Picture yourself as Tony Stark, not for the billionaire status or the Iron Man suit, but for that shiny mechanical ticker inside your chest. Except, ours isn’t a mini arc reactor, it’s a real-world miracle called the total artificial heart (TAH). This is no comic book fiction, but hard mechanical science working to keep your blood flowing when your biological pump gears down.

Think of this heart imposter as a fancy heart-environment friendly device smoothly sliding into your chest cavity. Its mission? To adopt the pumping action of the Kubler-Roasted (yes, like the coffee) ventricles of your heart while you kick back waiting for a heart transplant.

TAH isn’t your run-of-the-mill cardiac stand-in. Unlike the left ventricular assist device (LVAD), that only babysits the flailing left ventricle, TAH goes the extra mile and completely impersonates both left and right ventricles. It resembles a zealous understudy who seizes the stage when the main actor forgets his dialogues, except for our protagonist, the actor is out with a - not-so-literal - heartbreak.

Now that's understanding the role of ventricles. These two lower chambers of the heart function like excellent bouncers at a high-end club. They take the blood delivered by the top-tier bodyguards, aka the atria, and pump it out to the body, ensuring the party of life keeps going. While the right ventricle carts blood off to the lung party, the left ventricle sees to the circulation throughout the rest of the body bash.

If, heaven forbid, your life’s party planners, the ventricles, are beyond repair, TAH volunteers to replace them. Made of durable, flexible materials, it mimics the heart muscle tissue with panache. The U.S-only approved showstopper, the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart System, takes center stage in such scenarios.

Installed inside your chest, it takes orders from a sidekick machine, aka the driver, situated outside your body. The driver takes over the heart's position like a ruthless dictator but with the noble cause of ensuring you have a blood supply, essentially functioning similar to a healthy heart.

Stepping into the rings of your circulatory system, the TAH, channels WWE vibes and grapples with both left and right sides of the heart defects. It's like an LVAD, but on steroid mode, compensating even when an LVAD system throws in the towel.

This mechanical heart game-changer communicates via air pulses conveyed through tubes (much less romantic than love letters, but they get the job done). These air pulses boss around the flexible diaphragms within the device to institute a pumping action that adequately circulates blood.

TAH stands as a concrete bridge, leading heart transplant patients towards their transplant. It serves as a temporary guardian and only comes into play for patients knocking on the doors of end-stage heart diseases.

Post TAH installation, patients can shrug off hospital gowns and slip back into their regular clothes, leading typical lives with an extra companion, the TAH, to take care of. Since these bionic hearts work only till a heart transplant is available, they are the equivalent of a 5-star temporary Airbnb for your body.

However, time is a luxuriously expensive commodity for people with a TAH. With the transplant window narrowly placed, less than 60% make it to a year post their TAH surgery if a heart doesn’t avail itself that soon.

Not to forget, TAH installation could break your bank, with the cost soaring way above half a million dollars. Totally Artificial, Totally Heavy on the Expertise, and Totally Heavy on the Pocket, we suppose.

If you qualify for this club (by meeting a rigorous set of conditions), and your insurance provider is generous, you are looking at a streamline procedure: Getting referred for a transplant, learning about the process, enduring stringent medical tests, and finally, if the stars align, stepping onto the pedestal of a heart transplant waiting list.

Remember, the TAH is just an understudy, not the main actor. It’s a polyurethane wonder, impersonating your heart’s actions, awaiting the arrival of the star performer, the heart transplant.

The less than 60% who survive post a year with a TAH beseech the timely arrival of a heart donor. So, while you hang out with your mechanical buddy, remember to keep your lifestyle heart-healthy, as you may have to face the curtain call sooner than expected.