When Christine Paul’s physician asked her to check in on Kendell Paul, a fellow patient at the North Shore University Hospital’s ICU, three years ago on Valentine’s Day, it wasn’t an unusual request.
Christine, now 44, who had received a heart transplant the year prior, had been admitted following complications from pneumonia. Meanwhile, after unexpectedly experiencing congestive heart failure, Kendell, now 41, had just received a left ventricular assist device (LVAD), an implant to assist the heart with pumping blood. Before Christine’s transplant, her heart health journey also included an LVAD. So, she told theGrio it wasn’t a rare occurrence for physicians to have her speak with new LVAD patients and offer advice and support.
However, unlike all of the other times she’d met new LVAD recipients, when she met Kendell, though she didn’t know it at the time, she had just met her husband.
As she was discharged, she recalled stopping in on him one more time to say, “Give me a call when you can. Maybe when you’re outside, we could meet up.”
Christine and Kendell were married on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, during an intimate celebration at a restaurant in Flushing after embarking on a unique, heartful love story.
“Don’t give up on love,” Christine says on the other side of her happy ending.
She explained before she met Kendell, she was ready to throw in the towel. Bad luck in love combined with a brand new heart and a new lease on life, the mother of two said, “I don’t think I’m gonna give this heart to anyone.”
“I came to a point where I said, ‘Christine, you’re the only one that’s going to love your heart and protect your heart. Don’t let anyone in.’”
She added, “Then we met each other, and it was like, we couldn’t wait to give each other love.”
Even though the newlyweds clearly hit it off, Christine admits it wasn’t exactly “love at first sight.” She was in a hospital…
Read the full article here
