Shelly Guinyard, heart and liver transplant patient

Shelley Guinyard has a new phone. It’s a service called TTY, short for teletypewriter, where she can type what she wants to say. With it, she can stay in close contact with the doctors and nurses at Westchester Medical Center, which is important for one very good reason.

It was here that Shelley had a double transplant operation, an operation where she received a new heart and a new liver. Since she and her husband are deaf and mute, this phone is her lifeline.

When Shelley came here in 2008, her condition was critical.

She had been suffering nearly half her life with coronary disease and she was only in her 30s when she started having heart attacks. Despite having multiple stents implanted, her condition continued to worsen. By the time Dr. Spielvogel saw her, Shelley’s malfunctioning heart was causing her liver to fill up with blood. Her condition was officially life-threatening.

Dr. Spielvogel, the Chief of the Heart Transplant Program at WMC, and Dr. Sheiner, Chief of the Liver Transplant Program, knew they had to act quickly and precisely.

When donor organs became available, the two surgeons and their teams performed an intricate double transplant operation. Dr. Speilvogel implanted Shelley’s new heart, then stepped aside and let Dr. Sheiner transplant the new liver. The entire procedure took 10 hours.

Shelley’s recovery went very smoothly and her breathing tubes were removed after only one day. Soon after, she was ready to go home.

But doctors, worried about how they would monitor Shelley once she left the hospital, turned to transplant coordinators and hospital social workers. The telephones were their idea.

Today, doctors are well aware that Shelley’s heart and liver are performing nicely. “Her liver is doing well,” says Dr. Sheiner, “and we expect her to have a long lifetime with it.”

Learn more about the Transplant Center at Westchester Medical Center.