The rare surgery saved her life after being told she had just days to live
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NEED TO KNOW
- Monica McFarlan lived with heart failure for 15 years, enduring multiple surgeries and life-threatening complications
- She became ineligible for a traditional heart transplant due to high antibody levels, leaving her with days to live
- A groundbreaking Heart-After-Liver Transplant saved her life by resetting her immune system to accept a new heart
For 15 years, Monica McFarlan navigated the grueling reality of life with heart failure. What began as a sudden, life-altering diagnosis at age 37 evolved into a decade and a half of medical hurdles, including nine daily medications and frequent hospitalizations that forced her to abandon her favorite activities.
Despite her resilience, she kept experiencing unexpected setbacks: she underwent emergency brain surgery and two separate placements of Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVADs) to keep her heart pumping.
By 2023, McFarlan’s was seemingly out of options.
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She was ineligible for a traditional heart transplant because of the high levels of antibodies in her system that would reject a donor organ, meaning she had only days to live. “I had two days to two weeks to live to say my goodbyes,” Monica said.
The path to this crisis began years earlier during what should have been a routine run. An avid runner training for her next marathon, McFarlan noticed an unusual shortness of breath. At first, she tried to brush it off, telling TODAY.com, “I’m just getting too old for this.”
The breathlessness persisted, but it wasn’t until a nosebleed woke her up in the middle of the night that she decided to go to a local doctor, who brushed her symptoms off as anxiety. Everything came to a head that night, when the medication she was prescribed only made things worse, causing her to wake up and vomit profusely.
McFarlan and her husband went to the ER that night, where the medical team found her heart rate was “off-the-charts” high. Shortly after, they diagnosed her with congestive heart failure.
McFarlan’s journey was relentless. In May 2011, she received a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) — a surgically implanted pump that takes over the left side of the heart and is powered by a battery pack worn outside the body. Two years later, a fall resulted in an emergency brain surgery that left her legally blind.
A year later, her heart briefly recovered enough to have the device removed. But that progress was short-lived; she suffered a heart attack that October, forcing her to receive a second LVAD in November. Complications followed, including a chronic infection, keeping her tethered to the medical system.
It wasn’t until the doctors told her there was nothing left to do that one came to her with a life-saving question. They proposed a Heart-After-Liver Transplant, or “HALT.”
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During this unique 16-hour surgery, doctors transplant a new liver first, which helps to reset the body’s immune system. Once the liver is in place, they perform the heart transplant. This procedure bypasses the antibody problem, offering a second chance to patients like McFarlan, who were previously told they were ineligible for a transplant.
“I am so thankful that I am here to take these medicines,” Monica said. “I am not going to complain about any of it.”
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Recalling the journey, McFarlan explained, “It was just from the lowest point of my life, telling my boys goodbye and my husband and my mom, to the highest of highs.”
McFarlan’s first LVAD device was placed on her youngest son’s fourth birthday. “He only knew me as a sick mommy,” she recalled.
She continued, “I had a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance! I am just so grateful. I thank God every day. My faith has grown so strong, and my trust in him, because without God, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
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