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December 06, 2006
Transplant gives 44-year-old mom 'another chance at life'
By SANDRA FREDERICK Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE -- Branding her youngest son's face into her memory was the only thing Jackie Rouse could think about as a vise-like pressure gripped her chest.
It was the Friday night before Thanksgiving and she knew something was terribly wrong. She would lie in bed only to be forced to stand up to ease the sharp pains that assaulted her. But she was so weak she couldn't remain standing for more than a few moments before she would lie down again, only to repeat the process.
"Something told me I had to remember his little face because I wasn't ever going to see it again," Rouse said Friday as tears streamed down her frail face, four days after undergoing a heart transplant at Mayo Clinic at St. Luke's Hospital in Jacksonville. "I knew I was knocking on death's door at that moment."
Rouse is expected to be released from the transplant center today pending results of a biopsy, where five pinhead-sized snippets of heart tissue were extracted through a tube woven to the organ through a vein in her neck.
If results show none of the heart tissue is dying, she will settle into a private rehabilitation center near the hospital where she will have to get the same procedure performed weekly for several months. The tests will tell her doctor if her body is rejecting the new heart. Rouse also will have to take about $6,000 a month in medications to suppress her immune system so her body won't attack the new organ.
The 44-year-old single mother from New Smyrna Beach is still amazed just how close she came to dying. A week before she was told she had cardiomyopathy -- severe scarring around the heart caused by a bout with Lyme disease during the mid-1990s -- and needed a pacemaker. She was no longer pumping blood and oxygen through her body efficiently.
But what the doctors didn't know was only about 20 percent of her heart was actually working.
"Her blood pressure was really low when she came in," Bert Fish Medical Center cardiologist Dr. Eric Lo said. "Her heart failed suddenly and she couldn't maintain blood pressure. If she hadn't come in when she did, she would have died."
However, the medicine Lo put her on was dangerously strong and could only be taken for a few weeks. The only option was to get her a transplant or get her to Hospice to help her during her final weeks of life.
Thankfully, Rouse had some "miracles" on her side, too. Her other vital organs were still in good shape and hadn't started to shut down. And, Dr. Jeffrey Hosenpud, a cardiologist with Mayo Clinic, said because of her small stature, age and blood type, she was a good candidate for a new heart. She was placed at the top of the transplant list instead of having a Jarvik -- a mechanical heart surgically installed to keep her alive.
The call came only 10 days after her lifesaving trip to Bert Fish in New Smyrna Beach -- a donor heart from Kentucky was available.
"I went from getting a pacemaker to needing a new heart," Rouse said. "It's amazing to feel and hear my new heart pumping. And, for the first time in a long time, my hands and toes are warm."
The nearly seven-hour surgery went well, said transplant surgeon Dr. Laurence McBride, who also harvested the donor heart before transplanting it into Rouse.
"It is very gratifying to take people (like Jackie) with no hope or future and transplant an organ and allow them to live," he said Friday from the hospital.
Rouse, who was going to marry her fiance, Scott Phillips, last week, is thankful for the support of her loved ones, doctors and the hospital. She said she didn't lose 80 percent of her original heart overnight, but she did get a "miracle" in 10 days.
"I am going to take the very best care of this heart," she said as she placed her hand over the middle of her chest. "The decision by the (donor) family allowed me to be here and see my kids grow. I have another chance at life."