John Wayne Barnett of Belen: New Mexico’s First Heart Transplant Recipient (Part II)

Last week’s edition of La Historia told of the first heart transplant operation performed in New Mexico.

John Barnett, of Belen, received a donated heart on July 8, 1986, at Presbyterian Hospital. All went remarkably well in the operating room and during John’s recovery.

Heading home

Three weeks after his history-making transplant operation, John was released from Presbyterian Hospital and driven home to Belen. Although he had nothing but praise for his doctors, nurses, therapists and dietitians, he suffered a bad case of cabin fever after his long confinement in Lovelace and Presbyterian hospitals.

Doctors had notified John at 9:15 a.m. that he would be going home that afternoon, Aug. 1. His family fully expected that he would want to wear what he usually wore at home — a yellow fishing hat, a red jumpsuit and sandals. Instead, he insisted that Nancy drive home to Belen to retrieve his suit so he could look his best.

Having changed into his suit, John traveled from his seventh-floor room to Presbyterian’s main floor in a wheelchair, but walked once he got to the hospital’s lobby. At 2:30 p.m., he walked out to a waiting car.

Looking on, a Presbyterian spokesperson told reporters at the scene, “things couldn’t look better (for John). In a way, we hate to see him leave. He’s been a model patient.”

A front-page photo in the News-Bulletin showed John hugging his youngest daughter, Lori, as he arrived home on Cavalier Road. His mother and stepfather also gave him an emotional embrace.

Gertrude, the family’s tiny, hyper-active dog, was excited to see John after he’d been gone so long. Doctors had worried that the pet might spread harmful germs, but decided that its value as a therapy dog far outweighed the risks.

John settled into his easy chair. His journey to the brink of death and back had finally ended.

John looked forward to a home-cooked meal that evening. He craved an enchilada dinner with double cheese, blue corn tortillas, rice, carne adovada, a sunny-side up egg and a side of guacamole. But his mother reminded him of what his dietitians in the hospital had told him. John settled for a dinner with less fats and fewer calories.

John also looked forward to taking a fishing trip, dancing and returning to his church. Like his enchilada dinner, these activities would have to wait a while longer.

Unfortunately, the bills for John’s expensive operation and hospital stay could not wait. The total cost equaled $80,000. Medicare had yet to cover the expense of heart transplants.

A fund for contributions was established at the First National Bank in Belen and John’s stepfather’s Moose lodge in Albuquerque organized a fund-raising event exactly one month after John’s operation.

Dr. Thomas Hoyt and four other staff members who had cared for John at Presbyterian attended the banquet. John referred to them and all the hospital’s employees as “my family.”

John felt so good that he danced when the band played his favorite song, “Cotton Eye Joe.” He fell once but just smiled, got up and danced with his therapist, admitting, “I’m a little rusty.”

The benefit banquet raised $500, with pledges of up to $1,500. Lovelace canceled its entire bill, but the balance at Presbyterian weighed heavily on John’s mind.

A year later, John lamented that it “seems like every time I figure a way to make ends meet, somebody moves the end post.”

John added that the operation had “reduced my family from middle income to almost paupers in a year and a half.”

A changed life

John and his family faced many new challenges after his transplant operation, but he was happy to have been given a new lease on life.

“He has an amazing type of personality that gives you a lift instead of the other way around,” said home care nurse Marie Rae.

John was proud to be the first New Mexican to wear a blue pin designating him as a heart transplant survivor. He said the surgery had changed his outlook on life, allowing him to enjoy it much more.

“I figure every day is a bonus,” Barnett said.

John found that he did not lose his “cool nearly as often.” His daughters apparently appreciated his new attitude and tried not to upset him.

“Believe it or not, I think they listen to the old man a little more than they did,” he said.

Reflecting their bliss, John and Nancy renewed their wedding vows on Oct. 12, 1986, the 25th anniversary of their marriage. They undoubtedly reminded each other that Nancy had kiddingly turned down John’s proposal before his operation.

John relaxed at home and spent two to three hours each day at his dry cleaning business, not to work but to socialize. Wearing his famous yellow fisherman’s hat and sitting in his plaid rocking chair, he talked to customers who came by to pick up their laundry.

“Being close to people on a daily basis may have contributed most to his recovery,” Nancy said.

Based on their success with John’s case, doctors at Presbyterian operated on several more patients. As his strength improved, John went so far as to help and comfort other heart transplant patients, before and after their operations. Hospital staff members appreciated these efforts. In the words of Warren Bower, who worked in the cardiology department, the “language of experience needs little translation.”

By September 1987, John also worked with the New Mexico Transplant and Assistance Fund, an organization created to help patients deal with the enormous cost of their operations and recoveries.

“Even if we can take a little bit off just some of the patients’ (financial burdens), then it will be worth it,” Barnett said.

By the following January, Nancy reported that John’s “quality of life couldn’t be better.” His doctors agreed, saying that of all the transplants they had performed since John’s, he had adjusted the best. His biopsies to check on his body’s acceptance of his new heart were so positive that they were cut back to only one every six months.

Doctors documented the one-year survival rate of heart transplant patients was about 85 percent, while the five-year survival rate ranged from 60 to 70 percent. With guarded optimism, doctors believed that John might live five or more years.

Average days

The Barnetts’ average day started at 7 a.m. when Nancy drew blood to test John’s insulin level because one of his anti-rejection medications could cause diabetes.

Nancy then checked his vital signs and, if all looked good, John began his morning exercise routine. John took his anti-rejection medications and other drugs throughout the day. He needed to take a combination of prednisone, cyclosporine and imuran for the rest of his life.

Nurses visited regularly to check on John and “look for any signs of heart congestion,” says Lezlie Ann Schubert, an early supervisor of his health care.

Other than his body’s rejection of his new heart, John’s No. 1 enemy was infection caused by lab tubes used to draw blood and test for rejection. If any more sophisticated care was needed, John was to be rushed to Presbyterian, as he was in July 1987 for treatment of a rejection episode.

This daily routine proved tedious for John and his family. While they all benefited from John’s healthier diet, with low salt, low sugar and low cholesterol, meals were not as diverse and enjoyable. It is doubtful if John ever got to eat his long-awaited enchilada dinner.

Decline

By July 1990, four years after his transplant operation, John had become rather despondent.

“I literally died,” Barnett said. “And coming back to life has not been easy.”

Rosie Clifford, Belen’s health care nurse, recalls that when she visited John to check his vitals, all he felt like doing was sitting in his recliner in the back of the cleaners.

John’s psychological and physical condition slowly declined, especially as he developed complications from the combination of anti-rejection drugs he took daily. He had less enthusiasm to engage in conversations with friends and customers at his dry cleaners.

As his health deteriorated, John told Rosie that if he knew what he knew about what lay ahead, he would never opted to have the operation. Nancy confided the same sentiment to a neighbor.

John and Nancy made the decision to return to Texas in February 1991. Much of their family still lived there, including one of their daughters, who had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. John kidded that he could also get to finally do some bass fishing there.

Sandy Battin, of the News-Bulletin, interviewed John by phone on the fifth anniversary of his operation. John said he was grateful for the extra years he had been given because he had gotten to meet five grandchildren and watch his oldest daughter, Judith, graduate from nursing school in Missouri.

“If it ends tomorrow, I had five years extra that I wouldn’t have had,” he told Battin.

John’s condition had worsened by mid-1991 when he was admitted to the East Texas Medical Center in Tyler, Texas. Soon released, he died in his sleep at his Amarillo home at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28, 1991. His family requested that funds in his memory be contributed to the Presbyterian Hospital Heart Transplant program.

John died of a combination of lupus, coronary heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes. He was 48 years old. He had lived the predicted five years, plus two months and two days.

Donna Melnikoff, director of Presbyterian’s outpatient services, told Battin, “I’m not going to tell you all the years were perfect for him, but he would joke and smile and give hugs when you saw him.”

Another tragedy struck on Sept. 11, 1990, when Dr. Hoyt, the lead surgeon on John’s heart transplant team, was flying his jet to Las Cruces to transport a donor’s heart back to Albuquerque. His plane crashed shortly after takeoff from the Double Eagle II Airport. Hoyt and William Cobb, a fellow transport team member, died. Hoyt was 47, a year younger than John when he passed away.

Later transplants

New Mexico’s second heart transplant patient, a 55-year-old male from Albuquerque, received his new heart three months after John. Twenty men and women received new hearts by the end of 1987. One hundred and fifty-one received new hearts by 2002.

John Barnett was proud to be the first heart transplant patient in New Mexico. He enjoyed his few added years of life until his health spiraled out of control. But John would have preferred to never have needed a life-saving surgery.

“If I had it to do over again,” he lamented, “I’d have never taken that first cigarette.”

It was, in his words, “plain stupid.”

John Wayne Barnett is remembered not only for fighting his terrible disease but also for using his extra years of life to strenuously warn others of what smoking could do to their health.

(La Historia del Rio Abajo is a regular column about Valencia County history written by members of the Valencia County Historical Society since 1998.

Opinions expressed in this and all columns of La Historia del Rio Abajo are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the Valencia County Historical Society or any other group or individual.)