The following article was written by Alison Conklin, Editor in Chief of Bonus Days Magazine:
Every moning since my heart transplant in October 2022, I write how many bonus days I have accumulated on a calendar that hangs in our kitchen. One of my favorite moments each day is when my husband looks at that calendar and says, “Happy Bonus Day 1273. I am so glad you are here.” There is something so beautiful about that moment, so poetic and so kind. It is an acknowledgment of how hard the road is and also how grateful we are to be standing in our kitchen together, greeting a new day.
I have spent my entire life with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. With that came feelings of being alone in the experiences. Each diagnosis and treatment plan would leave me wondering what my life would look like once I exited the doors of the hospital. Days could turn into weeks, sometimes months, and being in the hospital could feel isolating and all-encompassing. I would scroll my phone endlessly or sit quietly, watching out the window as everyone else was going about their days, living their lives while I sat still with my thoughts in my hospital room.
There is also a mental and emotional weight to this kind of journey that is harder to name. The waiting, the uncertainty, the constant awareness of your body and what it may or may not do next. The quiet anxiety that can follow you even on the good days. Even now, I am still learning how to carry that anxiety, how to live alongside it without letting it take over. It is not always visible, but it is always there, woven into the experience of living with chronic illness and navigating transplant.
This is why I feel so strongly about a printed magazine that patients can hold in their hands and read while undergoing treatment or simply waiting, as I did, for a heart transplant. A magazine whose pages are filled with people whose stories mirror theirs and whose scars look like ones on their own bodies. A magazine created and filled with people who speak the same language when it comes to illness and resilience. Journeys already taken and the reflections and insights gleaned along the way.
I created Bonus Days Magazine from that place. What started as something deeply personal has grown into something shared, now finding its way into transplant centers, hospital waiting rooms, and homes across the country. It is read by patients, families, caregivers, and the medical teams who walk alongside them every day.
The magazine intends to share stories that inspire, to remind you that there is a beautiful life awaiting you, no matter the circumstance, regardless of the diagnosis. Its pages continue to document care received and encourage post-operative well-being for patients and their families through how others have done it. Our small but mighty team creates each issue because we know firsthand how important it can be to hold hope and resilience in one’s hands, to be reminded of our strength through stories and photographs.
Today, those bonus days look like long walks, watching my sons grow up and quiet moments, working on each new issue, and continuing to tell stories that help people feel less alone. They look like ordinary moments that once felt uncertain and now feel like everything.
Behind every bonus day is a network of people – doctors, nurses, technicians, and caregivers – whose work makes these days possible for so many of us. I know how hard it can be to consistently communicate positivity and encourage perseverance throughout diagnoses and prognoses, not only for patients, but for those providing care.
This magazine is one small way to support that shared effort. And if it finds its way into the hands of someone sitting in a waiting room, wondering what comes next, and helps them feel even a little less alone, then it is doing exactly what it was meant to do.
If this feels like something that could support your patients, your team, or your community, we would love to have you join the growing number of centers sharing Bonus Days. Bulk copies are available for hospitals and organizations, or individual issues can be purchased online at BonusDaysMag.com.
