Heart to Heart

Andrea Clegg is doesn’t look like someone with heart failure. She’s young, vibrant, athletic and full of life.

But Andrea’s heart began to falter in her early twenties. She had a defibrillator surgically implanted because the left side of her heart just didn’t work. An implanted defibrillator sends a measured shock to the heart if it fails to beat properly.

Andrea is one of 500,000 Canadians living with heart failure. 50,000 new patients are diagnosed each year.

But, on May 30th, 2009 Andrea had just said her wedding vows and married the love of her life, Sean Clegg when she got the shock of her life. Andrea was at the podium delivering her wedding speech, celebrating with her new husband at her side when suddenly, mid-speech, she gasped and collapsed in a heap. Her defibrillator had shocked her three times knocking her to the ground.

“Out of nowhere something rammed me in the chest,” she told 16:9, “I had no idea what it was. No idea.”

Andrea and Sean spent their wedding night in hospital. It was the beginning of a journey they’d walk together. Andrea was close to dying. She was in what doctors call “Walking Shock”.

“[Andrea was] very, very sick. Some of the times we don’t know if they’re going to survive from morning till afternoon.” said Dr. R.J. Cusimano, a cardiac surgeon at Toronto General Hospital.

Andrea needed a new heart but there wasn’t one available. To keep her alive doctors implanted a mechanical heart inside Andrea’s body as a bridging tool to keep her alive until a donor heart became available. The mechanical heart is called a Left Ventricular Assist Device, or L.V.A.D.

“It’s sort of a piggy back on to the heart and it actually does the work for the heart,” said Cusimano. “Any blood that returns to the heart instead of being ejected by the heart, pumped by the heart, is pumped by the machine,” he said.

The LVAD changed Andrea’s life. She felt healthy enough to go back to doing activities she had done in the past, doing dishes, playing her Wii and walking the dogs. But life was far from normal. Andrea had to live with a cord sticking out of her torso. She could never be without her battery pack that she carried around with her in a backpack at all times. At night, Andrea was plugged into an outlet in the wall. And she could never take a bath or go swimming because she couldn’t get the battery pac wet.

Nearly 100 people a year get LVADs in Canada and they cost about $80,000 each. Toronto General has one of the biggest LVAD programs in North America.

As Andrea waited for her new heart, there were false alarms that a donor heart had come available. But then, just days before Christmas, Andrea got a call at 3:00 am that a donor heart was available. 16:9 got the call too and rushed to the hospital with cameras rolling, getting exclusive access to the operating room.

For five hours the transplant team at Toronto General Hospital, lead by Dr. Vivek Rao, Surgical Directors of the Heart Transplant Program at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre, worked with focus and precision. Our cameras captured the moment when the heart Andrea was born with, LVAD attached, deflated and stopped forever. Moments later, a surgeon came crashing through the operating room doors announcing, “Hearts’ here!” The new healthy heart was placed in Andrea’s body and then stitched into place by Dr. Rao.

16:9 follows Andrea’s journey from transplant through recovery, as well as Andrea’s newfound passion for transplant activism.

16:9 The Bigger Picture airs nationally on Global at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, with the exception of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where it will be broadcast at 6:30 local time.