After decade of suffering, Baylis man celebrates second chance at life with heart transplant

QUINCY — Rev. Gary Dice is celebrating one year and one month with his transplanted heart on May 5. He is thankful to God, to his family and friends, to the many members of his medical team and to someone he does not yet know — the person who donated the heart to give him his second chance at life.

Born into a family with a history of heart disease, Dice’s life changed in December 2014 as he descended a deer stand in Pike County after a day of hunting.

“I could not breathe,” the 67-year-old Baylis resident vividly recalled. “I climbed down the stand and had to lay in a plowed corn field for about an hour on my back, trying to breathe. I finally got enough air that I used my gun as a crutch and walked back to the house.”

Dice’s heart was dying. Over the course of the following 10 years, he sought care from Blessing Hospital, Illini Community Hospital, St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Mayo Clinic and University of Chicago Medical Center. Dice says he underwent 50 heart catheterizations, 38 stent placements, two open heart surgeries and suffered six strokes.

More than once, the long-time former pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Pittsfield was told nothing else could be done for him. His ejection fraction, the measurement of the heart’s ability to pump oxygen-rich blood out to the body, was 8 percent. The ejection fraction in a healthy heart is 50 to 70 percent. Each time Dice was told there was nothing else to be done for him, he and his dying heart survived to live another day.

“One of the statements I have lived by my whole life is, I know God is never late. He is right on time. So, I can wait differently knowing that he is never late. He knows I will wait,” Dice said.

He and his wife of 29 years, Pam, their family of four sons and their wives and 10 grandchildren, and the many people whose lives Dice touched in more than three decades behind the pulpit, did a lot of waiting.

Dice felt his journey was over by 2024.

“I couldn’t do anything. I was dying,” he said.

One more medical procedure was in Dice’s future, however. He and his wife made a second visit to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where they had gone years before searching for specialized care.

By this time, his heart no longer beat on its own. A pump was required to keep him alive. Dice passed the tests required to be placed on the heart transplant list — a list of nearly 4,000 people. After a 10-month wait and 12 hours of surgery, Dice’s medical odyssey ended with a new heart on April 5, 2024.

“It gave me a new life, a new chance. I am so grateful to my donor. I think of them every day. I wouldn’t be alive without them,” he said. “Someone had to pass away to give me a new life. There was a family grieving as I was rejoicing. I grieved myself about that. I am humbled. It’s life changing.”

Dice had attempted cardiac rehabilitation three times in 10 years. Each time, his heart was too weak to allow him to finish the program.

Cardiac rehab offers a structured physical fitness program that helps gradually build endurance and heart and lung function through the use of cardio machines such as treadmills and stationary bikes, in addition to strength training exercises. Participants are monitored by cardiac rehabilitation nurses in the program’s gym.

With a new heart beating in his chest, Dice needed to finish and graduate cardiac rehabilitation. With three difficult attempts behind him and the pressure of the importance of building his strength and endurance after a heart transplant, the fear of another failure haunted him.

“I was afraid and discouraged. I didn’t know if I could get through this,” he said.

Dice chose to have cardiac rehab at his favorite hospital out of all the ones he had visited over the past decade — Illini Community Hospital, his hometown provider. He was the program’s first heart transplant patient as far as anyone knew.

“This is my favorite place. These people more than care. When someone more than cares, you feel it. You know it,” he said. “The Illini cardiac rehab team became family to me, as well as the cardiovascular team in Chicago, without whom I would not be alive.”

Registered nurses Ashley Holland, Stacey Eilerman, Jennifer Reed and Ashley Cawthon, respiratory therapist Megan Reinhardt and guest services representative Heather Main were the members of Dice’s beloved Illini team. 

Cawthon said about midway through the 36-week cardiac rehab program, the fear of failure nearly overtook Dice, who talked about being “done.”

“It was rough to see someone suffering like that,” she said. “I said, ‘Let’s talk about what being done means. When you tell me you are done, are you telling me that if your heart stops beating today, you’re OK with meeting the Lord?’”

“Gary looked at me and said, ‘No one has ever said it like that to me before.’ After that conversation, we saw a completely different person. We saw the resilience and the commitment in him that we wanted to see from the very first day. We knew how incredibly important success was to him.”

“It strengthened me more than anything could have. It gave me a better outlook. It made me feel like I was accomplishing something,” he said. “I know the value of cardiac rehab, and nothing else can take its place.”

“The cardiac rehab staff — their unwavering commitment, their dedication, the compassion that they show to every single one of our heart patients — it’s remarkable,” Cawthon said.

The Illini cardiac rehab team gave Dice a signed graduation certificate and one more thing — the gift of a stethoscope if he ever meets the family of his heart donor so they will have a chance to hear their loved one’s heart beating in his chest.

Dice is active in a number of Facebook groups regarding heart health and organ transplants. He welcomes questions and can be reached at https://www.facebook.com/gary.dice.77.

“I enjoy helping people more than anything. I wanted to get back up so I could go back out and help people,” he concluded.