Jayne

Jayne was the picture of health. Little did she know that a silent defect lay within her heart.

It was a brisk fall morning when Jayne went out for her regular run. She woke up two weeks later in the University of Michigan hospital with Dr. Francis Pagani at her side. Dr. Pagani, who is director of Heart Transplant and the Center for Circulatory Support, explained to Jayne that she had a heart attack and that he and the heart failure team had implanted a heart-assisting device called an LVAD (left ventricular assistance device) in her chest. The LVAD was now helping her heart do the job it could no longer do.

“At first, I thought he was in the wrong room," Jayne said.

Slowly the story became clear. Two weeks had passed since Jayne’s early morning run. Her neighbors found her collapsed on the sidewalk and called 911. She was taken to one nearby hospital, then another. Neither hospital could help her. Finally, she was transferred to the University of Michigan Health System via U-M’s air medical transport system, Survival Flight.

Despite regular physicals and even EKGs, Jayne’s rare heart defect had gone undetected for over 40 years. Now, at U-M, she could get the help she so desperately needed.

Gradually, when Jayne could absorb the information, she learned from Dr. Pagani that she would need a heart transplant. While LVAD’s are sometimes used as long-term or destination therapy, in her case the device could not pump her blood forever.

Always thinking of herself as healthy, Jayne now joined the ranks of approximately 4,000 people each year who wait for a heart transplant. She knew that some of these patients wait years for a transplant – and she knew that some patients do not live long enough to match with a donor heart. She went home to wait, but her confidence in the U-M heart transplant team lifted her spirits.

It’s a Match!

When a donor heart becomes available, the donor-recipient matching system considers the medical urgency of potential recipients, the blood type, the size of the donor organ and the length of time the recipient has been on the waiting list.

Just a few weeks after she was released from the hospital, Jayne matched with a donor heart. Although she had been on the transplant list a very short time, the perfect heart was available for her. At U-M – often applauded for its efforts to increase organ donation – Jayne would get her second chance at life.

Jayne had her heart transplant on December 6, 2004 – and went home to celebrate the holidays with her husband and three children.

During the past three decades, University of Michigan researchers have been instrumental in the development of the immunosuppressive medications that prevent organ rejection, and these medications – and supporting education – were at her fingertips. She also went home armed with the resources she needed: lots of physician and nurse support and immediate access –and clear instructions on post-transplant care.

Today, Jayne says, “Life is grand!” “I'm the same person I was before all of this happened. I just have more medicines to take."