In the last few weeks, Carol Brott has been an example to her family and friends. As all of us have tried to cope with staying home to avoid illness, intense handwashing and taking extra precautions, Brott knowingly chuckles and thinks, “Welcome to my world.” She has been doing these things for the last decade and has been happy to do so. Carol is a heart transplant recipient, and this very week, is celebrating the 10th anniversary of her transplant.
Carol’s journey to get to this huge milestone started decades ago when she was in college. She was found to have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy then. In the years that followed, she explains that the list of her medical problems grew. Eventually she would undergo various heart surgeries and find herself at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN in 2009. Carol was fitted with an L-VAD device that would assist her heart and then spent six weeks in a coma. At one point, things did not look good at all. Brady, Carol's son, and John, her husband, were told to say goodbye. “We didn’t know if she was going to make it for a while,” Brady said. But miraculously, Carol pulled through.
Yet the L-VAD was only a temporary measure, it was clear that Carol would need a new heart. She explained what happened next, “I was home for two months getting stronger before they would put me on the list for a transplant because I wasn't strong enough to make it through another surgery. I built up my strength and they listed me. I was ON the list one month and two days and got THE CALL at 1:20 am.”
On April 3, 2010, at age 45, Carol went through a 12-hour surgery to gain her new heart. The next few days were a scary affair as they waited to see if Carol’s body would reject or accept the heart. Brady, who was only 11 years old at the time, describes the two or three days after the transplant as the worst. It was a waiting game to see if her body would accept or reject the heart. Fortunately, within a few days, Carol’s new heart was doing its job.
After recovering at the hospital for a long while, Carol then moved over to the Gift of Life Transplant House at Mayo where she stayed until July. She eventually made it home around the Fourth of July. Of course, it took her several more months to recover at home. Brady remembered his mom having to stay in bed for a long time and not being able to do fun stuff like go to the pool for a while. “She wasn’t cracking jokes like usual,” he recalls.
After her transplant, Carol and her family and friends found themselves adapting to a completely new way of life. “It really is life-changing,” said John. “We changed how we do everything. Where we go, what we do, and what we eat.” Carol is now extremely diligent in how she lives and what she does. She said she has to take 23 pills every day, including anti-rejection medication that she will be on for life. “I follow all the rules,” she said. Some procedures include the obvious ones like not being around sick people, but there are other rules like not touching dirt and only drinking sealed beverages in bottles or cans that she observes as well.
Even after the transplant proved successful, Carol says she still has to be vigilant about her health. She explained that a year and a half after the transplant, she started experiencing lung problems. It was determined her L-VAD cord had wrapped around her lung which eventually damaged the lung beyond repair. She is also at a higher risk of other organs failing. At one point, it looked like she would need a kidney transplant as well, but with a medication switch, she is happy to report her kidneys are doing amazingly now.
Twice every year, Carol also travels back to Mayo for checkups to make sure her heart is functioning properly and not being rejected. She has had 18 heart biopsies since the transplant to check for rejection and is due for another soon. Most of these through the years have gone great. Carol does say that she has always been told the lifespan of a transplanted heart is 7 to 10 years and acknowledges that even though she feels healthy at the ten-year mark, she may someday have to have a second transplant.
When asked about her heart donor, Carol says she does indeed know who the donor was. Her donor was actually a woman from Iowa. Coincidently, Carol even had past connections with her donor’s husband and his family. Through a service called Life Source, which connects donors’ families and organ recipients, Carol has talked on the phone and texted with her donor’s husband. She looks forward to a day where she actually meets him and can give him a big hug.
Throughout the last decades, and especially since her transplant, Carol has learned to take nothing for granted. She especially has come to appreciate her family and friends. She related a story about her husband John: “When I was so ill and in a coma for six weeks, the doctors told my family that I may never be able to walk again. My best-case scenario would be with braces on my legs. John, who had been my rock throughout this whole journey, knew that I wouldn't be happy about this. He exercised my legs every day, so I would be able to eventually walk when I woke up and started cardiac rehab. I am very thankful for my husband being by my side,” Carol stresses.
Unsurprisingly, her family cannot say enough about Carol’s strength and perseverance. John emphasizes, “Her positive, upbeat attitude amazes me. She has taught us all to think about the big picture, cherish the present and not worry so much about the future.” Her son Brady adds, “She’s a pretty tough gal. She got through a heart transplant…but she’s still a wimp when it comes to something like stubbing her toe.”
Those around her have also been very supportive. John says the amount of support they got from the community was humbling. Her friend Sue Moss who has known Carol for over fifteen years says, “Sometimes we have to be tough on Carol and remind her she can’t do something, like go to a sporting event during flu season. Overall, we are very thankful and so lucky that she’s still around. Everyone calls her a ‘miracle.’”
Carol takes care to do the most she can with her miraculous life. Though she is sticking around the house right now to avoid COVID-19, she normally enjoys boating and hitting the lake. She and her husband own a storage business and Carol is a Chamber Ambassador. She has participated in the local community theater and loves spending time with her three labs.
As she looks forward, Carol’s goals for the next ten years are to continue living her happy and healthy life. She vows to never take anything for granted, because, as she says so well, “life is precious.”
