Finding a way forward after heart failure

Gene Barrett has never been one to sit still.

For nearly 40 years, he worked highway construction in northeastern Pennsylvania, running bulldozers, excavators and other massive machines. He also spent nearly 2 decades as a part-time police officer. When he’s not working, he’s outdoors fishing, riding horses and hunting.

“If you still have plans you haven’t succeeded in,” he says, “then you’ve got to push yourself to do them.”

That mindset would carry him through a medical journey that at times kept him confined to a hospital bed.

When everything changed 

Mr. Barrett’s heart trouble began in 2009.

One Saturday, he suddenly felt dizzy and short of breath. He took some aspirin and felt okay, but then he passed out. An ambulance rushed him to Geisinger Medical Center, where doctors placed 3 stents to open blocked arteries. By Tuesday, he was already back at work.

For years after that, life felt mostly normal. “It was almost like an overhaul on the engine,” he says. “We were okay for a while.”

Then on a winter morning in 2021, driving to work, he felt a crushing chest pain. Coworkers could see something was wrong.

An ambulance rushed Mr. Barrett to Geisinger, where doctors discovered he’d had a massive heart attack — often called a “widow maker” — caused by a severe blockage in a major artery.

“They told me afterward that the right side of my heart blew up,” he says.

After the heart attack, Mr. Barrett faced complications and repeated hospital stays — far from home, in Philadelphia-based systems — as his heart grew weaker. Over time, his providers there began to discuss the possibility of a transplant.

Confined but not defeated

Mr. Barrett was placed on a waiting list for a donor heart. But things didn’t go as planned.

A serious blood infection kept him from qualifying for transplant surgery. He was transferred to another hospital, where machines helped his failing heart pump blood through his body while doctors tried to stabilize him.

By then, he had already spent months in and out of the hospital — part of what would become a 2-year stretch of setbacks. Days turned into weeks. Weeks into months.

“I was hooked up to a machine that ran my heart,” he says. “I couldn’t leave the hospital.”

Much of that time was spent inside a small room — about 10 by 10 feet. “I looked like a skeleton,” he says. “I just got tired of being in that room.”

Finally, from that hospital bed, he made a phone call that changed the course of his care.

He called his longtime cardiologist, Rizwan Tahir, MD, at Geisinger.

“I told Dr. Tahir I wanted to come home and get an LVAD.”

A new path forward

Geisinger Chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery Michael Friscia, MD, says his team is ready to provide care for the most complex cases while offering local patients the comfort and reassurance of being close to home. And a system Geisinger’s size can make it easier for patients and providers to connect.

“I think it helps to see a familiar face on a regular basis and to realize that our team will be with patients through the entire journey,” Dr. Friscia says. “Gene and I established a rapport. We built trust by being honest and open about the challenges he would face, while at the same time showing him that we were committed to getting him through the LVAD implantation.”

An LVAD — short for left ventricular assist device — is a mechanical pump that helps a weakened heart circulate blood. The device requires major surgery and lifelong care, including an external power source patients carry with them every day. For some patients, it serves as a bridge while waiting for a transplant. For others, like Mr. Barrett, it has become a long-term solution.

“I run on 2 batteries,” he says with a laugh.

Throughout the process, Mr. Barrett says his care team stayed closely involved — including Dr. Friscia, Dr. Tahir and Kaitlyn Klemick, the Geisinger social worker who helped coordinate Mr. Barrett’s care.

“Dr. Tahir is a lifesaver,” Mr. Barrett says. “I’ve known a lot of doctors in my lifetime, and he’s the true deal. To this day, every time I go for a visit, he pops in.”

Ms. Klemick remembers a patient who arrived frustrated after months of setbacks, but whose determination ultimately made all the difference. 

“His attitude is what really got him to where he is today, just by continuing to fight and pushing forward,” she says. “That’s going to help increase his quality of life.”

A new rhythm of life

Life with an LVAD comes with adjustments. Cold winter air can make breathing more difficult. Tasks that once took an hour might now take several. But Mr. Barrett refuses to slow down more than necessary.

He’s back to working outdoors and staying active around home. When winter keeps him inside, he ties fishing flies. When spring comes, he’s on the water casting lines.

“The key to this whole thing is don’t go home and sit in a chair and count your days,” Mr. Barrett says. “You can’t be afraid. You’ve just got to keep pushing.”

In fact, he’s already thinking about the next challenge. “I used to ride bulls,” he says. “My goal is to do it again.”

From someone who’s been there

Mr. Barrett knows firsthand how overwhelming heart failure treatment decisions can be. He says he’s willing to talk with other patients who may be considering an LVAD. And he wants people to know that waiting for a transplant isn’t the only path forward.

For him, choosing an LVAD meant leaving a hospital room behind and returning to the life he loves. And his advice is simple:

“Once you get it, you’ve got to get up and get moving,” he says. “Life is what you make it.”

Dr. Friscia adds, “The journey of an LVAD is not for everyone, but for people who are very resilient, the body has an amazing ability to recover from advanced heart failure. Return to a good quality of life can be realized when you combine a resilient patient with a dedicated and high-functioning advanced heart failure team.”

Next steps: 

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