HAPPY HEART

She had fought a good fight. She had finished her course. She had kept her faith.

In June of 1985 Jeannette had her first heart attack, which left some severe damage to the part of the heart that controls the electrical signals of the heart. By then her heart was so confused it didn't know how it was supposed to be beating or where it was supposed to be coming from.

For three weeks she was in Catawba Memorial Hospital in Hickory, North Carolina. Things were going pretty good and then all at once, things weren't so good. Her doctors sent her to Charlotte, North Carolina to Carolina's Medical Center for tests to determine exactly what the problems were. It was there they were told that the only thing left to do was experimental laser surgery.

As it turned out, Jeannette was the second person in the world to have this particular surgery. In order to do the surgery, they would have to use a laser and destroy more of the heart than what the actual heart attack had damaged. This resulted in a hospital stay of forty-two days.

Jeannette and Jim, both Christians, were brought up in Christian homes and had raised their four children in a Christian home. Because of that Christian background, they knew that God didn't make mistakes. With that knowledge it helped them hold onto their faith during all of the problems that came their way since the first heart attack. Jeannette believed that God always knows what He's doing because He's always in control.

Jeannette always said that God knew a long time ago that she was going to be in for a rough time, and that was the reason He gave her Jim. He also saw fit to give them both a good sense of humor and a positive attitude.

Even though Jeannette's faith was strong, she kept praying for God to give her the peace she needed, but kept worrying about the surgery. She was not content to let God take care of her. She thought she would pick up the problem and worry about it too.

On the Sunday before the scheduled surgery, Jeannette turned on the television to a Charles Stanley program. It was early morning, no one came into the room, the phone did not ring, and there was no one to disturb her. Shortly after she had started watching the program, the choir sang, "It Is Well". She was forced to listen to a song she had heard many times before. At that moment, she realized that it was well with her soul, and she didn't need to continue worrying about everything.

Dr. Stanley's message that morning dealt with just what Jeannette had been doing, what we all find ourselves doing. We pray for God to take care of us, to handle problems for us, but then we think, "Well, Lord, you may be to busy to handle it, I'll just worry with you. I'll take care of it myself."

After listening to Dr. Stanley's message, and finding the peace she needed, Jeannette kenw that everything would be fine. There was not a question in her mind, she knew she was ready. The surgery took place in July 1985 and everything was fine until August of 1987.

Jim had been singing with the Pine Ridge Boys, a gospel quartet, for many years and they had always gone to a little church in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, for their homecoming every year in August. This weekend also happened to be Jeannette's birthday weekend. Jim had decided they would celebrate her birthday that year in the mountains. After a nice weekend, they woke up Sunday morning and began dressing for church. The next thing Jeannette remembered was waking up in a hospital in Boone, North Carolina. At that point, Jeannette's heart had started beating so fast that it was not doing her body any good. After she was stable, she was then airlifted to the Carolina's Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, which was a hospital stay of forty-nine days.

In September of 1987, Jeannette had to have a defibrillator implant. She described this as one of the most uncomfortable, unbearable things a body can go through. A defibrillator is programmed to keep the heart beating slower. If the heart gets past a certain rate it gives an electrical charge to slow the heart.

By January of 1988, the doctors at the Medical Center had told Jim and Jeannette she only had a thirteen-percent function of her heart. That was only enough to keep her alive, with no quality of life at all.

At that point, Jeannette's doctors decided a heart transplant would be the only option left to help her. It was while she was on the waiting list and in the hospital that the defibrillator went off. The one thing the doctors forgot to tell them was if someone happened to be touching her when the defibrillator went off, they would get as much of a charge as she did. She was in the bathroom, violently ill at the time, with Jim standing by her side, trying to comfort her. When the defibrillator set itself off, Jim hit the bed. Ater the shock was over they both had to search for a sense of humor!

Before Jeannette's forty-seventh birthday, she had had several heart attacks, and several attempts from the doctors with experimental drugs and surgery. Before Jeannette's forty-ninth birthday, the doctors has placed her on the wating list for a heart transplant. The doctors had told Jeannette that without the transplant, she might have six months, that was all they could promise.

In late March, they received the call. They had located a heart. She was put to sleep, placed on the respirator and only moments before the surgeons were to open her chest they received a call that the heart would not work, it was too small. The doctors explained to the family that because of the wires from the defibrillator and the condition of the heart, had the surgery begun they would not have been able to put the old heart back.

Even though it was disappointing to be woke up and told she had not received her new heart, she realized that God was still looking out for her. Jeannette and her family once again waited for the call.

Easter Monday, April 4, 1988, (what a most appropriate time to begin a new life), they received the second phone call. Carolina's Medical Center had another heart for her; one they felt was going to be a success. The donor was there in the hospital. After running test, they were positive it was the right heart.

A young man of twenty-seven had been acidentally shot. His parents had consented to donating his organs so others might live. Jeannette was one of those lucky ones.

At eleven fifty-nine p.m., Easter Monday, the transplant was over and the new heart was started. The surgery was a success. The heart was strong, but there was a problem with the blood flow where they had inserted the I.V.'s in her wrist. A blood clot had developed in her left arm. Because of the anti-rejection drugs that are required for a transplant patient, the immune system was killed. There was nothing left to fight with.

On Tuesday, of the following week, the doctors told Jeannette they would have to amputate her left hand eight inches below the elbow. "That's no problem," Jeannette told the doctors. It seems she was right handed anyway.

Her only regret was she would never be able to play the piano again. But Jim, her husband of thirty-five years, was quick to remind her that wasn't one of her greatest talents.

Even though she had lost her hand, it seemed as if she immediately began to improve by leaps and bounds. She was the thirty-first transplant patient at Carolina's Medical Center. At the time of the transplant, the doctors gave Jeannette a life expectancy of three to five years. Every day beyond that she would consider bonus days.

Jeannette was ready to go home, but one more week of hospitalization was required. After being sidelined for so long, there were many things she wanted to see and do. She wanted to be up every morning at five o'clock, afraid something would happen and she would miss it.

It didn't take Jeannette very long to learn to live with "nubby". Not just cope with the loss of her hand, but live with it. When she was able to do things for herself, one of her first task "at hand" was to make Jim a lemon meringue pie, his favorite. It was at that moment, when she couldn't separate the yolk for the meringue, and she threw a dozen eggs all over the kitchen, that she set her mind to never saying "I can't". She would always remind you not to pray for patience, because you never knew what obstacle God might give you to grant those patience.

We all assume you have to have two hands to get through life, but Jeannette proved that you didn't. She was able to do most everything for herself. She was most thankful that she was able to take care of herself, to do her hair, her baths, even though somethings proved to be difficult. She admitted there were a few things that she'd never be able to do because you had to have two hands for somethings. She had learned to sew on a button and tie her shoes, not that they stayed tied.

She conceded that she was a bit to independent for her own good, but she liked being able to do things for herself and just despised using the word CAN'T.

Jeannette was grateful for her new life and the chance to spend more time with her family, because they had always given her such an emotional support, helping her to stay positive. Their youngest grandchild was born in August after her transplant in April. If the doctors predictions had been right, that she would only live six months without the transplant, she would not have known that little girl or the joy it brought to watch her and the other grandchildren grow.

Financially, heart transplants can ruin a family. But Jim never complained of the cost or what he had to do without, or what Jeannette could no longer do. His kindness and patience for her showed in so many ways, from household chores to cutting her meat at dinner, to helping her pull on a pair of panty hose (one of those things you have to have two hands to do).

She was a happy woman and had been blessed many times over. Her husband, parents, children, grandchildren, her Church and her many friends. She counted all of these as her blessings. But yet, anyone that had ever met Jeannette considered her a blessing. An angel from Heaven, here on Earth.

Music had always played an important part in Jeannette's life. On the days that it was just impossible for her to get up and keep going, she would put on a tape and lie there listening to the messages in song that God had for her.

Their church family was a special part of their life, with encouragement by cards and calls and smiles just to let them know how special they were to them.

In 1991, she had a startling experience. She went into rejection. The doctors put her back in the hospital and administered a large amount of steroids and medical treatments that are unpleasant to the body. The side effects from the medications also caused some problems.

At her yearly checkup in 1994, the doctors found a blockage that concerned them. But the following year, at her next checkup, the blockage was gone. The doctors just didn't seem to understand. Jeannette said they just didn't seem to know that God is still in control and He's still not making mistakes and He was still taking care of her.

The episode she had in December 1996, was not actually caused by her heart, but yet it did effect it. She had phenomena and the build up of fluid caused heart failure. Another biopsy was performed and there was no heart damage. Before this episode she was taking twenty-six pills a day, but afterward it was thirty-four a day.

Jeannette didn't want anyone feeling sorry for her, and she didn't want to be considered a handicapped person. She didn't like to admit it to herself, but the biggest problem she had was her breathing. If she got out in the cold weather, if she walked to fast, or is she talked to fast, she would have trouble breathing.

Even on her worst days, when friends would call or drop by to cheer her up, they always left with a renewed faith. Because no matter how bad things were, Jeannette had a way of bringing out the good in everything and making it better. Jeannette was always thankful that she had known God and that he was in control of her life. On some days she actually thanked Him for the bad times, because it had made her a better person.

After more than ten and a half years of good days and bad days, rejections of the heart, enormous medical bills and sharing her story of her "Happy Heart", the end of a long fight had come to an end.

It was cold outside the night she went home, but it was warm in her heart - her happy heart. In the early morning hours, just two days after Christmas, and once again, what a most appropriate time, the angels took her by the hand and led her to her homecoming. Even though it was a moment she had longed for, there was still a sadness in her heart as well as in the hearts of her family and friends, as we had to let go of our Angel here on Earth.

She had fought a good fight. She had finished her course. She had kept her faith. And now she is Home.