After her heart started to fail, a first-of-its-kind surgery saved her life

Sue Baker was used to spending time within the hospital. She had began having coronary heart troubles in 2015, and because the subject escalated, she spent increasingly time within the hospital. She had a pacemaker implanted to maintain her coronary heart beating. As soon as, she spent 5 days in a coma. 

In 2019, as her coronary heart perform continued to fail, Baker acquired a left ventricular help system, or LVAD, a mechanical pump that helps the guts’s left ventricle flow into blood all through the physique.

For years, Baker lived on “batteries and electrical energy,” however she did not cease dwelling her life. She married a person she cherished, they usually began constructing a life collectively in southeast Georgia. Nevertheless, she knew the LVAD was solely a stopgap measure, and needed to verify she was dwelling a full life earlier than her well being declined additional. 

4 years after getting the LVAD, Baker began having harmful coronary heart rhythms. She was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, and was added to the transplant record to await a brand new coronary heart.

For months, the 58-year-old waited, typically receiving painful shocks from her LVAD and pacemaker as they tried to maintain her coronary heart functioning. Her physique was additionally producing too many antibodies, which put her at excessive threat for rejecting any organs she acquired. Her transplant heart specialist, Dr. Pareg Patel, examined a number of drugs, together with chemotherapies, to cut back the antibodies. The method was “very scary,” she stated. 

In the future, Patel got here to her with another choice: She may have a liver transplant, along with the brand new coronary heart. It’d remedy the antibody downside. There was only one catch: A heart-liver transplant had by no means been performed in somebody with an LVAD earlier than. Her different choice was palliative care.  

“We bought to speaking about it, and I used to be like ‘You are not going to know except any individual agrees to do that. There’s not a lot alternative, actually,'” Baker recalled. “It was going to be an experiment in some way.” 

A primary-of-its-kind transplant 

The liver is “like sponges that take down these antibodies,” Patel defined. Generally, livers are transplanted alongside hearts to decrease the chance of rejection. However the process means a affected person wants to attend till a coronary heart and liver can be found from the identical donor. Some individuals die on the ready record, Patel stated. However for Baker, it was the best choice. 

“It is a story the place we have been capable of finding an out-of-the-box answer for any individual who I can assure you two years in the past we might have stated no to and put them in hospice,” Patel stated. “She had lower than most likely six months to stay in, extra seemingly three months.” 

Baker spent months within the hospital, persevering with to obtain painful shocks from her LVAD and pacemaker. She had different issues, together with diagnoses of COVID-19 and pneumonia. In September 2024, she lastly acquired phrase {that a} coronary heart and liver have been out there to her. 

“I used to be shocked,” Baker stated. “I used to be so excited.” 

Patel stated he and his group anticipated that the surgical procedure can be “difficult” and “very excessive threat” due to Baker’s well being issues however everybody believed it was the very best choice. Baker would even be donating her “completely wholesome” liver to a different affected person, Patel stated, in what’s generally known as a domino operation. 

“I feel the cool a part of that is for Sue, is that through the use of this expertise, primary, we have been capable of show that by inserting a liver and a coronary heart from any individual is we’re capable of make antibodies go near zero,” Patel defined. “And quantity two, we have been capable of have Sue grow to be not solely a recipient of two organs, but in addition a donor in the identical day.” 

Blazing a path for different sufferers  

After her surgical procedure, Baker stated she had a protracted restoration, however spent her time within the hospital bonding with different sufferers. She tried to be a voice of optimism for different individuals ready for transplants, she stated. She additionally acquired a letter from the one that acquired her liver. 

After Baker recovered and left the hospital in October 2024, she was desirous to resume her life in Georgia, however tragedy struck: Her husband died from a sudden cardiac arrest simply weeks later. Burdened by medical payments and funeral bills, her monetary state of affairs spiraled. She stated her housing is now unstable, and most spare cash goes to flying to common check-ups on the Mayo Clinic. A GoFundMe has solely raised a couple of hundred {dollars}. Patel stated Baker will want frequent check-ups and drugs to keep up her new organs. 

Mayo Clinic stated it affords monetary help and fee plan choices, in addition to monetary counseling to sufferers who’re uninsured or underinsured. 

Baker stated she is leaning on her church for emotional assist and different help. She has a caretaker, Charlene, who helps with day-to-day life. She additionally hopes that her participating within the first-of-its-kind surgical procedure will enable extra individuals to obtain lifesaving therapy, and stated the thought brings her some solace. 

Patel stated that one other surgical procedure like Baker’s was already performed, and that one other is within the works. 

“If it weren’t for her, these different two sufferers would haven’t any alternative,” Patel stated. 

“Doing what I did, it opened it up for thus many extra sufferers,” Baker stated. “It made me very completely happy to know that extra LVAD sufferers will be capable of undergo this and truly have a protracted likelihood at life.”