STANFORD — It was literally the meeting of a lifetime Thursday when Tammy Griffin laid eyes on Linda Karr for the first time and embraced her tightly inside the heart surgery clinic at Stanford Hospital.
For almost three years, the two women had waited and worried, wondering if they would ever receive the precious donor organs they needed so desperately to survive.
Griffin needed new lungs. Karr needed a new heart. It turns out, they needed each other.
By the time word finally came Jan. 30 that the organs were available, they knew they were not only lucky, but would be part of a rare “domino donor” operation, in which a heart-lung recipient also donates her heart.
The rare procedure — the eighth time since 1988 at Stanford — was a first for Dr. Joseph Woo, a nationally recognized heart surgeon who has performed many heart and lung transplants and combined heart and lung procedures.
The surgery is not only complex, he said, but requires critical coordination, given the number of clinical team members involved in a procedure that needs to be carried out during perfectly timed near simultaneous operations.
“We thought ahead about all of the potential problems that could occur,” said Woo, including stroke or bleeding. “But it went very smoothly.”
The problem facing Woo, fellow Stanford cardiac surgeon Dr. Jack Boyd and cardiologist Dr. Michael Fowler was complicated: the 51-year-old Griffin, who lives in Portland, Oregon, was born with cystic fibrosis, a defective gene that causes a thick, buildup of mucus in the lungs, pancreas and other organs. In the lungs, the mucus clogs the airways and traps bacteria leading to infections, extensive lung damage and eventually, respiratory failure. Her lungs were so badly damaged that she was now only breathing with the help of an oxygen machine. The only way to replace her lungs was to also replace her heart, which was misshapen but still healthy.
Meanwhile, 53-year-old Berkeley resident Linda Karr had suffered from a heart muscle disease for years.
While both women were weakened by their conditions, they were not yet so sick that they had to be hospitalized.
But it was only a matter of time.
Their names had been added to the organ donor list that ranks transplant candidates, or “matches,” based on blood type, tissue type, medical urgency, waiting time, expected benefit and other medical criteria. However, they weren’t budging on the list.
“It’s a Catch-22,” said Karr. “If you’re not sick enough, you don’t move up the list.”
Yet serendipity was on their side, said Woo.
The mother of a 21-year-old Sacramento man named Solton Gonsalez, who had died on Jan. 29, asked doctors if her son’s organs could be used to help others.
“We wanted his organs to live through somebody else,” said Marisol Gonsalez in a telephone interview Thursday. All told, four recipients received six organs — a heart, lungs, pancreas, liver and two kidneys — from her son. Griffin and Karr were told Jan. 30 of the gift and that surgery was to be on Feb. 1.
Another twist of fate also set the stage for the procedure. Because Griffin’s impaired lungs had pressed her heart for so long, the shape of her heart was slightly altered. Other transplant doctors considered using her heart for one of their patients but turned it down, worried that it wouldn’t be compatible with their heart patients.
When Woo realized what was happening, he was confident he could use it for Karr.
The rare procedure highlights how scarce organs are today, said Woo. “We are taking organs from live donors to give to other live donors.”
The surgeries were carried out in two adjacent operating rooms. Woo was responsible for removing the heart from Griffin and transplanting Gonsalez’ heart and lungs into Griffin. Dr. Boyd was responsible for transplanting Griffin’s heart into Karr.
After the combined hours-long surgeries, the doctors were pleased with the results.
Woo said that the first thing Karr asked him when she woke up was not the typical “How did I do?” but rather “How did the donor do?”
Asked Thursday what they knew about each other before the operation, Karr told Griffin: “I didn’t know anything at all except you needed new lungs, and your heart was OK, and you wanted to make sure your heart went to someone who could use it.”
Since that was the case, Griffin said, “I didn’t want to throw it away.”
“I don’t know what to say to someone who did such a big thing for my life,” Karr told Griffin as they hugged each other.
“I feel like I have a whole new world of possibilities open for my future — kind of a second chance in life.”
Griffin, smiling warmly at Karr, chimed in: “Me too. I feel the same way.”
Contact Tracy Seipel at 408-920-5343. Follow her at Twitter.com/taseipel.
