Key points from today’s guests:

Jackie Adams, heart transplant recipient

• At 58 years old, Jackie never had any serious health problems until she got COVID in late 2021.
• She thought she recovered, but had trouble breathing a few days before Christmas and went to the hospital thinking that she still had COVID.
• Her difficulty breathing was not due to COVID, but to serious heart failure.
• Doctors put in a pacemaker and had to conduct another invasive surgery just to buy some time to get her on the heart transplant list.
• As a smoker for more than 30 years, Jackie had to quit immediately and be off of nicotine for six months to even be eligible for the donor list.
• She stopped smoking immediately and was added to the list. She received a new heart in December 2022.
• She feels “wonderful” today – she has so much more energy – and is grateful for what the doctors were able to do and the support she has received.

Dr. Hirak Shah, heart failure and transplantation cardiologist, The University of Kansas Health System

• When we saw Jackie, her heart was in bad shape and barely able to pump blood regularly.
• The pacemaker was part of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), but it doesn’t work for everyone, and Jackie’s heart needed more help than that.
• I think she had some sort of heart abnormality, whether that be genetics, or whether that just be something in her heart that just wasn't working correctly.
• COVID might have just accelerated that process – not necessarily that COVID caused it per se, but COVID definitely brought the issue to light that really made the heart failure very evident.
• The credit goes to Jackie. All we really do is show her a path and she has to walk that path and do the things that she needs to do.
• This is the best part about the job to really, truly save a life and I'm happy that Jackie had such a great outcome – that's what I hope for all of our patients.
  
  

Dr. Matthew Danter, thoracic surgeon, The University of Kansas Health System

• Because of the lack of heart donors in relation to the need, the process is very selective for who gets the transplant. And non-smokers provide better outcomes for transplants.
• Usually what smoking can commonly do is cause blockages in the coronary arteries, coronary artery disease, and myocardial infarction.
• This is the first time I’ve seen Jackie in a while and she looks great. When you see people that are doing well, it is very reaffirming.
• Sometimes we see the opposite side and we have people that are just not capable of quitting smoking or making changes to improve their health enough for a life-saving procedure.
• Jackie is a great example of how much you can change when you have to.