Category: Human Interest

Gary Woxland of Rushford recently went on a journey that very few people will ever have to make. Two years after having a pump put into his heart, which was weakening, he had a heart transplant operation at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison. He went into the hospital on April 19, and after more than 12 hours on the operating table, Woxland is feeling good about the results of the procedure. The road to the transplant began just a couple years ago.

“My heart had gotten too weak,” he recalled, “so I had a heart pump put in to help it out two years ago. That did help, but I then decided it would actually be better for me if I could get a heart transplant. Heart pumps are only good for 15-18 years before they wear out. At that point, I’d be too old to put in a new one.”

He did his original “doctoring” at Mayo Clinic, but Mayo had an age-cutoff of 70 years old, at which they would no longer perform the operation. Woxland was just shy of 69 when he first broached the topic with doctors. He said the doctors in Rochester discouraged him from pursuing the option there but did encourage him to try the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. The Rochester doctors told him there was a bigger donor list in Arizona and he might have quicker results down there.

“We went through the hospital there and they felt the same as the Rochester clinic,” he said. “They said I was getting too old and didn’t want to risk it. Someone told me I should check with the hospital at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It turned out they were interested and put me through their tests. They had a similar age cutoff to Mayo Clinic, but it was more dependent on the overall health of each candidate.”

Woxland was actually still working up to that point and not “sitting in a chair somewhere every day.” The fact that he could do everything on his own before the surgery really helped out. In spite of that, it still took him a while to get on the transplant list. Four or five months later, he still hadn’t heard from anyone and was about to give up on the idea when the call finally came. Woxland felt it was a dream come true.

“I was down at the shop where I work and talking with my brother,” he recalled, “and I set my cell phone down in the shop and went into another room when they began trying to call me. They called two or three times there and then called my wife, but she didn’t have her cell phone with her. I left work at noon for lunch and when I got home, the phone was ringing. At the same time, they’d called Rushford Police Chief Adam Eide and asked him to come find me as well.”

After getting word that they’d found him a good heart, it was literally a mad dash to get to Madison, Wisconsin, as hospital staff wants the transplant patients there within four hours. Woxland had a smile you could hear in his voice when he said, “we thought we were ready to go, but we weren’t.” It was a bit of a challenging drive to Wisconsin through what was heavy snowfall, at times, but they did make it safely.

“We got there and found out the donor was actually still alive,” Woxland recalled, “and they weren’t going to harvest the heart until the next morning. It was a good opportunity for them to get me prepped. About 12 hours later, I was ready to go. My wife said I was in the operating room for 12 hours. I went in around 8:30 in the morning and got out around 9:00 that night.”

The doctor told the Woxlands that the surgery went great and there were no complications. He did ask who the donor was, and staff couldn’t tell him at that moment. All the doctor could say was the donor was male. There is a form that Woxland can send to the hospital to find out the name of the donor. Hospital staff told the Woxlands that they shouldn’t be in a hurry to find that out as the donor’s family is still grieving the loss.

He still has to go back to the doctor every two weeks for biopsies, but so far, so good. Woxland said the hardest challenge was being laid up on the operating table for 12 hours, and then not being able to get up and move for another three days. He’s lost a little bit of muscle in his legs and feels a little more tired but is otherwise in good shape. Woxland says hospitals perform transplants more often than most people realize.

“When I first was looking at a heart pump or a transplant,” he recalled, “I didn’t honestly think there was any way transplants would be worth it,” he remembered. “Then, I came to find out that hospitals do transplants every day, everywhere. The University of Wisconsin does a lot of transplants, including organs like hearts and lungs. They’ll even do double transplants, such as heart and lungs in one patient.”

His last thought on his amazing journey?

“I would recommend the University of Wisconsin to anyone who asks,” he said.