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Hearty story earns trip
He gained a heart, a wife and a spot in the Rose Parade.
By CATHERINE E. SHOICHET, Times Staff Writer
Published December 28, 2007
PLANT CITY - The cardiac nurse and her former patient gazed at each other over Greek salads at a fancy Tarpon Springs restaurant. Back on Floor 5A at Tampa General Hospital, while he spent nine months waiting for a heart transplant, he bribed supervisors with Hershey bars to make sure she came to his room. He loved her for her gentle touch, for holding his hand when there was no one else by his side. He knew they were meant to be together. And so one night in 2000, he asked her to marry him. She worried she would be fired for marrying a former patient, but then she decided it was worth the risk. They married in April of that year, six months after someone died and gave him a new heart. Now they are Bill and Debbie Ismer, volunteering at the hospital, speaking to community groups about organ donation, going to church and hanging Christmas stockings in their Plant City home. Signs on their walls say "Proud Grandparents Live Here" and "God Bless America." They've traveled in an RV to every state except Hawaii. They're preparing for another trip together, this time to Pasadena, Calif., for the Rose Parade on New Year's Day. Bill Ismer, 63, will ride on a float promoting organ donation - an opportunity he won from the Astellas pharmaceutical company after writing an essay about his transplant experience. The essay began with the day doctors told him he had only 48 hours to live. It ended with his new life volunteering as a music therapist on the same hospital floor where he stayed. The middle of the essay - where Bill Ismer described the romance that blossomed while he waited for his transplant - won over judges. He wrote: "I waited all year for my heart, and when I got it, I gave it away." Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at cshoichet@sptimes.com or 661-2454.
[Last modified December 27, 2007, 23:37:46]
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