Monica McFarlan was preparing to say her final goodbyes to her children.
After 15 years of battling severe heart failure, doctors told her she had only days left to live. Her body had endured more than most survive: two mechanical heart pumps, a heart attack, and emergency brain surgery. By 2023, her immune system had developed so many antibodies that a traditional heart transplant was no longer possible.
Hospice care was being discussed. Hope was running out.
Then came a question that changed everything.
“Have you heard of the HALT procedure?”
HALT — short for Heart After Liver Transplant — is a groundbreaking and highly experimental approach. Instead of transplanting the heart first, surgeons transplant a liver and then a heart from the same donor. The liver acts as a biological shield, absorbing harmful antibodies that would otherwise attack the new heart.
For Monica, it was a last chance.
She became the first patient in Georgia — and only the second in the United States — to undergo the HALT procedure. The surgery lasted 16 hours.
Dr. Victor Pretorius, Emory’s Surgical Director for Heart Transplant, called it extraordinary.
“This combined heart and liver transplant gives patients who were once told there is no hope a real chance at life,” he said.“This combined heart and liver transplant gives patients who were once told there is no hope a real chance at life,” he said.
Three months later, Monica is alive. Thriving. Planning her future.
Doctors say HALT could add more than a decade to patients’ lives and may offer hope to those who were once told there were no options left. What began as a last-ditch effort for one woman could now reshape transplant care at Emory University Hospital — and beyond.
This medical breakthrough didn’t just save Monica’s life.
It gave her family back. ❤️
Disclaimer: This is my original reporting.
