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It's all rosy in record weekend for TGH

Warren Paquin marvels at his wife's rosy cheeks after she is one of 16 patients to get organ transplants at Tampa General.

By LISA GREENE
Published February 23, 2005

TAMPA - It started Friday morning with a kidney transplant, a routine event at Tampa General Hospital.

Then another. A third. A kidney with a pancreas.

Saturday came, and so did a liver, a heart, a lung.

And, at some point, somebody realized, this was a little unusual.

By the time the 72-hour flurry of surgeries was over, 16 patients had gotten 19 new organs, and Tampa General had set a new record for itself.

But this is not what really matters to Warren Paquin. What does matter is that his wife of 44 years, Shirley Anne, is no longer ashen pale.

"She's got rosy cheeks," he said. "It's the first time I've seen her in 11 years without a hose in her nose, and it's just a joy."

Shirley Anne Paquin got her lung transplant Saturday and is recovering well, as are the other 15 patients.

Then there are the six surgeons, six other doctors, 14 transplant coordinators, 20 operating room staffers and roughly 40 post-operation nurses who took part - although that's probably missing a few. Extra teams were called in to handle the load.

"I've been with the program 18 years and we've never come close to this," said Sjonne Mabbott, director of transplant programs at Tampa General. "It's very unusual for us."

It wasn't clear Tuesday how the number of transplants stacked up with those at other hospitals. Tampa General is one of Florida's busiest transplant centers, but there are larger centers elsewhere.

Two of this weekend's patients received kidneys donated from living relatives. But most who need organs are listed in a national network. When organs are donated from someone who died, coordinators run through the system to see who has the most critical need.

Distance is also a factor. A donated kidney can last outside the body for 12 to 24 hours. But a liver has only six to eight, and hearts and lungs four.

The giddiness of this weekend's patients was tinged with sadness. All but two of the donors got transplants because seven other people died and their organs were donated.

The patients "would not have had a chance for a new life without our donor families thinking about someone else in the middle of our grief," Mabbott said.

"I can't say enough about the donor," Paquin said. "Without that, she wouldn't have a second chance. It's truly a miracle."

Paquin met his wife in Homestead at the bank where she worked 44 years ago. A high school pal worked there too and told him she was already engaged. He didn't care. Soon she was engaged to him instead, and eventually they moved to Bradenton.

They have two children and three grandchildren, and Paquin likes to tell people that his wife once was an Azalea Queen.

"She's still a gorgeous lady," he said.

But chronic emphysema left Shirley Anne, a former smoker, exhausted and tethered to an oxygen tank. Friday night the couple got the call they had waited for.

By 3 a.m., Warren Paquin heard that his wife's shriveled lung was gone. By 6 a.m., that a new one had gone in, plump and pink. He hopes the worst side effects of the surgery will be his own.

"I was biting my fingernails," he said. "I did so much praying, my knees have sores."

[Last modified February 23, 2005, 00:35:16]