Success Stories

Giving Back by Bob Swanson

It was 2pm on January 4th, 1998. The doctor on duty and his staff entered my room all smiles. “We have a heart for you,” they said. “The jet is on its way to Nevada to pick it up. When they see it’s a good one, they will call back and we will get you ready.”

Problem: The Green Bay Packers were in the second quarter against the San Francisco 49ers. I wanted to see the rest of the game. “NO WAY,” I said. “Not now!”

All is well. They got me ready and down we went to the operating room. The next thing I knew it was Monday and I had a new 21 year old heart. Five days later, they sent me home. The heart change from old to new only took the doctors 3 hours and 45 minutes.

How did all this happen to a healthy guy? I got a virus somewhere that ate my heart up. Three years of going down hill, growing weaker and weaker, until September 1997 when, in the space of a week, I could no longer walk. The doctors told me I wouldn’t make it without a transplant. No hospital in the Eastern U.S. would even look at me because of my age. Fortunately, a friend heard that UCLA performed transplants on older patients. We set up a phone interview and sent medical records. UCLA asked me to come to Los Angeles so that they could have a look at me. After three days of checking me out from head to toe, they said I could go back to Florida and die or stay and wait for a heart, which could take three days, three weeks or three months. What a choice! Of course I would stay.

Twenty eight days later, my life was saved and here I am playing tennis again. I gained back 35 lbs. Of the 45 lbs. I’d lost and I’m enjoying life again. But there are thousands of others who are still waiting for the second chance I was so graciously given. In 1999, 13,448 people died in Palm Beach County, where I live. However, only 21 donated organs. Currently, there are 65,000 people on the national waiting list for organ transplants. Before today ends, 18 people will have died waiting.

In 1998, I established the “Give A Life” Foundation in Florida to help raise public awareness of the urgent need for organ and tissue donation. This year we will raise $100,000 to help fund specific projects to increase donor awareness in South Florida. For more information on the “Give A Life” Foundation, or how you or your company can help, please contact: Susan Warwick, Assistant Director of Education, University of Miami Organ Donor Program at 1-800-834-6737.

I hope you will consider signing your organ donor card today and sharing your decision with your family. Some day, you might need an organ transplant. You never know. I didn’t.