A LIFE-SAVING BREAK
Heart transplant recipient is grateful
New hearts have given two local seniors new leases on life. Stittsville resident Colin Maxwell marked the fourth anniversary of his heart transplant on Jan. 19, while Smiths Falls resident Terry Fagan noted seven years with his new heart on Jan. 9.
“When I celebrated my 65th birthday, I didn’t expect to make 66,” says Maxwell, who, until 2007, was chief executive officer of the Canadian Wildlife Federation. “But I’ve enjoyed exceptionally good health since my heart transplant.”
It was in 2011, 13 years after the former Saskatchewan cabinet minister had first been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, that he faced a near-terminal health crisis. By this time, his heart was functioning at only 13 per cent of capacity. He had also contracted a major blood infection, possibly associated with the wiring on the defibrillator that had been inserted in his body four years earlier. Too sick to eat, he had lost so much weight that he was classed as malnourished.
The prognosis was bleak, and more immediately so than it had been in 1998 when he was initially diagnosed. “Then the cardiologist told me to forget about having a normal lifespan and start getting my affairs in order,” recalls Maxwell. “He said that the damage to the left ventricle of my heart was very severe. At that point, my time was measured in months, not years.”
Fagan, a counsellor with the Rideau Regional Centre for 28 years, faced a similarly grim prognosis after being diagnosed with congestive heart failure. At that point, his heart function had deteriorated to dangerously low levels.
“In 2008, it was down to 12 per cent of capacity, then 10,” he says, adding that it became more and more difficult for him to walk even a block without resting. By the time he was given the surgery that saved his life, his heart function was down to just six per cent of capacity.
After physicians decide that a patient is ready to go on the transplant list — employing a complex set of criteria used to ensure that the candidate is well enough to withstand the major surgery, yet so ill that other procedures would, in all likelihood, fail — the nerveracking wait for a suitable donor begins. (In addition to finding a match, the patient’s age, being hospitalized and needing to be on oxygen are some of the factors that determine the order of surgeries.)
“I went on the list in October and received the call for surgery three months later,” says Fagan, then 61.
Maxwell’s journey to a new heart was less direct. Specialists at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute initially prescribed medication and said that a heart transplant might be considered in the future, if he lived long enough and remained well enough to tolerate open-heart surgery.
“At first, they gave me a six-month horizon, then it was a year, then 18 months, then two years,” says Maxwell, a former physical education teacher. “By that time, I was back to working out, doing aerobics only and swimming. On the day I was diagnosed, I stopped all alcohol completely and cut out salt.”
Under this regimen, his condition improved and he “just kept living a normal life,” eventually with the help of a defibrillator, as his heart function continued declining. But his life changed drastically in March 2011, when he collapsed and had to be rushed to the nearest hospital.
His physicians made it clear that he would not be able to leave hospital unless he had a heart transplant or had an LVAD (left ventricular assist device) inserted. At this point, however, he was too weak to withstand the necessary surgery.
But, with the care he received at the heart institute and the support of his family, he survived. “The care I received at the heart institute was absolutely fantastic,” says Maxwell. “More even than the care, the positive, supportive attitude helped me. Not just from the medical and nursing staff, but also from those in non-medical roles. For example, one caretaker was particularly kind to my family and made a point of visiting me every day.
“The second thing that made a major difference was my family and friends,” he adds. “I like to think that I could have survived anyway, but the constant support from the family, especially my wife, Cherry, who was there all the time, made a huge difference.”
Within four months, he was judged ready to withstand the highrisk, open-heart surgery to insert the LVAD. “I thrived physically on the LVAD,” says Maxwell. “As soon as I got it, I started working out again. But, because it’s a complex machine, there is a constant worry about complications and possible failure of the equipment.”
A few months later, he was healthy enough to be added to the transplant list and just 50 days after that, he was back on the operating table receiving his new heart. Today, he is healthy and working out every day.
“Post-transplant, I’m a normal 70-plus guy, healthier than some of my contemporaries, because I keep an eye on diet and continue exercising,” says Maxwell, adding that while there are some side effects from the anti-rejection drugs he must take for the rest of his life, “that is a small price to pay. I feel richly blessed for having been given this unbelievable endowment.
“One of the reasons I work out is out of respect for the organ and the sacrifice of the donor,” he adds. “At the very least, I owe the donor and her family that.”
Fagan, too, says that he is deeply grateful to the donor, recognizing that “this young man’s generosity is the reason that I am now in really good health and enjoying retirement living.”