What a Heart Transplant Taught Me About Real Transformation
Or: How a twinge in my hand led to a new heart—and a completely new life
It started with a twinge in my left hand.
I was walking my dog on a Friday night in late August 2020. Nothing unusual—just our regular evening walk through the neighborhood. Then I felt it. A strange sensation in my left hand. A twinge.
I shook it off. Literally. Shook my hand out and kept walking.
I was in my 50s. Little tweaks and aches were part of getting old, right? You ignore them and move on.
Little did I know that twinge was my body’s first attempt to tell me I was having a heart attack.
The Week Everything Changed
By Sunday night, I felt terrible. Not “call 911” terrible—just off. Exhausted. Uncomfortable. The kind of feeling where you think maybe you ate something bad or you’re coming down with a cold.
Monday morning, I went to the pharmacy and got acid-reflux medicine. That had to be it. Heartburn.
By Tuesday, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I went to see my doctor. They took one look at me and said, “You have COVID. Go get tested at a drive-up site.”
It was August 2020—the height of the pandemic. COVID was the first thing everyone suspected.
Tuesday night, the test came back. Negative.
My doctor called Wednesday morning. “Come back in. Now.”
When I arrived, they were clear: “We think it’s a false negative. You need to go to the ER. Go to IU Health Methodist. Now.”
So I did.
The Diagnosis
At IU Health Methodist, they treated me like I had COVID. Full precautions. Isolation. The works.
But as they ran tests, a different picture emerged.
“Mr. Daily, you’ve had a heart attack.”
Not COVID. A heart attack. That twinge on Friday? That was it. I’d been walking around for nearly a week with a damaged heart, thinking it was indigestion.
They checked me in immediately and started running more tests. Stress tests. Imaging. Bloodwork. Each test revealed a little more bad news.
My heart wasn’t just damaged. It was failing.
The stress test results were, in medical terms, terrible. My ejection fraction—how much blood your heart pumps with each beat—was dangerously low. A healthy heart pumps 55-70%. Mine was barely functioning.
The doctors recommended a defibrillator or at minimum, a LifeVest—a wearable device that would shock my heart back into rhythm if it stopped.
The insurance company denied it.
Both devices. Denied.
My wife and I looked at each other. We’d just learned my heart could stop at any moment, and insurance wouldn’t cover the device that could save my life.
We decided to pay for the LifeVest ourselves. Whatever it cost.
Six Days
After a couple of weeks in the hospital, they discharged me. I went home with my expensive LifeVest and instructions to take it easy.
Six days later, I was sitting in our living room.
And then I wasn’t.
The LifeVest went off.
My wife told me later what happened: I went rigid. Clutched my chest. Made a sound she’ll never forget. I was leaving.
To me? It felt like I’d dozed off. One moment I was sitting there, the next I was waking up with my wife on the phone with 911 and this vest shocking the hell out of me.
The LifeVest we’d paid for out of pocket had just saved my life.
Back to IU Health I went. Back to the same room, the same doctors, but this time with a new understanding: I was dying.
The Spiral
What followed was what the doctors call “a downward spiral.”
A few days after being readmitted, the LifeVest went off again. In the hospital this time. My heart was giving up.
The medical team moved quickly. Within days, they made the decision: ECMO machine.
If you don’t know what an ECMO machine is, count yourself lucky. It stands for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. Essentially, it’s a machine that does the work of your heart and lungs when they can’t. Your blood is routed outside your body, oxygenated, and pumped back in.
It’s not a permanent solution. It’s a bridge. A way to keep you alive long enough to get to something permanent.
In my case: a heart transplant.
Being placed on ECMO changed my status on the transplant list to 1A—the highest priority. You’re basically saying: “This person will die without a heart. Soon.”
Here’s what’s remarkable: I got a match within an hour.
One hour.
The transplant coordinator told my wife later that in all her years at IU Health, she’d never seen a match happen that fast. Usually, people wait weeks or months at 1A status.
Someone, somewhere, had just died. And their family, in the midst of unimaginable grief, had said yes to organ donation. And their heart was a match for me.
A day later, I woke up with a new heart.
The Isolation
Here’s something that made it worse: my kids couldn’t visit me.
COVID protocols. The hospital was locked down. Only my wife could be there, and even she had limited access.
My kids—the people I most wanted to see, who most wanted to see me—had to wait outside. They got updates by phone. They saw me through FaceTime when I was conscious enough.
But they couldn’t hold my hand. Couldn’t be there when I was pointing at letters on a card. Couldn’t be there when the LifeVest went off or when they put me on ECMO.
They had to process the very real possibility that their dad might die without being able to say goodbye in person.
I don’t know which was harder: not being able to see them, or knowing they were going through this hell and I couldn’t comfort them.
The Week I Don’t Remember
I need to tell you something: I don’t remember that last week before the transplant.
I know I was conscious. I know I was communicating. My wife was there. The doctors and nurses were there.
But I don’t remember it.
What I learned later: I was intubated. I was tied to the bed so I wouldn’t move around and dislodge the ECMO tubes. And because I couldn’t talk, they gave me a card with letters on it. I’d point to letters to spell out words.
L-O-V-E Y-O-U.
H-U-R-T-S.
T-H-I-R-S-T-Y.
My wife watched me point at letters on a card while a machine did the work my heart couldn’t do, and she had no idea if I’d survive to the next day.
I have no memory of any of it.
The human brain, in its mercy, has a way of protecting you from trauma you don’t need to remember.
Day One: A New Heart, A New Question
When I woke up after the transplant surgery—truly woke up, aware and present—the first thought wasn’t gratitude or relief.
It was fear.
What could I still do?
I’d been a CTO. A Senior Director at companies like Angie’s List and Experian. I’d spent 30 years building software, leading teams, driving transformations. I’d hiked. I’d traveled. I’d walked my dog on Friday nights.
Was I going to be disabled for the rest of my life?
The day after I was discharged from the hospital—literally the next day—I went to COLLT therapy. Cardiac Outpatient Long-Term Therapy.
Over the next six weeks, I learned to recover physically from the trauma my body had endured. I learned what my new normal would be. How to walk without getting winded. How to climb stairs. How to exist in a body that had been through hell and was now running on someone else’s heart.
But the bigger question—the one that kept me up at night—wasn’t physical.
It was: If I survived this, what was I going to do differently?
The Technology Executive Who Thought He Knew About Transformation
Before the heart attack, I thought I understood transformation.
I’d led them for decades. Agile transformations. Digital transformations. Organizational transformations. I’d worked with Fortune 500 companies, startups, everything in between. I had the certifications: PSM III, PSPO, CSM, Certified Master Trainer, Management 3.0 Trainer. I knew the frameworks—Scrum, SAFe, Kanban.
As a CTO and technology executive, I could walk into a struggling organization, diagnose the dysfunction, and prescribe a path forward. I was good at my job.
But lying in that hospital bed, pointing at letters on a card while a machine kept me alive, I realized something:
I’d been helping rich companies get richer.
Not exclusively. Not maliciously. But predominantly. My consulting work went to organizations that could afford it. My training went to people with corporate budgets. My expertise as an AI architect and technology leader went to those who already had access.
And that was fine. That work mattered. Those transformations created jobs, launched products, helped teams work better together.
But it was incomplete.
During those long months of recovery, I kept asking myself: Who am I leaving out?
The answer was obvious: almost everyone.
Two Years Later: The Kids Who Changed Everything
It took me two years to be ready.
Two years of recovery. Two years of figuring out what my new body could do. Two years of asking that question: What am I going to do differently?
In 2022, I started working with a STEM program on the east side of Indianapolis.
The program was held at Eastern Star Church, which serves a predominantly low-income, predominantly Black community. The Lilly Foundation had built a beautiful youth center there. Through my connection with Indiana University’s Center for Excellence in Women in Technology, they asked if I’d teach kids about technology.
I said yes.
I showed up that first summer thinking I’d teach these kids Agile. Scrum. The frameworks I taught to executives.
It lasted one day before they were completely done with me.
These kids didn’t want PowerPoint presentations. They didn’t want lectures about sprint planning or retrospectives. They wanted to build things. Create things. Do things.
So I pivoted. I brought Legos. VR headsets. Minecraft. And when ChatGPT launched, I started teaching them prompt engineering.
And something remarkable happened: They were naturals.
These kids—many of whom had never owned a computer, whose schools didn’t have robust tech programs, who’d been told implicitly and explicitly that technology wasn’t “for them”—they understood AI instinctively.
They experimented fearlessly. They asked “what if?” constantly. They built things I hadn’t imagined.
They reminded me of the best engineers I’d worked with at Angie’s List or Experian.
The only difference? No one had ever given them access.
One kid—let’s call him Marcus—told me on the last day of the program: “I didn’t know I could do this stuff.”
That sentence justified every moment of pain, every moment of fear, every letter I’d pointed to on that card in the ICU.
This is why I survived.
Three Years Later: Focusing on What Matters
Three years after my transplant, I made a deliberate choice about how to spend my time.
I continued my work as a partner at Agile Meridian, helping organizations transform through modern methodologies. I deepened my expertise as an AI architect. I earned my certification as a Master Trainer.
But I also made a commitment: I would dedicate as much of my time as possible to making technology accessible to everyone.
Not just to people who could afford enterprise consulting.
Not just to companies with big budgets.
Everyone.
That meant working with organizations like Eleven Fifty Academy, a nonprofit that trains people for technology careers while focusing on accessibility and underserved communities.
And it meant becoming obsessed with teaching AI to everyone.
Not just to data scientists or software engineers. To everyone. Kids. Adults. People switching careers. People who’d never written a line of code.
Because here’s what I’d learned from those kids at Eastern Star Church: AI is the great equalizer, but only if we democratize access to it.
Today: InnoPower and the Mission Continues
Over the last year, I’ve been working with InnoPower, LLC, building what I wished had existed when I started this journey: a platform that makes AI education accessible to everyone.
Not courses that cost thousands of dollars.
Not content filled with jargon that excludes people.
Just clear, practical, applied learning that helps people—whether they’re in a Fortune 500 boardroom or a community center—understand how to use AI to transform their lives.
I still do corporate consulting. I’m still an AI architect working with technology executives on complex challenges. That work matters, and I love it.
But my heart—my literal second heart—is in democratizing technology.
Teaching kids who’ve never owned a computer how to prompt engineer.
Teaching adults who’ve been left behind by the tech economy how to use AI.
Teaching anyone who’ll listen that technology isn’t just for the privileged.
What Both Worlds Taught Me
Here’s what I’ve learned: The work is remarkably similar.
When I’m coaching a Fortune 500 executive through an AI adoption strategy and when I’m teaching a 13-year-old how to prompt engineer ChatGPT, I’m doing fundamentally the same things:
1. Meet People Where They Are
You can’t help a company adopt AI by ignoring their current capabilities and culture. You can’t teach a kid by ignoring their lived experience. Whether it’s a boardroom or a community center, transformation starts with understanding their world.
2. Make Complexity Accessible
AI architecture can seem overwhelming. Agile frameworks can feel like alphabet soup. My job is to strip away the complexity and show people: “Here’s what this actually does. Here’s how you use it. Now try it.”
No gatekeeping. No jargon. Just clear, practical guidance.
3. Create Space for Experimentation
The best learning happens through discovery, not lecture. In corporate transformations, I don’t hand teams a playbook—I give them principles and let them experiment. With kids and adults learning AI, I don’t lecture—I give them tools and challenges and get out of their way.
4. Believe Potential Exists Everywhere
Every struggling company has seeds of excellence within it. Every kid in that community center has genius waiting to be unlocked. Every adult who’s been told they’re “not a tech person” has capabilities they haven’t discovered yet.
The work isn’t to insert something new—it’s to remove barriers to what’s already there.
The difference isn’t the approach. The difference is who gets access to it.
What Transformation Actually Means
I used to think transformation was about processes, frameworks, and methodologies.
Now I know it’s about possibility.
When a company adopts AI and transforms how they work, they’re discovering they’re capable of things they didn’t think possible.
When a kid learns to code or prompt engineer or build in VR, they’re discovering the exact same thing.
When an adult who’s been out of work learns AI skills and lands a new job, same thing.
Transformation is the moment you realize you’re more capable than you thought.
That’s why a heart transplant is the perfect metaphor. You literally get a new organ, yes. But the real transformation is what you do with your second chance. It’s the realization that you get to choose what matters now.
I chose this: Make technology work for everyone.
The LifeVest We All Need
Remember that LifeVest? The one insurance denied? The one we paid for out of pocket that saved my life—twice?
That’s the perfect metaphor for what I’m trying to do now.
There are kids, adults, entire communities that need access to technology education. They need it to survive in the economy that’s coming. They need it to discover what they’re capable of.
But the “system”—education, economics, access—denies them coverage.
So we have to pay for it ourselves. Through programs like the one at Eastern Star Church. Through organizations that prioritize accessibility. Through platforms like InnoPower. Through every person in tech who decides that democratizing access matters as much as optimizing architectures.
We have to be each other’s LifeVests.
An Invitation
If you work in technology, I want to challenge you: Who are you leaving out?
Not intentionally. But by default. By assuming everyone has the same access you do. By teaching only in expensive programs or corporate trainings. By using jargon that sounds smart but excludes people.
If you’ve felt left out—by tech, by AI, by the promise of transformation that never seems to include you—I want you to know: This is for you too.
You don’t need a CS degree. You don’t need expensive courses. You don’t need to have been “a tech person” your whole life.
You just need someone willing to make it accessible.
That’s what I’m trying to do. In boardrooms and classrooms. For executives and kids and everyone in between. For everyone who wants to understand how these tools work and how to use them.
What My Second Heart Demands
I got lucky. Multiple times.
Lucky that we could afford to pay for the LifeVest when insurance denied coverage.
Lucky that someone died and their family said yes to organ donation.
Lucky that I got a match within an hour when most people wait months.
Lucky that my kids, even though they couldn’t visit, still have a dad.
Not everyone gets that lucky.
But everyone deserves access to the technology that will define their future.
My second heart demands I spend the rest of my life making that happen.
What will your second chance demand of you?
Connect With Me
If this resonates with you, I’d love to stay connected:
📬 Subscribe to my newsletter “The Daily Transformation” where I share weekly insights on AI, Agile, and empowerment → christopherdaily.com/newsletter
💼 Connect with me on LinkedIn for daily posts about technology and transformation → linkedin.com/in/christopherdaily
🎓 Explore accessible AI education at InnoPower.ai
Because technology should empower everyone.
And transformation—real transformation—only happens when everyone gets a chance.