Page 53 - An Innovation Spirit ...
P. 53
01 Dr. Heather Ross, left,
and Stella Kozuszko, Nurse
Practitioner in the PMCC
Heart Transplant Program,
are constanly communicating
about major and minor
adjustments to a patient’s care,
sometimes minute by minute.
02 Just over a year after he
received a heart transplant,
Thunder Bay firefighter Dale
Shippam was back on the job.
03 Dr. Ross also leads
TestYourLimits expeditions
for transplant patients, going
to place such as Antarctica,
Bhutan and the North Pole.
The first Canadian trek
took place in the Northwest
Territories in July 2015.
03 his life could only be saved by good. It’s very nerve-racking.” month. He got fit again. “I was
the death of someone else. The business of transferring getting very strong,” he says.
hold on until a heart showed up.”
Mr. Shippam knew he was in “You never really know where a beating heart from one body A year after the transplant,
you are on the list,” he says. that has expired to another body he asked Dr. Ross whether
danger of another cardiac arrest, “You can spend a lot of time that is on the brink is more than there was any chance he could
a fatal one, at any moment. And contemplating where you are just a delicate operation – or, go back to firefighting.
he knew that having a heart show on the list, but sometimes it’s rather, two operations – with the
up was not a simple matter, even better not to. It’s a very tough added challenge of transportation “She didn’t say no,” he
once he was on the transplant list. business, holding on every day, in between. It’s something of recalls. “She said, ‘If the fire
just waiting, knowing that if I a miracle when it works. department okays it, you can
“You have to be optimistic,” he got a cold or something went go back,’” says Mr. Shippam.
says, “but also realistic because wrong, I’d be off the list,” he says. And sometimes, it doesn’t.
there is a shortage of hearts in ”People have false alarms,” “I knew I’d have to pass
this country for transplants. It “They don’t do that many heart Mr. Shippam explains. “You’re certain tests. I did a lot more
needs to be a certain body size transplants. It’s still an event. And taken to the operating room, fitness work, and a year after
and a special blood type. You you see people passing away in put under and can wake the transplant I went back to
have to be realistic that one the ICU while they’re waiting.” up with no new heart.” firefighting on the truck.”
may not show up in time.” In Mr. Shippam’s case, he woke
Then, he says, when the heart up a week after the transplant, But his new heart took him far
And always, behind the waiting does show up, “you don’t always after being kept in a medical beyond the fires of Thunder Bay.
and the hoping and the holding know if the heart’s going to be coma to allow the new heart
on for another day, there was and his other organs to adapt. He joined his cardiologist, Dr.
the terrible knowledge that “I certainly realized right Ross, on her “TestYourLimits”
away that I had another heart, expeditions for transplant
that it was changed, but it patients.
does take a while to sink in.”
As with all transplant patients, The first trip was to Antarctica.
Mr. Shippam was told nothing “That first one, I didn’t know
about the donor. “I think every what would happen,” he recalls.
transplant patient wonders about “But I quickly found that I could
that, but it’s probably better keep up with everybody.”
that you don’t know,” he says. Another expedition went
“It’s hard even after all this time to the North Pole.
to talk about it because there’s “That was brutal,” recalls Dr.
a sad story at the other end.” Ross, “the worst journey in
Mr. Shippam started walking the world. But on all the trips
within a few day of waking we’ve done, Dale has been the
from the coma, and he was strongest person on the trip.
walking long distances within a When we went to Bhutan,
another trekker said about Dale,
‘That man is a machine!’”
Dr. Ross adds, “He’s also
a very gentle soul.”
The most recent journey
was a whitewater canoeing
expedition on the Nahanni River
in the Northwest Territories.
“Five-foot standing waves,
big water, big holes,” says Dr.
Ross, with evident relish.
“Dale and I, in a
canoe together.”
Winter 2016 51
