Woman Receives Rare Bloodless Heart Transplant in Accordance with Jehovah’s Witness Beliefs After Waiting 18 Years

A 65-year-old woman from Texas waited almost two decades for a heart transplant.

Carolyn McLeod has needed a heart transplant since 2005, but it took her 18 years to get one because she refuses a blood transfusion because of her beliefs as a Jehovah’s Witness. USA Today reported.

According to the official Jehovah’s Witnesses website, the Bible “commands us not to ingest blood. Therefore, we should not accept whole blood or its primary components in any form, whether offered as food or as a transfusion.”

“While a heart transplant may be useful in temporarily preserving our lives, the Scriptures are clear that eternal salvation is possible only through the offering of the greater Passover lamb, God’s son, the Messiah, Jesus Christ,” said Carolyn’s husband, William McLeod, who also identifies her as Jehovah’s witness, said USA Today.

Stock image of a container of human organs.

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Once a beloved Austin elementary school cafeteria manager, Carolyn was ill after being diagnosed with heart failure in 2005 and unable to work since 2010 because she was sick so often.

“There were so many that day when we had to tell them he was going on leave. I cried in the principal’s office, William said USA Today.

Since then, two heart transplant opportunities in Austin have come and gone.

The first transplant failed because Carolyn was “too sick” and doctors “didn’t think she would survive the operation,” according to William, and the second was denied because she refused a blood transfusion.

Then, last year, Carolyn’s doctors in Austin sent her file to three hospitals that do bloodless transplants.

One hospital never responded, and another told her she had too many comorbidities. (She has had two strokes and a heart attack, and has diabetes and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension in her lungs.)

A third hospital, University of Chicago Medical Center and transplant surgeon Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam, welcomed her case.

Jeevanandam has “attracted national attention for his skill in performing bloodless cardiac surgeries,” according to his online profile for UChicago Medicine, who has been performing bloodless heart transplants and other heart surgeries for nearly 30 years, per USA Today.

Image of surgical equipment for heart valve replacement.

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According to the surgeon, most programs “don’t want to take the risk that you do a heart transplant and the patient ends up dying because they couldn’t get blood” — but his does.

For bloodless heart transplants, Jeevanandam employs bloodless coordinators who verify with the Jehovah’s Witness community that blood does not enter the operating room.

“We may not have the same faith or beliefs as them, but we respect their beliefs,” he said USA Today.

There are also “a lot of tricks” that Jeevanandam and his team do—including using a different blood circulation protocol and cauterizing the sternum where he cuts to access the heart—which results in the surgery typically taking 25 to 30 percent longer.

“There’s a lot of thinking… where the blood loss is going to be and how to prevent that from happening,” he told the news outlet.

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After Carolyn’s case was accepted, she and William made the trip from Austin to Chicago. The city community of Jehovah’s Witnesses placed them in an apartment near the hospital where they could wait for the heart to be available and where Carolyn could recover a year after the procedure.

On September 2, the heart became available, and two days later, Carolyn entered the operating room. After four hours, the transplant was complete.

“I almost collapsed when he told me everything went well,” William said.

A few weeks later, Carolyn felt “like nothing happened,” she said USA Today. “I don’t feel like I’ve had a heart transplant.”

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William called his wife’s progress “amazing” and hopes that “with a bit of physical preparation she will be more like what she was before”.

Today, she is still recovering in Chicago with her husband and is “feeling good,” she told the newspaper, adding that she recently “was able to walk a lot farther than I have in months.”

As Carolyn recovers, she said the heart donor is always on her mind.

“I’m thankful for what I have, that I got this heart,” she said USA Today. “I’m sorry someone had to die for me to get it.”

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Source: HIS Education