In a video that has gone viral, a 15-year-old boy named Trevor Sullivan wakes up after his heart-transplant surgery, and is flooded with joy and relief as he lies in his hospital bed.

“I’m so happy. I’ve been waiting so long,” he says in those first conscious, euphoric moments. “I can breathe again, and talk. I feel amazing. This is amazing. I’ve never felt so good.”

The raw scene, posted on Facebook by his father, brings attention to the importance of organ donation, and has been especially meaningful for heart transplant patients. Many have commented that they felt similar emotions after their own surgeries. In Reddit’s Videos community, a redditor named Aaron details his own experience receiving a heart transplant a little over a year ago, and how that experience shaped him.

Aaron was 20 years old when he experienced end-stage heart failure and was rushed to a hospital in Utah, where doctors implanted a mechanical pump called a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) into his chest.

He shares the journey that came after with Upvoted.

After 9 months of waiting with his LVAD, Aaron got the call. A heart was waiting for him.

I remember getting the call, I was so excited and scared at the same time. There was no turning back and the only path forward could decide whether I live another day or die. You get to the hospital, everyone is so happy and excited for you, the day is unreal. Everything looks brighter and it feels like time is going in slow motion. You have no care in the world because you know that whatever happens next will happen and you can’t do anything about it. There’s still several hours left before your heart is verified to make sure it has no defects so you have enough time to call, text, and email friends. You even have enough time to have a conversation with people on Facebook wishing you well. As the night arrives you start to wonder if everything is okay, why is it taking so long? The doctor then arrives and tells you what to expect. The LVAD (Artificial heart) technicians come in and re-program the machine in preparation to remove the artificial heart machine that has made life possible for you in the last couple of months. They start to pump some drugs in you so that you won’t bleed out, they do a transfusion to make your blood thicker. And then the anesthesiologist comes in and injects a substance in your bloodstream and tells you that everything will be alright. You are then handed some paperwork to sign, and then, you know that there is no turning back, this is it.

Twenty-four hours later, he woke up.

Then you suddenly see darkness and people talking around you. Am I dead? Or am I alive? It feels like it has only been seconds since you were last awake. You then get the strength to open your eyes and are greeted by nurses and family telling you that everything went well. The feeling is surreal. You actually have someone else’s heart beating inside you. But you’re too weak and tired to actually grasp the importance of it.

It took time for him to get used to his new heartbeat.

When I had the LVAD I had this soothing humming sound in my chest every time I went to bed. When they removed the LVAD, I missed that soothing sound for months and it took time to get used to a heartbeat.

Transplanted hearts don’t work exactly like the hearts you’re born with.

Some of my transplanted friends can’t run because they feel like they are going to pass out. However, if I run, it takes about 5-10 seconds for the heart to speed up to the new demand. If I get scared, it takes sometimes up to 20 seconds for my heart to start racing. While the wait is warming up in those 5-10 seconds I do feel like I’m about to pass out but if in just keep running it goes back to normal. The heart rate is also abnormally high when running, so it does make it harder to run for longer periods of time. My heart rate has reached 160 while running but before the transplant my heart was going 160 while sitting so it’s still a very good progress.

He’s very lucky to have good health insurance.

Everything came out to a cost of over $1.2 million for the first year. This includes the implant of the LVAD, room costs for 2.5 months, nurse costs, Doctor costs, an ICD implant, medications, and the heart transplant. For the second year it came out to $120,000 and every year of my life it will come out to at least $50,000 a year. I’m insured so my costs were: Year 1: $2500 Year 2: $1500 And on my year 3: so far $500. But if their family is uninsured they could be looking at bankruptcy. However, they don’t accept you into the waiting list until you can prove that you can afford to pay for your medications either by cash or with insurance. Medication alone costs $20-$150 a day depending on how much and what kind you need. So I’m willing to bet that they’re insured and they paid maximum $7,000.

He has connected with his donor family.

… We wrote several letters to each other back and forth and the family at the moment wants to arrange a meetup. The family wants to hear their daughter’s heart beating and I think that it’s a good way to finish the grieving process.

But he knows that some have a hard time doing the same.

Heart transplant recipients have a hard time reaching out to the donor family. There’s something about the heart that makes it a lot more emotional and personal than other organs. It’s probably because there are so many misconceptions about the heart created by music and movies that just aren’t true. One person that I met didn’t reach out to the donor family until 2 years later because he felt that he would hurt the family and eventually realized that it wouldn’t hurt them, it would instead make their day.

He might need another transplant down the line.

As far as I’m aware the longest survival is at 30 years for a heart. The deadliest thing for transplant patients is the immunosuppressive drugs, sometimes more so than the rejection. But you can typically expect at least 10 years given that you exercise and eat well.

The experience gave him a new outlook on life.

I learned patience and I learned how to be grateful and how to be a lot more empathetic than I used to. All of my life, I focused on myself and it took a heart transplant to slow me down and think more of others.

He wants people to know about the importance of organ donation.

He tells Upvoted: