A whole lotta heart
Survives virus, donates blood, then undergoes implant
Coronavirus survivor Alan Fein got another shot at life, but for him it’s more of a second chance to give again.
About a decade ago, Fein, against the wishes of his family, was all set to donate a kidney to a complete stranger when a screening test revealed a heart defect that disqualified him at the last minute.
“That was crushing,” Fein, 57, recalled.
Fast-forward to earlier this year, when his blood flow became so bad that Fein was getting winded just walking up the stairs.
Doctors diagnosed Fein with cardiomyopathy, a disease that makes it harder for his heart to pump blood to the rest of his body, and said he needed a defibrillator implant to help pace his heart.
But doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital were waiting for the pandemic to pass before scheduling his surgery. It didn’t.
Fein, a nursing home supervisor, quickly found himself facing a more urgent medical matter: He tested positive for coronavirus, the disease he desperately tried to avoid.
“I knew right away I had the virus,” Fein said.
There was fever and a loss of appetite, and the chest pains got even worse. Fein, a Long Island husband and father of two, was at risk of sudden death before the epidemic. Coronavirus made the risk even worse. Imagine that, he thought. Worse than sudden.
“It’s hard to be optimistic through all of this,” said Fein’s heart doctor, Sumeet Mitter, a transplant cardiology professor at Mount Sinai. “His determination to do better and to do well has really helped him.”
Fein beat back coronavirus and made a full recovery — but doctors decided not to wait any longer to operate on his heart. Fein’s defibrillator was successfully implanted
Tuesday, but not before he got a chance to donate plasma to help in the fight against COVID-19.
Plasma derived from blood of people who have successfully recovered from the virus may contain antibodies that can potentially help others battling the illness.
“It’s ironic that it started with an attempt to donate and ended with an attempt to donate,” said Marc Miller, a cardiac electrophysiologist at
Mount Sinai, who performed the implant. “Kind of full circle.”
Fein wonders sometimes about the anonymous man who missed out on his kidney. Did he live? Did he die? Did another donor step up?
He said the plasma donation has helped to ease his conscience.
“That is the part that makes you feel like it’s worth going through the whole thing,” Fein said. “You don’t want anyone else to go through this.”
Fein and Mitter said they also want to help by getting the message out about the need to address underlying conditions during the pandemic.
“We’re going to have cardiovascular disease before, during and after COVID,” Mitter said. “We need to make sure we take care of patients through all of this. There were missed heart attacks because people don’t want to go to the hospital. Complications can occur if people avoid medical care.”
Fein said he, too, worried about how many people in need of urgent medical care for nonvirus issues stayed away from hospitals out of fear of catching the disease.
“I was thinking about how many people are hurting themselves. They think the cure is worse than the disease,” Fein said. “You don’t want to go to the hospital because you don’t want to kill yourself. Then you’re killing yourself because you’re staying away from the hospital.”