Still Ticking After Twenty Years

Bruce Weir recently celebrated his 20th anniversary. While not his wedding anniversary, it's a date equally dear to his heart - literally. On July 11, 1988, Bruce received a heart transplant.

His saga began when Bruce had a ticklish cough that wouldn't go away. "Then I realized I was getting short of breath," he recalls "It got to the point where I couldn't walk 30 feet without stopping."

Bruce's symptoms got worse, and he was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. His heart had become enlarged and weakened. Bruce's cardiologist told him, "We know what you've got, but we can't treat it. You need a heart transplant, or you'll be dead by Christmas."

Initially, Bruce was leery of transplantation. While he lay sick in the hospital, several heart transplant recipients visited him and shared their stories. On June 28, Bruce was added to the transplant waiting list.

"My heart was getting weaker, and the doctors thought I might not make it," he says.

On July 11, Bruce received a donor heart. He woke up two days later. "I realized my hands were warm as toast and not clammy like they had been," he says. "I took a deep breath and I didn't cough, which hadn't happened for months." Within 48 hours of his operation, Bruce already felt much better than he had in weeks.

"Without the transplant, I would've been dead a long time ago," says the Westlake resident. Instead, he has watched five grandchildren grow up and has become a great-grandfather. "One of my first official duties when I got out of the hospital after the transplant was to give my daughter away at her wedding - and write a big check!" says Bruce.

Today, Bruce appreciates his day-to-day activities. "My life is just like it would've been if I had never gotten sick." But he doesn't forget for a moment the gift he's been given. He volunteers with Lifebanc and now talks to patients awaiting transplantation.

But Bruce's story doesn't end there. In an odd twist of fate, he's become acquainted with the family of his heart donor, a 23-year-old woman from Barberton who died from a brain tumor.

Months after his transplant, Bruce learned his donor was Karen Gainer. "She was looking forward to going back to school and was just so happy," says Karen's mother, Edna.

Eight days before her death, Karen got a headache that became progressively worse during that week. Doctors treated her for migraines, but Karen was in excruciating pain and admitted to the hospital. The following morning, she had a seizure, stopped breathing and was placed on a respirator. She had a massive inoperable brain tumor. Karen did not survive.

That afternoon, a nurse talked to Edna, her husband and Karen's siblings about organ donation. "All of us at the same time, without conferring with each other, said, 'Yes, that's what Karen would want."

Karen donated her heart, liver, kidneys and corneas. "Karen was treated with respect and dignity [as a donor]. As a mother, that meant so much to me," says Edna. "We were all treated so well by the nurses, the doctors and Lifebanc."

Reluctant at first, she soon realized the impact her daughter's story could have on others and became a volunteer speaker for Lifebanc - just like Bruce. And that's how the two met.

"The fact that Karen died is still painful to this day," says Edna, "but it helps so much to know she was an organ donor." Edna gave Bruce a framed photograph of Karen, which he displays on his fireplace mantle. Several times a year, he takes it with him when he speaks on behalf of Lifebanc.

"I tell my story, then set the picture of Karen on the table in front of me," says Bruce. "I say, 'That's my hero. She saved my life and five other lives at the same time.'" Choking back tears, he emphasizes, "Karen saved my life.... She saved my life."

You have the power to save lives by becoming a registered organ and tissue donor right now or by saying "yes" when renewing your driver license or state ID at the BMV.