My Second Heart Journey

My Books

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Stories of transplant, recovery, and the everyday miracles that come with living life on borrowed time.

My Heart Journey: Waiting on a Heart

My Heart Journey: Waiting on a Heart is a deeply personal, raw, and sometimes humorous chronicle of author Fred Hueston’s experience waiting for a life-saving heart transplant. Over the course of 87 days in the hospital, Fred shares not just the physical toll of heart failure, but the emotional rollercoaster that comes with being tethered to IV poles, surrounded by machines, and suspended in that long, uncertain pause between life and something else.

My Heart Journey, The First 90 Days: What They Don’t Tell You About Recovery

You waited for the call. You got the heart. Now what? The surgery is just the beginning. In My Heart Journey, The First 90 Days, Fred Hueston picks up right where his first book left off—at the moment he wakes up with someone else’s heart beating inside him.

My Heart Journey: Six Months and Still Ticking

What happens after a heart transplant? In My Heart Journey: Six Months and Counting, Frederick M. Hueston takes readers inside the recovery process with honesty, wit, and perspective only someone who’s lived it could bring.

My Heart Journey: One Year In… and the Beat Goes On

My Heart Journey: One Year In… and the Beat Goes On picks up where My Heart Journey: Six Months and Still Ticking left off. This isn’t a medical manual or a polished success story. It’s real life, one year after a heart transplant, told the way it actually feels.

How Much Time Is Left?: Why I Started Living Like Tomorrow Wasn’t Guaranteed

It’s a question most of us avoid, until something happens that makes it impossible to ignore. After a heart transplant, Frederick M. Hueston found himself looking at time very differently. What used to feel endless suddenly felt limited, not just for him, but for everyone. That shift didn’t lead to fear. It led to action, reflection, and a fair amount of humor along the way.

MY NEW HEART HAS OPINIONS: Cell Memory, Strange Stories, and the Weird Side of Organ Transplants

What if your new organ came with opinions? After receiving a life-saving heart transplant, Frederick M. Hueston began noticing strange little changes. Music sounded different. Food tasted different. He laughed more, became more emotional, and somehow developed an uncontrollable urge to dance in grocery stores. Then he met his donor’s family.

THE TRANSPLANT PATIENT HANDBOOK: The Rules Nobody Explains Clearly

How I Found My Organ Donor: The Search, The Stories, and What Happens When You Finally Know

What happens after the transplant… when the questions begin? In How to Find Your Organ Donor, Frederick M. Hueston takes you into the part of the transplant journey no one really talks about. Not the surgery. Not the recovery. But the quiet, persistent question that shows up later. Who was the person who saved my life?

The Transplant Patient Handbook: The Rules Nobody Explains Clearly is the practical guide every transplant recipient and caregiver wishes they had from day one. Most transplant centers do an excellent job explaining medications, appointments, and medical procedures. What often gets overlooked are the hundreds of everyday questions patients face once they return home.

Coming Home After Transplant: The Real-World Guide Nobody Gives You

Coming Home After Transplant: The Real-World Guide Nobody Gives You

TRANSPLANT ALPHABET SOUP: A Patient’s Plain-English Guide to the Tests, Medications, Abbreviations, and Medical Jargon Nobody Bothered to Explain

Transplant medicine has its own language. Unfortunately, nobody gives the patient a dictionary. One minute, you’re a reasonably intelligent adult. The next, someone tells you that your crossmatch is negative, your tacrolimus trough is low, your CMV is detected but not quantifiable, and your biopsy shows 1R rejection.