George Maxwell shows his external heart pump and the custom made vest that holds both battery packs. The vest was made by his daughter, Tracey Buller.
Dr. Jeffrey Cope
Dr. Frank Corbally
Yes, it's kind of weird having an electrical cord coming out of a hole in your belly, just below your rib cage.
That's especially true when the cord runs between an internal heart pump and external batteries.
"I'm charged electrically, so to speak," George Maxwell said with a chuckle.
Not that he's complaining.
After all, the 69-year-old retired truck driver from Mount Joy wouldn't be here without his cord and his pump.
The device is helping people like Maxwell live longer and someday might even replace heart transplants, according to doctors.
Maxwell is getting back on his feet after surgery in February to get the pump, called the HeartMate II.
He's looking forward to mowing his lawn, working on his beloved 1983 Ford F-150 pickup truck and puttering around, doing fix-ups at his house and for relatives.
"Fifteen years ago, I would have been bedridden, with a big machine," he said. "Here it is today, and I can get up and move around."
VIDEO: George Maxwell describes life after surgery
Doctors say the implantable pump is a godsend to patients whose hearts do not have enough force to pump the blood to the rest of their bodies.
Maxwell started feeling ill in December. He had suffered some sinus troubles, and was increasingly out of breath.
"I couldn't walk over 100 feet that I wasn't gasping for air," he said. "I knew I had a problem."
He ended up in the office of cardiologist Dr. Frank Corbally, of Heart Specialists of Lancaster. Corbally put him in the hospital that same day.
Tests showed the left side of Maxwell's heart, which is the main pumping chamber, was only pumping at about 10 percent of the force it should have been.
"I was surprised, absolutely," Maxwell said. "I thought I had no more than a bad sinus attack."
Corbally suggested Maxwell go to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia for more tests, to see if he qualified for a heart transplant.
"I could have cried," Maxwell said. "But the bottom line was very simple. I had few options."
Almost 300,000 people a year die from heart failure in the United States, according to national statistics. It is an unpleasant disease, Corbally said.
Patients feel lousy — tired and perpetually out of breath. Their ankles swell. Their lungs begin to fill with fluid, giving them a drowning feeling. Their kidneys begin to fail.
Medications can treat the disease for some patients. Transplants are an option for those with more severe heart disease, but only 2,000 donor hearts are available each year.
In Philadelphia, Maxwell got more bad news. He flunked the transplant tests because of some factors with his health.
Back in Lancaster, doctors were scrambling to find a treatment for him.
"He was between a rock and a hard place," Corbally said.
The HeartMate II already was being used for those waiting for a transplant, to tide them over until a heart became available. Doctors knew the federal government was close to approving the pump as a "destination therapy," or a lifetime treatment for patients such as Maxwell.
On Jan. 20, that approval finally came. About two weeks later, Maxwell got his pump.
"It was a race, truly, against time," said Dr. Jeffrey Cope of Cardiothoracic Surgeons of Lancaster, who implanted the pump in Maxwell.
The pump is implanted inside the body, below the heart, to which it is attached. The pump's components, its controller and batteries, are outside the body and connected to the pump via a cord that runs through a hole in the abdomen.
The pump provides a constant blood flow, said Dr. Roy Small, a cardiologist with the Heart Group. It's unusual in that it does not produce a pulse, as the heart normally does.
The components weigh about eight pounds. Maxwell's daughter, Tracey Buller of Mount Joy, made him a denim vest with pockets to hold everything.
The rechargeable batteries last about four hours. At night, Maxwell can plug the device into an electrical outlet.
Maxwell has to wear a special bag to protect the device from the water when he showers. But other than that, he hopes to return to a fairly normal life once he is fully recovered.
Lancaster General Hospital is one of four hospitals in the state currently implanting the pumps. Cope said the hospital could end up implanting 20 to 50 of the devices a year.
The cost of the pump is between $60,000 and $80,000; and is covered by Medicare. That does not include the cost of the surgery to implant it.
Doctors agree the pump is a life-saver for patients like Maxwell, who do not qualify for heart transplants. And unlike heart transplant recipients, pump patients do not have to battle organ rejection.
Studies show that patients have lived about five to six years with the pump. Corbally thinks Maxwell could go at least 10 years with it.
The pump is smaller than previous ones and more durable, Small said.
Cope predicts the technology will continue to develop and that, someday, the device will be completely implantable, without the cord and external batteries.
It may even replace transplants at some point, he said.
Maxwell said he is a lucky man.
"If someone was in my position, I would say, 'Go for it,' " he said of the pump. "If they are faced with the options I was faced with, then it's really a no-brainer."