They gave her two days to live. Maybe two weeks.
Monica McFarlan’s immune system was too aggressive. It had built up so many antibodies that if surgeons gave her a donor heart, her body would destroy it immediately.
She was out of options. Until doctors suggested a biological loophole.
They would give her a new liver first.
It sounds counterintuitive. But a donor liver acts like a sponge. It absorbs hostile antibodies and essentially resets the body’s immune response. Once the path is clear, the new heart can go in.
The procedure is called HALT: Heart-After-Liver Transplant.
It took 16 hours. It worked.
McFarlan is the first person in Georgia to survive it. All of this started 15 years ago when a doctor told a 37-year-old marathon runner that her shortness of breath was just anxiety.
It wasn’t. It was congestive heart failure. And now, thanks to two organs and an incredible surgical team, she has a second chance.
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