as he’s African American and type O blood - hard to find a match). It’s now been a year and a half, he’s doing great, and has been able to enjoy his first grandchild who was born right before he went into the hospital.
