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Imagine being told that your heart is failing. A disease has attacked and weakened your heart to the point that it struggles to pump blood through your body. The only long-term treatment for heart failure is transplant, but not all patients survive the wait for a precious new organ. When they do, the chance of a second life is often transforming.
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For Dr. Heather Ross, medical director of the Cardiac Transplant Program at Toronto General Hospital, the passion to conquer heart failure and help cardiac patients is what drives her, time and again, to the far ends of the earth. It is how she found herself, this past April, alongside heart transplant recipient Dale Shippam, braving -30 °C temperatures and treacherous terrain in one of the harshest environments on the planet—the North Pole.
Through the Test Your Limits program, Dr. Ross has spearheaded an effort to raise awareness about the devastating effects of heart failure. By embarking on extreme expeditions, Test Your Limits raises funds for life-saving research and promotes greater public awareness of the need for organ donation. To date, the program has raised more than $1.5 million for research in heart disease and heart failure treatments.
During this trek across the Polar Sea, Dale, Dr. Ross and the team pulled 90 lb sleds for 10 hours a day, 10 days in a row. When it was time to set up camp, they slept on the ice inside a thin nylon tent. For days they navigated over massive heaps of ice-rubble and gaps of open water on cross-country skis. At one point in the journey, Dr. Ross fell through the ice into the frigid water beneath.
“We were travelling through an area with separated plates of ice, and we were stepping from one plate to another when the ice under my left ski started to sink,” she recalled. “Dale tried to step out and help me but I was worried that our combined weight would tip the entire plate. By leaning and lifting I managed to pull myself out—but it was really heavy. You’ve got a boot full of water,” she said. Dr. Ross had sunk in up to her left thigh and her left arm had also gotten wet when she instinctively reached out. Once she pulled herself clear of the sinking ice, the team skied quickly for about five minutes. They did this to make sure Dr. Ross’s circulation returned to her soaked leg before they stopped to change.
On the second-last day of the trek, the team was held-up by a powerful arctic storm. The storm trapped the team in their small nylon tents for 60 hours. Dr. Ross and the four other team members were forced to ration food and fuel as the near- gale- force winds shook their tents and the ever-moving ice groaned beneath their sleeping bags. “On the second day in the tent, we were running out of food and we were running out of fuel and the weather had really closed in. I started to wonder how long the storm would last and whether we would have enough food and fuel to last it out. “
As she recalled the storm and her anxiety in waiting for it to calm down, Dale Shippam told Dr. Ross this is what it is like for a heart failure patient waiting for a life-saving organ. “This is what it feels like day in, day out, for someone waiting for a transplant. No control over events, vulnerable, waiting. My admiration and respect for transplant recipients, and those waiting, continues to grow.”
For Dale, helping to raise public awareness about the life-saving impact of organ donation by participating in the Test Your Limits expeditions is a very personal motivation. “I think it’s important for the public to see that people who receive organs can really continue on with their lives. It is more than just a bandage; the transplant program provides recipients with a chance to get up and moving again.”
Equally important to Dale is the opportunity to show patients who are waiting for an organ what a transplant will allow them to do. “I think our expeditions help to keep sick people’s spirits up; I think we’re showing them that it’s worth holding on.”
As the team held on in the tent, the call finally came in from the home base in Barneo. The storm had subsided and the team could proceed. When they reached the North Pole, both Dale and Dr. Ross remember it was a very emotional experience. “That day, Dale became the first heart transplant recipient to our knowledge to stand at the North Pole—the feeling was unbelievable!” said Dr. Ross.
Dale remembers sharing that feeling of intense satisfaction. “Once we knew we were there—that we were at the North Pole—it was incredibly satisfying. When I was sick, there were times I wasn’t sure I would make it through the night. The experience of tackling the North Pole meant so much more given I had come from so far back. It’s the kind of stuff that brings tears to your eyes.”
