DENVER — UCHealth is close to reaching its 1,000th heart transplant, and one recipient shares his story to encourage others to save a life.
Denver7 met Jim Mason around six months into his recovery.
In December of last year, Mason went to the doctor when he felt like something was wrong where they discovered he had an interruption in his heart's electrical current. Within three weeks, Mason was undergoing surgery.
He's giving kudos now to doctors like Jordan Hoffman, the surgical director of heart and lung transportation at UCHealth, where he performs around three transplants a week.
"None of it's scheduled. So, sometimes I'm operating overnight, sometimes I'm operating during the day, and then sometimes I see my family," Dr. Hoffman said.
He said they now have new technologies to recover hearts, but there is a shortage of donors.
"I think the University of Colorado is unique in that we're situated in an area where there are not a lot of transplant centers near us, which means we draw from a large catchment area. So we tend to get people onto the transplant list and listed and transplanted quickly," Dr. Hoffman said.
Transplant recipients can be anyone from birth to around 80 years old. The ideal donor, though, is between 40 and 50 years old, according to Hoffman.
Doctors prefer the donor be the same age or younger than the recipient, Hoffman said, but the heart doesn't always have to be a "perfect match."
"The important thing to remember for people who don't necessarily have, you know, medical issues is to make sure you're a donor," Hoffman said.
It's bittersweet for Mason, who now has a new outlook on life.
"I have got to make sure that I serve a purpose that's greater than myself because otherwise, it was in vain," Mason said.
He knows that to be here today, that means someone else is not. Mason told Denver7 what he would say if he could speak to his donor.
"I would say, 'We have a shared heart, and we have a shared responsibility. Rest, my brother. I got it.'"
