Wexford Woman Appreciates
Second Chance at Life

By Janice Lane Palko

When Becky Ridgeway of Wexford was asked if she minded giving her age for this article, she laughed. "I'm thrilled to say that I'm 45. I celebrate every birthday," Ridgeway said.

More people might embrace getting older if they were told, like Ridgeway, at the age of 27 that they might not be having anymore birthdays unless they had a heart transplant.

Other than having an episode of unexplained heart failure as an infant, Ridgeway had no clue that her heart was working at only half the normal capacity. It was during some routine medical tests that it was discovered that her heart was abnormal. "I had no symptoms," Ridgeway said. "I didn't know any different."

At the time, 1988, she was living in Florida, and heart transplants had only been performed with any regularity since the mid-80s. She went to the University of Miami Medical Center for evaluation. They wanted to do her surgery, but she wanted a center with more experience as they had only performed six transplants. It was recommended to her that she either move to be near Stanford Medical Center in California or to Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh. Both of these hospitals had more experience with heart transplant surgery.

Ridgeway, who had a one-year-old daughter, moved to Pittsburgh and was put on the waiting list for a new heart. She felt her health failing. "That was scary. I watched myself get sicker and sicker and often wondered if my daughter would lose her mother," Ridgeway said.

After six months on the transplant list and a year after diagnosis, a heart was located for her. "The night before the surgery, I remember looking in the mirror and thinking that tomorrow I'm going to have a huge incision and someone else's heart beating inside me," Ridgeway said.

After recovering from the surgery, Ridgeway said she noticed a difference immediately. "I had more energy. I was so sick before, I didn't know any different," Ridgeway said.

Ridgeway liked Pittsburgh so much she decided to stay. She takes anti-rejection drugs and expects to take them for the rest of her life. She is now engaged and her daughter is in college.

Ridgeway said her donor was a woman in her twenties from Alabama, and she has written to the woman's family thanking them for the gift of life. She also encourages others to sign up to be organ donors.

"Most of us in our lives don't get an opportunity to be a hero," Ridgeway said, "but everyone can be a hero by being an organ donor."

For more information on organ donation, call the Center for Organ Recovery and Education (CORE) at 1-800-DONORS7.

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