On April 5, 2025, Rev. Gary Dice will celebrate one year with his transplanted heart. 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 individual - and their loved ones - who donated the heart that gave him his second chance at life.
The story
Born into a family with a history of heart disease, Gary’s life changed in December 2014 as he descended a deer stand in Pike County, Illinois, after a day of hunting.
“I could not breathe,” the 67-year-old Baylis, Illinois 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.”
Gary’s heart was dying. Over the course of the following 10 years he would seek care from Blessing Hospital, Illini Community Hospital, St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, Illinois, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Mayo Clinic and University of Chicago Medical Center. In the process, Gary 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%. The ejection fraction in a healthy heart is 50-to-70%. Each time Gary 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,” Gary 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 Gary touched in more than three decades behind the pulpit, did a lot of waiting.
A decade of suffering comes to an end
By 2024, Gary felt his journey was over.
“I couldn’t do anything. I was dying.”
There was one more medical procedure in Gary’s future, however. Refusing to give up, he and Pam made a second visit to the University of Chicago Medical Center where they had gone years before searching for specialized care for Gary’s dying heart.
By this time his heart no longer beat on its own. A pump was required to keep him alive. Gary passed the tests required to be placed on the heart transplant list – a list than contains nearly 4,000 people.
After a 10 month wait and 12 hours of surgery – on April 5, 2024, Rev. Gary Dice’s medical odyssey ended with a new heart.
“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.”
Here is where the healing began
Gary had attempted cardiac rehabilitation three times over 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.
Now more than ever, with a new heart beating in his chest, Gary needed to finish and graduate cardiac rehabilitation. But 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.”
Fortunately for him, Gary chose to have cardiac rehab at his favorite hospital out of all the ones he had visited over the past decade, his hometown provider - Illini Community Hospital. Gary was going to be the program’s very 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; Megan Reinhardt, respiratory therapist, and Heather Main, guest services representative, were the members of Gary’s beloved Illini team.
Speaking on behalf of the team, nurse leader Ashley Cawthon said about midway through the 36-week cardiac rehab program – the fear of failure nearly overtook Gary. He talked about being “done”.
“It was rough to see someone suffering like that,” Ashley recalled. “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 okay 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.”
This time Gary graduated cardiac rehab.
“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 there is nothing else that 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 concluded.
The Illini cardiac rehab team gave Gary a signed graduation certificate and one more thing - the gift of a stethoscope in case he ever meets the family of his heart donor, so that they will have a chance to hear their loved one’s heart beating in Gary’s chest.
Gary is active in a number of Facebook groups regarding heart health and organ transplant. 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.