When Dennis Thomas went to the hospital in August 2009, a heat wave was blanketing the state. He had been feeling fatigued, and his mother thought he didn’t look great at Sunday dinner, so he went in the next day to get checked out.
When Thomas, who lives in Rocky Hill, finally left Hartford Hospital, there was snow on the ground. He had a new heart, and he was heading home – after spending five months in the hospital – to his family on Christmas Eve.
Thomas, 47, is a familiar figure at Bulkeley High School sporting events; he runs the clock and keeps the scorebook at boys basketball games and boys and girls volleyball games and helps athletic director Diane Callis run athletic events and tournaments. The high school is under construction now so all the games are on the road but Thomas goes wherever his teams are.
Callis, who has known Thomas for 18 years, calls him a “walking miracle.”
“I have been blessed with great coaches and other support staff, but Dennis is my right-hand person,” she said. “The kids affectionately call him ‘Coach,’ which I always feel if a kid calls you ‘Coach,’ there’s a lot of respect to earn that title.
“He’s there to put a hand on a shoulder. To give a hug sometimes. To talk to a kid – not that our coaches can’t but I think sometimes kids need another figure – and he’s been a father, a brother, a mentor – he’s been there, and the kids know that’s somebody they can go to and they can trust.”
Thomas is also a motivational speaker and a life coach. He wrote a book about his transplant experience during COVID. He is a cancer survivor. He won a gold medal in the Transplant Games of America this summer.
He has a different outlook on life now than he did when he was in his 30s.
“That was the best present ever, to come home for Christmas Eve,” he said. “Looking at it now, it’s been 15 years – Christmas is about cherishing life and giving back each and every day. It’s not about presents. Life is a true gift. Because somebody didn’t wake up this morning.
“Somebody’s in the hospital, dealing with adversity that maybe I’ve gone through. I just try to stay humble and what I learned, I teach others.”
Five months in the ICU
Thomas, who graduated from Bloomfield High in 1996, was working as a pre-school teacher and an AAU basketball coach in 2009 when he noticed that he was tired, but he thought it was just the hot weather.
When his mother mentioned something, he checked the next day with his doctor, who told him to go to the hospital to get tested. He was there for a while and around 10 p.m., they told him they were admitting him because there was something wrong with his heart.
He said he had to have a test where he was sedated.
“That was when my life changed,” he said.
Thomas woke up in the ICU. He had been diagnosed with myocarditis, which he was told originated from a virus, and his heart was failing. By the end of the week, he was signing papers to have a heart transplant.
Then he spent five months in the ICU waiting for a heart. He was allowed to walk and eventually he worked up to being able to walk all day through the ICU, as long as the nurses were able to monitor him. He was popular; they called him “The Mayor.” He spent his 32nd birthday in the hospital.
On Dec. 13, a nurse woke him up at 5:30 a.m. He had a phone call. There was a heart for him.
“I thought, ‘No, no, I must be dreaming,’” he said. “I looked out and every nurse, every doctor who was working third shift that morning was in front of my door crying.”
He had the surgery that night. It was shorter than most, and because Thomas had done all that walking, he was in better shape than most transplant patients. He was told he had to memorize all the medications he had to take, and there were a lot, before he could go home. He did it over the weekend and he was ready.
And on Dec. 24, he went home to Rocky Hill with his mother and brother.
Maybe there were gifts that year, but Thomas remembers little things that most people take for granted. He hadn’t been able to take a shower for five months in the hospital. He took one for an hour at home.
“Feeling what fresh air feels like again – seeing it through a window is one thing but actually feeling it, walking outside,” he said. “It changed my life mentally, too, not taking things for granted.”
He says he has two birthdays now: Nov. 23 and Dec. 13, when he got his new heart.
Gold medalist
This summer, Thomas was at a Donate Life event in Bloomfield when he saw information on the Transplant Games of America. He signed up and was selected and ended up going to Alabama for the competition in July. He won a gold medal in bowling.
His connecting flight on the way there was in Philadelphia. That’s where his heart came from.
“I felt a crazy energy in the airport,” he said. “Like this was my destiny to go to these games.”
Thomas has been through a lot. He was diagnosed and treated for colon cancer in 2019. He spent over a week in the hospital around Labor Day in a medically induced coma after he had issues with his transplant.
“I had a rejection of my heart so bad I was put in a coma,” he said. “I’ve had other rejections, but this one was a heavy one where they had to put me in an induced coma Labor Day weekend, right before volleyball season. I spent 10 days in the hospital.
“When I woke up, I couldn’t walk or talk, I had to learn how to walk and talk again.”
Thomas is an advocate for organ donation; he speaks to different organizations and school groups, and he goes to Hartford Hospital to mentor transplant patients and give guidance to their family members.
But he’s also the goodwill ambassador for sports at Bulkeley, which had hosted the CCC boys basketball tournament and state tournament games before the renovations to the school.
“He was welcoming and that put a good face onto Bulkeley High School,” Callis said. “We always are trying – I’ve always talked to the kids and the coaches about this – we want to be different than what others perceive.”
For Christmas this year, Thomas and his family are going to his sister’s house in Bloomfield to exchange gifts, have dinner and simply be thankful for his presence,15 years after his transplant.
“Just counting our blessings,” he said. “I’m doing what I can with this second chance in life.”