DISAPPOINTMENT: First organ available rejected by doctors
By REBECCA MADDEN | Watertown Daily Times
The Belleville resident said he didn't know how long he was under anesthesia before someone from the medical staff woke him up and told him the last thing he expected to hear.
"A guy with the mask and glasses said they rejected the heart, that it wouldn't have worked for me, and wasn't what we thought it'd be," Mr. Pierce said via telephone Friday. "They took me back to my room, and here I sit."
He has called Strong Memorial Hospital home for the past month, and he's now on its heart-transplant waiting list along with 29 others.
STRONG WILL, WEAK HEART
Cardiologist Leway Chen said while most patients wait several months or longer for new organs, Mr. Pierce's "other heart" came up two days after he was put on the list. A heart was made available quickly because Mr. Pierce's case is considered high-risk, and the donor was local.
"If we get an offer, we review the medical history of the donor, and we gauge if it's good or not," Dr. Chen said via telephone Friday. "By the time our surgeon got there, it wasn't good, so we aborted."
The news was sad, yet also a blessing in disguise, Mr. Pierce said.
"It's like yes, anything has to be better than what I've got, but I understand the hospital has to look out for its best interest, which happens to be mine," he said. "It wasn't as bad as you think."
Although he said he felt terrible that his family flocked to his bedside hoping to celebrate a successful heart transplant, the brief reunion was uplifting.
Mr. Pierce's condition — cardiomyopathy — puts him near the top of the transplant list. According to Dr. Chen, cardiomyopathy causes the heart not to pump blood properly. The hospital's cardiology team is uncertain how Mr. Pierce's condition occurred.
An active fisherman, Mr. Pierce said he was diagnosed in 2002. It since has gotten progressively worse, and causes shortness of breath and fatigue, particularly at night when he lies down. His heart is too weak for him to wait for a new one at home.
The left side of his heart has swelled and doesn't pump blood well to the rest of his body. The condition particularly affects his kidneys. Fluid builds up and has to be drained.
A LONG ROAD AHEAD
Despite the setback, Mr. Pierce and his family have been in good spirits. His son, John W. "Jay" Pierce Jr., 25, keeps his cell phone on in class at Erie Community College, Buffalo, in hopes of hearing that his father will receive a compatible heart.
Until then, the two try to spend as much time together as they can. The younger Mr. Pierce visits his father every weekend, and accompanies him while they watch Syracuse University games on television.
"If something happens, we're all ready to be here," Jay said.
Walking with bulky medical equipment has became the norm for the elder Mr. Pierce. Many pills, blood tests and IV medications also keep him in the hospital.
"It's pretty intrusive," Dr. Chen said. "It's a tough road."
And whenever the perfect match comes in, Mr. Pierce's life still won't be a breeze, Dr. Chen said, because rarely is anyone cured of cardiomyopathy. He said in some cases it just postpones the inevitable — eventual death.
Although Mr. Pierce, a former engineer at WWNY-TV7, is well aware of the risks associated with the surgery, he also knows there are greater risks if the procedure isn't done.
To help pass the time in the hospital, he exercises two or three times a day, and accompanied by a nurse, he takes short walks to the facility's coffee or gift shops. He said his in-laws also bought him a laptop, and he spends a majority of the time reading and rereading a transplant guide book.
"They test me on it," he said. "I have to know the name of the drugs I'm on, what they're for and what milligrams I'm taking so when I'm at home so when they communicate with me over the phone after, there is no error. These things are critical. They take it very seriously."
MORE DONORS NEEDED
One of the most unfortunate parts of the whole process, he said, is knowing someone has to lose his life in order for his to be prolonged. Other patients waiting for a heart transplant at Strong Memorial have been there as long as six months, Mr. Pierce said.
Dr. Chen said organ donation has been on the decline. According to the federal Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, there were 110,503 people in the nation waiting for some kind of organ transplant as of Saturday. At least 3,200 of those waiting need new hearts.
"Unfortunately, for upstate New York, and all of New York, we don't have a high organ donation rate," Dr. Chen said.
Mr. Pierce's wife, Deanna S., visits him each weekend. Most of his family remains in Sackets Harbor and elsewhere in Jefferson County.
ON THE NET
United Network for Organ
Sharing: www.unos.org
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