New Year, New Heart, New Lease on Life

Charles Schulz and his wife, Flor, sat in their living room on New Year's Eve 2023, watching TV and counting down the seconds until the ball dropped in New York's Times Square. After the clock struck midnight, the couple kissed and Flor said to her husband, who had spent nearly four years on the heart transplant waiting list, "Maybe this will be the year you get your new heart, honey."

The phone rang 30 minutes later.

"When I picked up the phone, I thought it would be family or friends calling to wish us a happy new year," Schulz said. "Instead, it was someone from the Smidt Heart Instituteat Cedars-Sinai saying they had a heart match for me and asking how soon I could get there."

Those early moments of 2024 catapulted a chaotic yet beautiful series of events that led to Schulz's new heart-which was implanted on Jan. 1.

Schulz first sought help at Cedars-Sinai in October 2019. The congestive heart failure he had been diagnosed with several years earlier had become advanced and his heart was giving out.

"At that point, I was so sick that the first hospital I went to said they couldn't treat me, and they were telling my wife to contact family to say goodbye," Schulz said. "Thankfully, my wife wouldn't accept that as an answer and told them to call other hospitals. Several others also rejected me, but eventually, Cedars-Sinai said yes."

"When Mr. Schulz arrived at Cedars-Sinai, he was critically ill," said Dominic Emerson, MD, associate surgical director of Heart Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support in the Smidt Heart Institute. "We needed to stabilize him quickly to save his life."

The first course of treatment for Schulz was extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO-an often lifesaving treatment where blood is pumped outside of a patient's body to a portable heart-lung machine, giving the patient's own organs a rest.

After a period on ECMO, Schulz was stable enough for Emerson and team to surgically place a left ventricular assist device, also known as an LVAD. An LVAD is a mechanical device implanted inside the chest that helps the heart pump oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body. For Schulz, it would serve as a bridge to transplant, said Lawrence Czer, MD, medical director of the Heart Transplant Program in the Smidt Heart Institute.

"LVAD placement is a major open-heart surgery, and some patients experience a prolonged recovery, but Mr. Schulz was a model patient following the procedure," Czer said. "He followed all our recovery instructions including walking, watching his nutrition, keeping detailed records, and coming to clinic weekly at first. As a result, he recovered quite well with no complications."

Several months later, in August 2020, Schulz was placed on the heart transplant list-and the wait began.

"This was early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was a really difficult time for my family and especially for my three children," Schulz said.

While he did well with his LVAD, Schulz said he still felt limited. "My youngest son, who was 6 at the time, wanted me to play with him, and I just wasn't physically able to do as much as we both wanted."

But the New Year's Day phone call changed everything. He arrived at Cedars-Sinai with his family a few hours later, ready to receive the medical center's first transplanted heart of 2024. Emerson was the transplant surgeon on call when Schulz came into the hospital for his procedure.

"Because we can't predict when a donor match will be available and when transplants will happen, as surgeons, we don't always get the opportunity to perform transplants on patients we've previously worked with," Emerson said. "But it's fantastic when we do. It's very rewarding to be part of the patient's entire care arc."

Schulz said even some of the same nurses who helped him through his recovery in 2019 cared for him following his transplant.

"I am so grateful to the team at Cedars-Sinai for the care I received during both of my experiences," Schulz said. "The compassion they showed not only to myself, but to my wife and my family, was excellent."

Now a few months post-transplant, Schulz says he is feeling great. When asked if he made any New Year's resolutions for himself when he received his new heart, he said he is looking forward to more family trips with his wife and their three kids. Schulz is also excited to feel strong enough to play soccer with his youngest son, Sebastian-something he hasn't been able to do for many years.

April is Donate Life Month, which promotes awareness about organ, eye and tissue donation and honors those who gave the gift of life. As he experiences this new lease on life, Schulz also shares his gratitude to his donor and the donor's family.

"I understand this is an incredible gift I've been given, and it wouldn't have been possible without my donor and their family," Schulz said. "It's not something I will take for granted. I'm grateful every day."

Read more from Cedars-Sinai Discoveries Magazine: Heartfelt Support

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