>> My name is Terry.
This is my wife Marjorie and I'm 70 and I just retired 10 years ago; enjoying every bit of it.
I love the outdoors, cutting grass.
>> We go for walks and just enjoy life.
>> Mm-hmm.
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One hot summer day I had a chest pain and I stopped and thought it was just the heat.
Then it come in fall at the end of the cutting season the same thing happened, chest pain,
and I thought October this can't be right; there's something wrong.
So Marjorie and I talked and we said we better get it checked out.
I went to the clinic and they took X-rays and they found out I had an enlarged heart
so they sent me-- next day you're going to have a stress test; got all prepped and got started
on the test and it stopped and they found out I had cardiomyopathy.
He told us to pack up that afternoon and go to Madison.
>> And that was the best thing that Terry did was
to get a second opinion and to be sent to UW Health.
>> I can remember the room that he was in.
I kind of walked in and said hello and we hit it off from the beginning.
He was having symptoms that were progressing from his known heart failure beyond the point
of being able to be managed with medications.
>> And I was a patient there for 11 days.
They'd take the fluid out, work on getting my fluid out of my system.
I was set okay to go home but one of the doctors said you probably will be back
so I had my option of going ahead with LVAD, which I said certain-- certainly.
>> The next step, when medicines fail to help a patient's heart and body is
to put a mechanical assist device, which is a heart pump
and so called LVAD, left ventricular assist device.
An LVAD is implanted with one end into the tip of the heart;
the blood goes through a rotor pump and is pushed into a graft that connects--
we connect to the aorta, and this way the pump takes over most of the left side of the heart.
>> Well after the LVAD surgery I felt considerably improved, no comparison.
>> We still believe that for people that are candidates for heart transplant
that transplant is a better long term option than the use
of the left ventricular assist device.
>> He was younger than his biological age.
There was no reason not to offer him the transplant.
We listed Terry in mid-July and then he got a transplant less than two months in September.
The usual wait is about a year and a half.
That's-- that's lucky.
>> And believe it or not on a Thursday morning at 6:10 the phone rang.
>> I answered the call that morning and I don't even know what I said because I was so excited
when she said we have a nice healthy heart for Terry.
You need to get to Madison right now.
>> Got packed and my brother-in-law he took us.
>> I think it was about 1:30 in the afternoon you were all prepped.
>> Got the call and down to the OR we go.
>> Procedures can take between eight to 14 hours.
We take the old heart out, cut those connections that we prepared before,
and then suture the new heart it.
It's like giving life seeing that new heart beat in that patient, it's exciting.
I wish we could do that every day.
>> After my heart transplant it was a couple days and I really felt great,
but we started walking in the hall at the hospital,
around the island up to eight times a day.
The nurse was amazed that I would go that fast.
>> Our usual length of stay after heart transplant is about 10 days,
so he beat even that average leaving in seven days.
>> UW Health Heart Transplant Program is a very established program.
The history goes back many years.
We've done over 600 transplants.
The fact that we do have a great team makes the job of the physicians and surgeons much easier.
>> One goal, of which I told my people at UW Health, is I'm going to do a half marathon.
I feel great.
I can't say enough good about them.
These last three years have been just-- just amazing.
And of course with her support it's been even more amazing.
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