Coralville Man’s Third Heart is 25-Year Charm

CORALVILLE - With the beats of each heart - he's on his third - Don Music knows how fortunate he is to be alive.

"You pick up the papers and look at the obituaries," he says. "Wow. Look at all the people that are younger than me."

Now 57, a father and grandfather, Don was but 32 when his first heart gave out and he had a transplant. He was 38 when the second was replaced by the third. And, in 2010, when he was 55, early high doses of anti-rejection medication had caused his kidneys to shut down to the point he received a new one.

"My kidneys were borderline failure for 20 years," says Don, who has "HEARTS3" on his pickup truck's license plate. "The worst thing was losing all the time to dialysis. I hardly got to see the family."

Now, though, he's been given that most precious gift of all - time. He can spend it with Julie, his second wife, and their daughter, Meredith, 14. He can see his son, Guy, a neurosurgeon in Omaha, and his children, James, 7, and Gwendolyn, 14 months.

"I certainly never thought I'd see grandchildren," Don says.

Born in Des Moines, Don grew up in Vinton where his father, Ken, taught middle school. After graduating in 1973 he became a carpenter and at the urging of a friend, moved to Montrose, Colo. While there in the summer of 1986, he came down with a nagging cold.

"I went to the doctor. It was basically, "Take two aspirin and go to bed,' I was pretty young. I'd never been sick before."

By November he was back in Vinton. In December he was given a year to live. Viral cardiomyopathy had his immune system fighting his heart which was fighting back.

Twenty-five years ago - July 25, 1987 - when a 34-year-old woman traveling through Iowa died of a brain aneurysm, Don got her heart. He became the 10th heart transplant recipient at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

For 5 1/2 years, that heart ticked along until 105-degree temperatures signaled viral encephalitis. Don would lay on a chill blanket, his body packed with ice to bring the temperature down. Rubbing alcohol was poured on his skin, its evaporation cooling him. He had five spinal taps.

"That was the most uncomfortable thing I've every been through," he says.

On Dec. 13, 1993, after a 17-year-old boy committed suicide, Don received his second heart. He became the U of I's 86th, and first two-time, heart transplant recipient.

"I'm thinking I'm probably not going to make it," Don says. "You don't know. Am I going to wake up again? What's going to happen with my family? Those things."

As with the first, he woke up to feel amazing. Don takes 25 pills a day, has clinical checkups every three months and undergoes comprehensive testing annually.

"It's looking good. I was in last month and had a nuclear scan. They said it looks the same as last year. I'll take that."

After a quarter-century with the miracle of new hearts, Don, an electric design draftsman at Shive-Hattery in Iowa City, looks forward to retirement at 62.

"I'd never thought about that before," he says. "I've been catching up on my IRA."

Seated in his "man cave," surrounded by mounted deer and antelope, bass and northern pike, even a small black bear and mountain lion, both taken in 1983, Don dreams of a life of leisure.

"I think it would be a good time," he says. "I'd like to think I'd be fishing more. Still hunting. Traveling."