“Medically, there’s no explanation of why I’m alive,” Rufe Vanderpool told me as we sat down to talk about his heart.
You wouldn’t know it just by looking at him, but Rufe Vanderpool is a heart transplant recipient.
I met him and other patients as they gathered for their support group at Sentara’s Heart Hospital.
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He says each of us is connected to heart disease and stroke in one way or another, but there’s hope in the fact that each of us can do something to help change that.
Mr. Vanderpool volunteers his time at the hospital to help others like him at their monthly group meeting.
This group of survivors often has these heart to hearts.
“Every person in that room should be dead. And they’re not,” said Mr. Vanderpool.
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