Taking Heart : Recipient Helps Other Patients

It was last spring when Gene E. Reynolds began to notice that whenever he tried to sink into his favorite easy chair, he would feel a sputter in his chest and be unable to breathe.

Unknown to him, his heart was growing weak. In the space of a few weeks, he would learn that it had swollen to the size of a football.

But Reynolds, 45, was lucky. Last May 31, he became only the third person in Orange County to receive a heart transplant. Now, he is a picture of health at 6-foot-2 and 178 pounds.

On Wednesday, he returned to his job as a customer service adviser at Pacific Bell after nearly a year away. And he says a new goal of his life is to be an inspiration to people with failing hearts.

Returned to Office

Dressed in jacket and tie, a fit and tanned Reynolds walked with supervisor Andy Lakatosh through his Orange office, where he has been employed for 27 years.

Reynolds left work last March after contracting pneumonia.

That infection led to cardiomyopathy, a swelling of the heart, according to spokeswoman Elaine Beno of the UCI Medical Center. (Dr. Richard Ott, who performed Reynolds’ surgery, was unavailable for comment Wednesday.) His heart was pumping at only 10% capacity, she said. Reynolds lost his appetite and dropped 40 pounds.

“I would get out of breath just brushing my teeth,” he said.

When told by doctors that he needed a heart transplant, Reynolds immediately joined a list of possible heart recipients and began waiting for a donor.

“You never know if you are going to have enough of your life left to wait,” Reynolds said.

About 10 days later, he got the news: he would receive the heart of a 21-year-old Carlsbad man who had been killed in a traffic accident.

“The adrenaline was really pumping,” he said. “You almost don’t have time to think.”

The operation took 3 1/2 hours. He awoke feeling euphoric.

The next day, Reynolds felt so good that he began making mental notes of chores to do once he got home. The day after, he took a short walk. At night, he lay in bed, looked at his chest comfortably thumping and thought, “I’m alive.”

His weight and appetite quickly increased. He gained 18 pounds in 9 days.

He returned to his Anaheim home, where he lives with a girlfriend and his 21-year-old daughter, and settled into a routine of exercise and therapy.

Because his chest was still sore, he kept a pillow nearby to hug when he felt pain.

“I called it my ‘hug pillow,’ ” he said. “Whenever I sneezed (and felt pain), I grabbed that pillow.”

Happy with his recovery, Reynolds last summer began counseling potential heart recipients and transplant patients from the medical center.

He tells them: “When you get your heart, you’re going to be just like me.”

Last year, six people received heart transplants at the medical center, Beno said, adding that Reynolds’ recovery is typical.

Survival Figures

About 80% of heart recipients survive more than a year and a half, according to 1987 figures from the American Council on Transplantation. And about 60% survive for more than 5 years.

The transplant and subsequent treatment cost Reynolds about $220,000, paid by medical insurance, he said. He also expects to take about $10,000 worth of medication a year.

In Orange on Wednesday, Reynolds said he wasn’t going to work 7 days a week, as he sometimes did in the past.

“There are other things that are equally important,” he said, such as his spending time with his family and lending support to heart patients.

He occasionally feels mood swings, leg cramps and jitters caused by some of the medication he must take. But Reynolds said: “Every day is a good day.”