Woman’s historic surgery spreads hope
Even though Carrie Elaine Woods died not long after her heart transplant, she continues to live in the mind of her daughter and the people whose lives she changed.
The legacy of Carrie Elaine Woods lives on, not just in her daughter and in the lives she touched, but in the lessons doctors learned from her.
Woods was the first black woman from Georgia to receive a heart transplant on Oct. 26, 1982. She traveled from Rome to UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, for the transplant.
Woods’ daughter Margo Harris of Rome remembers being just 9 years old and playing in the waiting rooms for countless hours.
“I remember it from a child’s perspective,” Harris said. “I remember mom was sick and didn’t feel well. I remember because of the recovery time, she wasn’t with us that Christmas and that was hard on me and my brother. Dad didn’t know how to do Christmas like Mom did.”
Woods suffered from an enlarged heart.
“Normal hearts are about the size of your fist,” Harris said. “Her heart was the size of a football. She had no energy and she was put on the transplant list.”
The heart transplant was an experimental procedure then, Harris said. Harbin Clinic doctors put Woods on the list and worked with her to keep her as healthy as possible.
A 24-year-old motorcyclist died in a wreck and his heart was a match for Woods. She was taken in and given the new heart.
For a while after her operation, Woods was good, being able to be with her family and talking to people about her experience and touching lives and bringing folks to God, Harris said.
However, the medication she had to be on to prevent her body from rejecting the heart caused some problems. Because it suppressed her immune system, Woods was unable to fight off diseases well. When she developed an abscess in her brain, her body was unable to deal with it.
Woods died on March 8, 1984, just a year and four months after her operation.
“About a year after she died, we had a family call us wanting to thank her,” said Harris. “They told us that talking to her had brought them to Christ. She had given them belief and made a difference in their lives. They wanted to thank her and we had to tell them she had passed. It was heartbreaking.”
However, Woods had made good use of that time she had. She and her family were able to celebrate their last Christmas together.
“My mom was always a prankster,” laughed Harris. “She would tease me about this doll everyone wanted, saying I wasn’t going to get it, but on Christmas morning, that doll was right there on the couch surrounded by all these little doll outfits my mom had made for her. It was the best Christmas I remember, because we were together.”
A future of hope
Woods also left behind a legacy of hope and advancement for future heart transplants.
“They studied my mom’s heart and operation,” explained Harris. “She helped them learn, so that is something that makes me proud.”
As she watched the advancements made in the
field of heart transplants through the years, Harris knows that her mom was partly responsible for some of those.
“She never asked to be sick,” Harris said. “She didn’t ask for any of that, but she faced it and fought it. She accepted it and used it for something greater. I do think about the fact that if that happened today, things would have been better for her and she would still be with us.”
Woods faced a lot of tragedy in her life, losing her youngest daughter at age 4, Harris said.
“I always thought that had something to do with her heart condition,” she said. “It was the proverbial heartbreak. My brother, who was always close to our mother, died in a house fire nine years after my mom’s death. He was sad a lot and always said he wanted to be with mom again.”
Harris said she has been able to see little pieces of her mother show up in her and thinks of her every day.
“I’ll do something and I will think, ‘Yes, that is what you would do, mom,’” she said. “I talk to her. I feel like I have that prankster in me, too, and she was very artistic, loved to draw and sing. I sing and am an interior designer. I feel like I have connections with her.”
Because her mom died when she was only 31, reaching age 32 was a milestone for Harris, she said.
“I remember thinking after I reached my 32nd birthday that I had made it past that age,” Harris said. “I was worried, because I thought ‘What if it happens to me, too?’”
She remembers her mother as a strong woman. “I remember how brave she was, because the doctors, back then, they couldn’t make any promises,” Harris said. “Because it was so new and experimental. But she was so brave and she tried. And after the operation, she lived life to the fullest. Nobody loves you like your mom and she loved us so much. She loved and tried to help everyone.”