Timothy Stone to Celebrate “Home Run For Life” with OKC Dodgers
Stone received heart transplant at INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center
Timothy Stone spent his life fighting.
Then his life depended on his most important fight.
Stone had a physically demanding job working on cars and was in excellent shape traveling the country as a competitive bare-knuckle fighter for 20 years. He rarely slowed down, even for several years after being diagnosed at the age of 40 with cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart that makes pumping blood throughout the body difficult.
At the age of 49, Stone collapsed while mowing his backyard in Jenks, Okla., and his health quickly spiraled downward starting in March 2015.
Stone would endure multiple surgeries, including five open heart surgeries and a heart transplant at INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center. He would spend four months in the hospital in Oklahoma City — about 100 miles from home before returning to his house just before Thanksgiving in 2015.
Now almost six years later at the age of 55, Stone is back living life with vigor and new perspective with the goal of helping others facing similar difficult journeys thanks to the care he received at INTEGRIS Health.
He said the biggest thing he wants to tell the staff at INTEGRIS Health is thank you.
“I owe them everything,” he said.
“Life is precious. We have all heard that a million times, but I think we look at it a little differently now.”
After collapsing in his yard in the spring of 2015, his wife Leslie took him to the hospital in Tulsa. A series of serious health setbacks followed throughout the next five months. Eventually with the right side of his heart shutting down, he was brought to INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City in August 2015.
When he arrived, he faced seemingly insurmountable odds with a prognosis of a five to 10 percent chance of survival without a heart transplant.
Anita Phancao, M.D., was a heart failure cardiologist with the INTEGRIS Advanced Cardiac Care program at the time.
“In essence, Tim needed a new heart, but he was so sick initially that we didn’t think he had time to wait for one,” she said. “So we ended up putting him on mechanical support known as an LVAD, or left ventricular assist device, to try and bridge him until he was well enough to tolerate an actual heart transplant.
“There were many times we were concerned he might not make it out of the hospital.”
Additionally he would receive a right ventricular assist device (RVAD), dialysis and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), which provides both cardiac and respiratory support to patients whose heart and/or lungs are so severely diseased or damaged that they can no longer serve their function.
He had 12 surgeries, including five open heart surgeries.
“Anything you can do with the heart and body we did it,” he said. “I think (I had) 29 scars by the time it was all said and done.”
The father of two and grandfather of five had much to live for.
“My life revolves around my grandkids,” he said.
He also wanted to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding the following summer.
He continued to fight and work on getting as strong as he could to become a heart transplant recipient, working with one INTEGRIS doctor in particular who knew how to tap into his fighter mentality.
“He knew how to find that little fight I have left,” he said. “But that’s the incredible thing about the doctors they have there. They are incredibly smart and incredibly keen to what the patient needs.”
But his body had endured so much already.
He typically weighed around 175 pounds, but in October 2015 was down to about 118 pounds and then came the devastating news that he had about eight days to live.
With three days left and his organs shutting down, he said his goodbyes to his wife and children telling then how much he loved them.
Everything changed on Oct. 29, 2015.
“Dr. Phancao comes running in the room and Leslie and I are sitting there kind of sobbing a little because we were saying our goodbyes,” Stone said. “She looks at us and says: ‘We found a heart.’”
And it was a perfect match.
Less than one month after receiving a heart transplant, Stone returned home to Jenks in time for Thanksgiving.
Two months later, he was back working on cars.
The following June, he walked his daughter down the aisle at her wedding with Dr. Phancao in attendance.
“I think if you look back at what he looked like in the hospital after being there for weeks and months, to how he is now, he’s a completely different person,” Phancao said. “As a physician, it’s patients like Tim that remind you of why you do what you do. And it makes you realize that we don’t just touch the patient, but their entire family.”
The sixth anniversary of his heart transplant is soon approaching and Stone now mentors others going through transplants.
“The story is so traumatic and so triumphant,” he said. “We were given every possible chance to make it.”
He was fortunate to have the unending support of the INTEGRIS Health staff, his wife Leslie, daughter, son and family throughout his journey back to health, but knows not everyone is so lucky.
“We were blessed to have a lot of great people and a lot of loving people help us along the way,” he said.
“It’s a very, very stressful road and a lot of people don’t make it out, but I did…I’ve done everything you can do as far as the heart goes. All the setbacks. All the big leaps. All the miracles. All of that. I’ve done it all. I think that’s why God blessed us with that because now we can go back and tell more of his children how to get out.
“So many people helped to get me where I am today, but if I can help one person get through a burden — mission accomplished.”
