Iowa Woman Rides RAGBRAI Before Double Lung Transplant

RED OAK, Iowa (KMTV) — Barb Heenan was 22 and newly married, but was told she might not make it to 30. Now 53, she’s riding in her fourth RAGBRAI. She expects to undergo a double lung transplant sometime in the next few months.

• Barb has scleroderma, a progressive autoimmune disease where the body produces too much collagen. Her lungs are hardening from the inside out.
• Heenan is on oxygen and has a support team, including her husband Mike, who rides with her and carries the extra oxygen tanks.
• “I was born and raised in Iowa and always wanted to do RAGBRAI. I thought, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it before I get too bad because it’s a progressive disease,” Heenan said.
• Follow Barb and her friend Randine on their Facebook page, Sclero-What?

TRANSCRIPT OF THE BROADCAST:

Riding the RAGBRAI is a challenge for anyone, but imagine doing it when you need a lung transplant. I’m your reporter for southwest Iowa, Katrina Markel’s Red Oak neighborhood, where I met an Iowa woman who rides the RAGBRAI while on oxygen.

With every mile Barb Heenan travels, she defies expectations.

“Yesterday, with all those hills, a tank went through every five miles.”

Heenan, 53, is from Des Moines. She has lived for 30 years with Limited Systemic Scleroderma, an autoimmune disease in which the body produces too much collagen and hardens organs. It hardens her lungs from the inside out.

“I was born and raised in Iowa and always wanted to do RAGBRAI. I thought, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it before I get too bad because it’s a progressive disease,” Heenan said.

She competed in RAGBRAI in 2017, ’18 and ’19, but this is the first time with oxygen tanks.

“The difficulty was how to transport the e-tanks, which are 29 inches long and weigh 11 pounds each,” Heenan said.

But why would you do it again?

“For me, the reason I decided to do it was because I knew I was going to have a double lung transplant, and so, uh (gets emotional). Sorry, every time I talk about the lunch transplant…”

She expects to be on the transplant list within the next year. She and her husband, Mike, were newly married when Barb was diagnosed with scleroderma at age 22.

“It was scary when they told us she might not make it to 30. Well, it will be scary when she has to go into the operating room,” said her husband, Mike.

But Barb knows how to do hard things. She says doctors want her to have strong legs for the transplant, but maybe not like this…

“She’s not giving up and that’s why we’re here today, carrying tanks,” Mike said. “I apologize in advance to the doctors at the University of Iowa who told her a couple months ago that she couldn’t do RAGBRAI.”

Neighbors can follow Barb’s adventures on her Facebook page “Sclero-What?”.