Heart Transplant Gives New Jersey EMT a ‘Second Half’

Four years ago, working as an EMT with New Jersey’s Englewood Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Gina Westhoven was enjoying her career and spending time with friends, family, and her dog, Micki. But something wasn’t quite right. She was often tired and winded despite her young age and active lifestyle. Little did Westhoven know she was about to begin a 4-year journey that would lead her to a heart transplant and subsequent mission to advocate for organ donation.

Westhoven, who also worked as a paid EMT for Paramus Ambulance from 2009–19, initially became sick in 2016 with what she thought was a cold. It did not go away, however, and her respiratory symptoms got worse, eventually turning into pneumonia. Doctors told her she had asthma before finally diagnosing her with CHF at Chilton Medical Center in November 2016. She was in active heart failure after the respiratory infections. This was never in her plans.

Detour Ahead

At her first meeting with the nurse practitioners at Chilton, as they laid out a likely care plan of medication, progression to LVAD, and eventual transplant, Westhoven was in denial. “I looked my nurse straight in her face and said, ‘Absolutely not. I am not going down this road. That’s not what’s happening,’” she says.

“Receiving an organ was something I never saw coming. As a little girl you don’t think you’re going to get sick and eventually need an organ. You don’t dream of life taking you that way.”

Westhoven does not give up easily, even facing a serious disease that could take her life. She was determined to change her course not only with medications but also by initiating major lifestyle changes and doing everything in her control to improve her health.

“I thought that my body and mentality were strong enough to fight it. I changed my diet, became vegan, was exercising, and stopped eating processed foods. I was incredibly careful about what I put in my body,” Westhoven says. “I did everything they told me to do and more.”

“If you could fix it with effort alone,” her NP told her, “you would have been cured.”

Worsening CHF

That made hearing her test results that much harder: Months later the CHF still was getting worse. Though Westhoven was starting to feel better, her heart was struggling even more. In fact, her care team thought her fitness and meds were making up for some of the CHF decline; she felt better because her body was compensating for the decreased heart function. But the bottom line was, she was running out of options.

She had progressed past oral medications to a defibrillator, CardioMEMS monitoring, and a milrinone pump with a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line. The PICC line meant she was no longer able to work due to the risk of the line being pulled out. Then in late 2018, the milrinone pump was no longer enough to manage the CHF. Westhoven had fluid overload, and her pressures were creeping up even on diuretics. She was told she would need an LVAD (left ventricular assist device).

“I was devastated. Every time I thought I was doing better and was feeling better, I was physically doing worse. It was very frustrating,” she says. “Some people can come off milrinone and are fine because it gave their heart time to recover. I was bound and determined to be one of those.”

But the disease kept getting worse. Having lost her “normal” life and still unable to work, she was feeling low and scared of the LVAD and transplant surgeries that loomed ahead. It was then that she made a choice—a very un-Ginalike choice: She decided to give up.

“I was so emotionally and mentally drained and just done,” she recalls. “[My care team] said if I went home without a PICC line and just oral medications, I would eventually not be here anymore.”

She called a couple of close friends to let them know of her decision, one who is her best friend and the mother of her godson. Her friend acknowledged it was Westhoven’s choice but that she would need to explain to the then-7-year-old why she wouldn’t be there for his graduation and other milestones.

Westhoven also thought of another promise she made to herself and an NP with whom she’d had a close relationship: My mom buried my dad when I was 3. I’m not going to have my mom bury her daughter as well.

She had the LVAD surgery. For Westhoven it was a bridge to allow her pulmonary artery pressure to come down and prime her cardiovascular system for a successful transplant.

Waiting for Transplant

In 2020 Westhoven was added to the transplant list. She kept a packed bag ready and never traveled farther than 2 hours from the hospital in case the call came. After 101 days, a heart became available on December 14, 2020 at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center—during the COVID-19 pandemic. She underwent a transplant the next day; the operation lasted almost 7 hours, and her total sedation time was 18 hours.

Westhoven was unable to have regular visitors, and though her mom was given an exception, they chose to have her quarantine at home while Westhoven recovered. However, as luck would have it, a traveling nurse friend was placed at Newark just 2 days after Westhoven’s surgery, providing her some familiarity.

Westhoven went home on December 30, 2020. As she continues to recover today, she maintains a valid EMT certification and plans to return someday, when it’s safe, to the career she began in 2004. For the meantime she is focused on advocating for the medical opportunity that saved her life, referring to herself as Gina 2.0 after her heart transplant.

“I was given an opportunity, a second half. I call my new heart ‘my new best friend,’ and it’s now my job to protect it,” she says. “I am super blessed and honored that my angel donor and donor’s family said yes. Without my angel donor I would not be here.

“I want to do as much as I can to get as many people as I can to understand the importance of becoming registered organ donors because there is such a need,” Westhoven adds. “More people should be given this opportunity.”

Read more about organ donation at Gift of Life: www.donors1.org/.