Marvin Switzer wanted nothing more than to be a part of his daughter’s wedding. But he was stuck in a Toronto hospital, waiting indefinitely for a donor to replace his ailing heart.

Knowing that the chances of getting a donor and surviving were slim, Switzer, 55, asked a social worker if there was a small conference room where he could hold his daughter’s ceremony.

A few chairs would be all he needed, he told her.

Switzer never got his small conference room.

Instead, staff at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre took matters into their own hands and transformed the hospital’s atrium into a grand winter-themed wedding hall for his daughter’s ceremony.

Then two days after the wedding, to Switzer’s disbelief and surprise, he was told there was a heart for him.

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the wedding,” Switzer said. “We were trying so much to figure out a way to have a wedding for her, she wanted both fathers to be there. The hospital overwhelmed us with kindness.

“After the wedding, everyone went home and I was left on my own in the hospital and then I was told I had a heart and had to call everyone back.”

On a typical day, the atrium at the cardiac centre is filled with nurses hurriedly eating their lunches and recovering patients curled up on chairs, basking under the sunshine pouring from the tall glass walls.

But on the evening of Nov. 25, twinkling lights peered through the windows from the surrounding buildings. A pianist filled the air with music as Switzer, tethered to an IV pole, held his daughter Jennifer by her arm and walked her down the aisle.

“There were a lot of tears but I think it had to do a lot with happiness,” Jennifer said. “When I was able to dance with my father, everyone was crying, including me, it was just being able to share that moment knowing what my dad was going through waiting to receive a heart.”

The hospital provided the family with everything from flowers to tablecloths. Staff served the 18 guests food and one nurse took photos.

“It really restored my faith in humanity,” Switzer said. “They just gave and gave and they didn’t want anything back.”

Learning that there was a heart available, Switzer’s family returned to the hospital and his son and daughter waited through the night as the procedure took place.

“You wait so long for it but when it comes it’s overwhelming,” Switzer said. “They sit you down and say they have a heart for you and I just fell apart for a while.”

On Thursday, Switzer was finally able to leave the hospital.

Switzer, from Kingston, Ont., is expected to visit every two weeks over the next year to address the challenges the new heart may face as it adjusts to his body.

He was one of the lucky ones, said Dr. Jeremy Kobulnik, a cardiologist at the cardiac centre. The chances of a suitable heart becoming available are slim and only three hospitals in Ontario offer heart transplants.

The heart typically needs to be matched based on size, antibiotic profile and blood group, he said. Some patients die waiting for a heart, he added.

“We were so very glad to organize the wedding because you never know how these things go,” Kobulnik said. “We certainly didn’t know he was going to get a heart and we didn’t know if it would necessarily go well. Most of our transplants go well but not all of them.

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“When opportunities like this come up we try to go out of our way because we feel like we owe it to our patients.”

Switzer’s daughter Jennifer said she is very grateful for the care her father received at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre at the Toronto General Hospital, and for the wedding.

“It was able to give him a new lease on life,” she said Friday. “He is so thankful to be alive every day.”

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