SHERMAN, Texas — When Gerald Haubrich returned to a golf course in Sherman this week, he wielded his Big Bertha driver with the same cautious pendulum swing that any fellow 91-year-old might attempt.
But his pinpoint accuracy and swing has an added boost -- a fresh heart valve inserted by doctors at Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital in Plano just three weeks earlier.
"Well, I'm lucky," he said. "Thank God for that!"
Haubrich, a lifelong golfer whose skills on the links helped him land many a deal as a furniture salesman (and the sales quota reward trips that came with them), had noticed he was slowing down again.
Already the survivor of two heart bypass surgeries -- four bypasses each time, he will tell you -- he decided to check in with his cardiologist again. This time, the recommendation was a new heart valve, albeit installed in a much less invasive way.
Gerald recently underwent an outpatient procedure called transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). It's a procedure that is now the standard of care for low-, medium- and high-risk patients needing aortic valve replacements. Doctors insert the valve through an incision near the groin, and move the valve through the femoral artery into the patient's heart.
Haubrich's age isn't what made this particular surgical procedure unique. Patients over 100 years of age have received heart valves this way as well. But what made Haubrich's procedure unique is that he was the 3,000th TAVR patient at Baylor Scott & White The Heart Hospital in Plano, where they perform more TAVR procedures than anywhere else in Texas. It's the third-busiest overall valve replacement surgery location in the country.
Interventional cardiologist Molly Szerlip, MD, participated in the surgery alongside heart surgeon Julius Ejiofor, MD, who performed the procedure.
"Gerald was a great candidate for TAVR, and we are excited to have achieved that 3,000th milestone,"Szerlip said. "Obviously, we can't make him 70 again, but we can give him back the quality of life that he wants. And if we can give that back to people, it makes you feel good, and it makes you feel like you're doing the right thing."
Haubrich surely appreciates that.
"I'm fortunate they can do it that way," he said while wearing a blue T-shirt his daughter made for him with the number "3,000" printed on it, surrounded by a heart. "Oh, it's fantastic. It's a blessing."
Haubrich's girlfriend Dale Griggs, 85, agrees.
"And I'm just so thankful he's still able to do what he does at 91," she said as she accompanied him on his return to the golf course. They have saved his life -- and my life. His heart is my heart. If he hurts, I hurt. He has been a wonderful, wonderful person. I couldn't have looked the world over and found anyone better than Jerry."
As for the mileage he expects out of his new heart valve, Haubrich said he feels great getting back on the course.
"I'm hoping maybe I'll hit 100," he said of the birthday just nine years away.
"But not in golf?" Reece asked him. "You're talking about the other 100."
"Right," he laughed. "I don't like the 100s in golf!"