Heartless politician keeps on pumping
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| Middlesex supervisor Jack Miller shows the satchel that holds his mechanical artificial heart. (Photo by Tom Chillemi) |
by Larry S. Chowning
John D. (Jack) Miller Jr., 62, is a 17-year veteran of the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors. On November 8, 2011 he became the first elected official ever to hold office without a human heart.
Miller’s heart was removed September 15 and he has been living with a mechanical heart ever since. He is waiting at his home in Locust Hill for a matching donor heart. He attends board meetings by carrying his artificial heart in a backpack size satchel.
“It started 11 years ago when my heart came down with cardiomyopathy,” said Miller last week.
Cardiomyopathy is a degenerative ailment of the heart muscle caused by a virus. Miller was working at Smurfit-Stone paper mill in West Point when his condition forced him to take early retirement.
As the degenerative condition worsens, the heart becomes weaker and is less able to pump blood through the body and maintain a normal rhythm.
This eventually led to Miller receiving an internal defibrillator implant, which would shock his heart back to its proper beat when there was an abnormal rhythm. At that time he was also placed on a transplant waiting list to receive a heart from a donor.
In September of last year, however, he entered VCU Medical Center in Richmond in a very unstable condition.
“My heart deteriorated until my defibrillator was shocking me more and more and my heart capacity was getting smaller and smaller,” he said. “In September, I was here at the house when I had a shock. I knew right then that something else was going to have to happen for me to survive.
“They took me to the emergency room at MCV and evaluated what they were going to have to do. Finally, a surgeon came in and said, ‘Mr. Miller you can’t survive with your heart anymore. You can survive with an artificial heart and we feel you are a good candidate for one.’ “
The doctor told Miller the type of artificial heart he would receive was new technology that had only existed a few years and was still in the experimental stage. “Well, I felt I didn’t have much choice but to try it,” Miller said.
There have been different types of artificial mechanical hearts for years, but some weighed as much as 400 pounds and could not be moved from a hospital. Miller’s artificial heart is called “The Freedom Driver” and weighs 13.5 pounds.
“The best thing I heard from that doctor was that I could take my artificial heart and go home,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to hear. Locust Hill bound was Jack!”
In September, Miller’s damaged heart was removed and he was hooked to The Freedom Driver. Before he could go home, Miller and his wife Mary Lou, who is a professional nurse, had to study and take tests on how to operate the artificial heart machine, and what to do if there was a problem.
Miller went home on October 15 and made history when he chaired the November 1, 2011 Middlesex County Board of Supervisors meeting without a human heart.
As everyone entered the board room that day they could hear the “capucka-capucka-capucka” sound of Miller’s artificial heart and several wondered what it was.
Miller said, “Mary Lou was asked, ‘What’s that noise?’ She told them, ‘It’s Mr. Miller’s heart.’ ”
Mary Lou has to attend the meetings with her husband so if there is a problem she can help deal with it.
Miller won the November 8, 2011 election for the Harmony Village District seat on the board. “On voting day, Mary Lou and I drove down to the polls and I sat there in a chair shaking hands with my heart plugged into the car cigarette lighter [power receptacle],” he said. “People couldn’t believe it. I had the car running the whole time and more people were interested in the way it worked than the election. I really enjoyed it.”
Miller has two artificial hearts. While one is hooked via tubes to his circulatory system, the other is with him at all times as a spare. The artificial heart runs on batteries that have to be recharged, and the machine alerts him when the batteries get low. The heart machine will run two hours after the alert and can be recharged as long as there is a 110-volt electrical wall socket nearby or a car power receptacle.
“I’ve known for 11 years that eventually something was going to happen with my heart,” said Miller.
Miller had to go through psychological screening and was asked by one of the doctors what he thought of the fact that a person must die for him to receive a heart.
Miller responded, “When someone passes away it’s far better to donate your organs than have them be destroyed in the ground or incinerated. The magnitude of someone caring enough for someone else that much—there is no greater gift in the world.”
Part of the delay in Miller getting a heart transplant is that he has B Positive blood, which is somewhat rare, and there is a height limitation. Miller is over 6’1” tall, so the donor has to be that tall too. The donor can be either male or female.
“I know people who have waited 17 to 18 months for a donor,” he said. “With this device I can keep right on waiting. But I hope and pray it comes soon!”
