It was two nights after Christmas in 2016 when Dona Koster of Manhattan awoke in bed unable to catch her breath.
She’d had some heart troubles 25 years prior and for years had received encouraging words about her health after apparently recovering. But when then 61-year-old Koster experienced the same symptoms the next night, she went to the ER and was ultimately diagnosed with congestive heart failure.
Koster was placed on the heart transplant registry, but also began a regimen of cardiac rehab at Ascension Via Christi’s Cardiac Rehab Center. Since, she says she’s experienced a remarkable turnaround — learning recently that she’s improved to the point that she’s been dismissed by the transplant team.
“I’m too healthy now,” Koster said on KMAN’s In Focus before laughing.
Koster, a Go Red Survivor, will be speaking about her journey at the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women event coming up on March 20th at Manhattan’s Hilton Garden Inn. Go Red For Women is the AHA’s platform to promote women’s heart health awareness and improve women’s lives across the world.
Koster says she first experienced heart issues 25 years ago following a surgical procedure when doctors noticed her EKG was abnormal.
“I had to do a stress test and they said ‘ooh, you have the heart of an 80 year old,'” Koster says. “And this is when I was in my forties.”
Her physicians in Salina put her on a round of medication and increased cardiovascular exercise, which seemed to do the trick. Koster’s heart function returned to normal after a period and doctors chalked it up to viral cardiomyopathy. She was medically cleared and taken off her medications.
Koster moved to Manhattan and went about her life as normal, though regularly asking about the state of her heart’s health at doctor visits.
“I kept asking my doctors ‘do I need to be doing anything about my heart issues?'” Koster says. “They said ‘no, your heart sounds perfect, you’re doing great.'”
Then she awoke with the “proverbial elephant” on her chest that 2016 night.
Koster was transported to Stormont Vail in Topeka by ambulance after they drained 12 pounds of fluids from her heart and lungs. There they found her heart very enlarged and that her ejection fraction was just 19. An ejection fraction is the percentage of blood expelled from the heart when contracting, with a healthy heart expelling 50 to 70 percent. Koster says that low number had her doctors concerned.
“They were going to have me wear a LifeVest in case I should go down,” says Koster. “It has a defibrillator in it that would shock me back.”
Koster continued her rehab for years and received an echocardiogram every six months to track her condition while awaiting a tranplant. During that time, she was depressed and in fear of death as well as life after such an invasive procedure and the constant medication and observation that came with it.
“I thought I’m not going to be here to see my grandkids, I’m not going to be here to see my youngest daughter get married — very frightening,” says Koster. “I don’t want anyone to have to go through that.”
But the progress she made in rehab surprised the transplant team and her doctors, and she says she doesn’t know what she would do without Marty Reed and all the nurses at the Cardiac Rehab Center. There, Koster focused her work around cardio and resistance training and also learned about nutrition’s place in the puzzle. Since 2016, she says her ejection fraction increased past the 40 percent threshold and into the normal range.
“They are seeing my heart getting stronger,” Koster says. “And I know it’s because of the resistance training I’m doing plus the nutrition […] and the medication that they have me on.”
She is still on an 8 to 12 pill per day regimen, but feels blessed to be in the place she is today.
“The transplant doctor at St. Luke’s said I will never have a normal heart function,” says Koster. “But he said I do have a normal life expectancy.”
Koster will also be participating in a panel discussion with other Wamego and Manhattan Go Red Survivors on March 20. More information on the event can be found here.
