AUSTIN (KXAN) – Update: Family and friends say Dickey passed away on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013  due to medical complications. The Battalion Chief for Hays County ESD#6 said the firefighters are working on a benefit for Dickey and more details on that will be forthcoming.

Curtis Dickey missed Christmas with his family for the past three years, but this week was different, thanks to a new heart beating in his chest.

He received it December 28 2011, so that date has as much significance to him as Christmas.

“During the holidays it’s kind of bittersweet,” Dickey said. “You always wake up each day wondering if there’s going to be a next day, but at the same time you have hope.”

Curtis’ doctor, cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Eric Hoenicke, said Dickey was a very sick man.

“His heart was completely dysfunctional,” Hoenicke said. “It basically didn’t work for him. That’s why he was so sick and that’s why he was in the hospital.”

In an effort to buy him more time, doctors implanted a left ventricular assist device, an artificial pump.

“That’s kind of the last step before a transplant comes, and knowing when it comes to a transplant you could wait a week or years,” Dickey said. “It can be a little depressing.”

Dickey waited, off and on, for years in the hospital. At last the call came around last Christmas.

“The clinic called one afternoon and asked me if I had a bag packed. I said I don’t but I can,” Dickey said. “They said pack it and come down, we think we have a heart.”

Curtis trains service dogs and also works as a volunteer firefighter in Dripping Springs. “It’s just one way I have of giving back to all those who have supported me throughout the years,” he said.

If more donors were available,  there could be more holidays like the one CurtisDickey just enjoyed, with his mom and brother’s family, including a niece and nephew..

He smiles.”It was going to be an amazing Christmas. The first in four years that I will not have spent in the hospital. It’s a special Christmas.”