Gina Neeld

On Camera: Gina Neeld talks about being a Mom with hope.
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Even if you don't know the expression "steel magnolia," you'll understand it when you meet Gina Neeld of Brunswick, Ga. Young. Pretty. Soft Southern accent. Iron-clad determination. "Being a mom," she says. "That's all I ever wanted to do."

So, despite two ruinous tubal pregnancies, a prognosis of no children and a decade of trying, Gina delivered baby Carolyn by C-section in 1996. Two years later, baby Amber was born, also by C-Section. And one week after that, Gina doubled over with chest pains so sudden and severe she couldn't speak.

"I didn't know what it was," she says, "but it stopped, and I kept on with our newborn and 2-year old." It took another week and three more excruciating episodes to get Gina out of the kids' rooms and into the emergency room.

"The doctors said I was in the middle of a massive heart attack. A huge clot was lodged in my left coronary artery. They even called it a widow's block because it usually affects men, and 99% of the time, they die."

Breathing Room

The Brunswick physicians had to get Gina to a hospital equipped for complex cardiology problems. The closest was in Jacksonville. They loaded her and a team of paramedics into an ambulance, hoping they would make it in time. An hour later Gina was being prepped for a triple bypass. The prognosis was grim. "My family was called for a last visit. No one thought I'd make it through the night."

To everyone's amazement, Gina made it through the night and the month-long hospital recovery. Finally, she made it home. "We all let out a deep breath," she says. "I was going to be fine."

Almost at once, Gina started to backslide. The damage to the heart muscle had been too great. The bypass wasn't enough. Her heart could not be repaired. "When I heard the word transplant, I went into total denial," she says. "It took a long time, but as soon as I accepted the situation, my Brunswick cardiologist said he would refer me to a hospital in Atlanta for evaluation, and I would be placed on the waiting list for a heart donor."

Waiting list? "I had a 2-year-old and a 6-month-old," Gina says. "Who would raise them if I couldn't get the transplant? How long did I have to wait?"

Waiting list position is determined by urgency of need: 1-A, 2-A, or 2-B. "The Atlanta hospital listed me as 2-B, which is non-urgent, gave me a beeper and said they'd contact me as soon as a donor became available."

Tick Tock

Mothers have a way of tracking time. When Gina put on the beeper, it was 1999. Amber was 6 months old and Carolyn was 2 years old. When Amber was 3 and Carolyn 5, Gina was still waiting. "I waited for more than three years, through 13 hospitalizations and two red-light ambulance trips to Atlanta because I was in heart failure," she says. "With each hospitalization, my status went from 2-B on the transplant list, to 2-A until I was stable, then back to 2-B and more waiting."

She survived day by day on nitroglycerin patches and oxygen. "But I wasn't really living," Gina says. "My husband, Hilton, had to take care of everything — his job, the kids and me. I couldn't even walk across the room much less be of any help to him.

"All I ever wanted was to raise our children," Gina says. "Now I could only watch from the sidelines. It hurt my husband to see me that way. Many nights he said, go sleep with them. Be with them." Uncharacteristically, Gina began to think her husband would be better off without her.

A chance reading of the Atlanta newspaper led Gina to Mayo Clinic. "I saw a article about Mayo's heart transplant program. I'd heard wonderful things about Mayo, and, best of all, they were only an hour from home. I asked my Brunswick cardiologist if she could get me transferred there." A few hours later, Gina's phone rang. It was Dr. Lawrence McBride, a Mayo heart surgeon. "I couldn't believe it. He personally called to say come see him."

The A+ Team

Before her appointment, Gina went through a whole new list of "what ifs." What if I can't get in at Mayo? What if I have to stay in Atlanta? What if my daughters can't come to Atlanta every week? Gina could no longer bear her family to be five hours away.

"When I met with Dr. McBride, he called in Dr. Octavio Pajaro, also a Mayo heart surgeon, and Dr. Daniel Yip, a transplant cardiologist," says Gina. "I love my doctor in Brunswick, but having a team of surgeons and a transplant cardiologist was a whole new experience."

Gina would quickly learn that one of Mayo's defining strengths is multispecialty team medicine. Just as parts of the human body work together to function as a whole, Mayo Clinic is a group practice of 342 specialists and scientists who work together, pool their knowledge and employ treatments and technologies often not available elsewhere.

She would have the collective expertise of physicians, surgeons, nurses, social workers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, cardiac rehabilitation specialists, dietitians and pharmacists dedicated to her care. Her Mayo transplant team also would work closely with her hometown cardiologist to coordinate her evaluation, treatment and postoperative care.

"In one visit, the Mayo doctors made me want to live again, and I went home believing if I could get transferred to Mayo, I would live."

But before the reassignment could be completed, Gina collapsed. Her Brunswick cardiologist contacted Dr. Yip, who arranged for her immediate admission to St. Luke's Hospital. Four days later, Gina's heart stopped. The Mayo doctors and nurses revived her and rushed her to surgery. "I woke up to a swishing sound," she says. "Mayo had implanted ventricular assist devices (VADs) on both sides of my heart. Hoses went from my heart to a huge 200-pound machine that pumped my blood."

Just What the Doctor Ordered

A few hours after surgery, Gina was sitting up. The next day, she walked in the hall. "Right after that, I had a big scare," she says. "I thought my insurance wouldn't cover Mayo, but Dr. Yip said, 'You're not going anywhere.' "

True words. Mayo moved Gina up to 1-A status. For six weeks she and her VAD walked the hospital halls, worked out on the treadmill and waited.

Gina's transplant team now included infectious disease physicians, psychiatrists and a transplant coordinator, who encouraged Gina to take part in a transplant support group. "Some of the group were waiting for transplants, others were post-transplant. We talked about our fears, and we gave each other courage," Gina says.

Gina also was struggling with what to tell her girls. "I so desperately wanted to spare them worry. Every time they said, 'Mommy, when are you coming home?' it tore me up. When I said I was getting a new heart so I could be a new mommy, Carolyn said she didn't want a new mommy. She only wanted me. After the VAD implant, she wanted to know what was in the hoses. So I said it was something to help Mommy to get better, and she said, 'Oh, it looks like blood.' So much for trying to spare your kids."

Dr. McBride had a remedy for the loneliness and the anxiety. One day, he brought in a little suitcase on wheels. It was a new, smaller, portable VAD. "He said I could use it to leave the hospital and take my girls to the movies," Gina says. "I couldn't believe it." They saw "Beauty and The Beast."

"Two nurses gave up their day off to be with us for my peace of mind," Gina recalls.

Mayo nurses always surprised Gina. "They brought me smoothies. They hemmed the pajamas my mother sent. They were so wonderful."

Welcome to the sunshine state

It was a typical day for tropical Florida. Thunder, lightning and pounding rain. The kind of day you want to spend in bed. Unless you're Gina's family. Then you want to be on that sloppy highway, inching through the drenching rain, driving to Jacksonville.

In June 2002, after nearly four years of waiting, Gina finally heard the words, "We have a donor."

"The first thing I did was close my eyes and pray for that person's family. They were grieving. Yet, in their loss, they were willing to give someone else a second chance at life," Gina says. "I prayed God would give them the strength to get through."

After nearly two months at St. Luke's, Gina packed her things and waited quietly to be taken to surgery. When the nurse came, Gina was allowed to walk to the operating room on her own.

Here's to Life

"When I got home, I didn't unpack for weeks," says Gina. "I just wanted to see life. Everything was so beautiful. Even the supermarket was beautiful, and when I saw other moms pushing their kids in the baskets, I thought, I'm just like them. I'm normal.

"It's been 16 months since the transplant and, in a strange way, I'm glad I went through what I did," Gina says. "I learned about patience and I learned how to have a close walk with God. I wouldn't trade that for anything. So now at the end of an 18-hour day of making lunches and car-pooling and grocery shopping and walking the dog and chasing kids and riding bikes and making dinner and doing dishes and mopping floors and still facing another endless bedtime story, I say, wow. Thank you, God, for letting me do this. And, please be with the donor family and my nurses and my doctors. They will be forever in my heart."