Tulsa World: Heart aid pumps joy into Christmas

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Heart aid pumps joy into Christmas

Registered nurse L. Tobi Snoddy of Harmony Home Care works with Alphus Ramsey, who is waiting on a heart transplant. A left ventricular assist device is supporting his heart until he can get a new one. JAMES PLUMLEE/Tulsa World

By KIM ARCHER World Staff Writer
Published: 12/23/2008 2:24 AM
Last Modified: 12/23/2008 3:03 AM

"I'll be home for Christmas" has new meaning for Alphus Ramsey.

After spending 36 days in Integris Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma City and 10 more in an apartment there, the 50-year-old Tulsan came home Friday with a battery-operated heart pump implanted in his chest.

"That was our goal — to get home for Christmas," said Ramsey's mother, Billie S. Barnett.

Ramsey's ordeal began four years ago in Iraq, where he worked for defense contractor and Halliburton subsidiary KBR as a safety coordinator.

One day, he felt a sharp pain between his shoulder blades. He was flown to a Baghdad hospital, where doctors discovered he had a 95 percent blockage in his heart. From there, he was flown to Germany, where he got a stent put in the artery.

Ramsey came home to Tulsa after the stent surgery. But the stent failed and he had a heart attack two years ago. He was diagnosed with advanced heart failure. Tulsa surgeons implanted a defibrillator to keep his heart in rhythm.

"I wasn't surprised by the heart disease," Barnett said. "It runs on both sides of the family."

Ramsey was told his heart would likely give out within a year and would need to be replaced.

"I'm a big old boy to begin with, so it's going to take a big heart," he said.

Doctors recommended Ramsey get a left ventricular assist device, or LVAD, to support his weak heart while he awaits a transplant.

Now he carries a small power pack over his shoulder wherever he goes. And he must heal fully from the LVAD surgery before his name is returned to the heart transplant waiting list.

"It's like I'm tethered by an umbilical cord. But it beats the alternative," he said.

Ramsey's LVAD surgery was performed on his mother's birthday, Nov. 19.

"The good part about it is the surgery went well and he recovered. That was my birthday present," Barnett said.

She wants others to know this potential option for people waiting on a heart transplant.

"If this can help others, we'll be happy," she said.

Barnett said as she sat in the waiting room over the many days her son was hospitalized, she made many friends whose loved ones had heart conditions.

"It was amazing to me that they all put Al on their prayer lists and all prayed for him," she said. "That was a blessing to me."

Ramsey said he nearly had to learn to walk all over again after spending five days in sedation post-surgery.

"It took a day or two to get used to having good circulation," Ramsey said. "It was rough. I told my doctor, 'You have to be a tough SOB to have a heart problem, don't you?' "

"And he said, 'You know, I've never heard that before. But that's the truth.'"

Kim Archer 581-8315
kim.archer@tulsaworld.com By KIM ARCHER World Staff Writer

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GE 918, Tulsa (12/24/2008 9:16:02 PM)

CD, Me too.

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