JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Forty-one days of pacing hospital halls at Mayo Clinic Florida led Goffrey Duevel to a single moment. It’s an experience he’s gone through before, and 41 days isn’t the longest he’s had to wait, but it is a wait nonetheless.
A wait that would make the 46-year-old, who jokes about his “sick affection” with hospitals, the facility’s first three-time heart transplant recipient.
A Lifetime of Heart Challenges
Duevel’s relationship with hospitals began at age five when doctors diagnosed him with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The chemotherapy and radiation treatment eventually led to complications - heart problems that would shape his future.
His first heart transplant came in 2008. Five years later, in 2013, he needed a second. When asked about the possibility of a third transplant, Duevel admitted his initial reluctance.
“Had a colleague ask me one time ‘If you had to get another one would you do it?’” he said.
For some time, his answer was “no.”
But early 2025 brought declining health and a difficult choice. Duevel found himself at Mayo Clinic Florida, confronting the possibility of a third transplant.
“What do I want out of life? What do I want to achieve?” he remembered asking. “All those things come in, and if I don’t do this, then it’s the end. I have no other alternatives. It made the decision for me.”
The Wait and the Gift
For those 41 days, Duevel made the hospital halls his temporary home, as he had several times before. Then Dr. Parag Patel, Chair of Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant at Mayo Clinic Florida, pulled him aside. A compatible heart had been found.
The surgery is one of Mayo Clinic Florida’s 42 heart transplants of 2025, following their previous year’s total of 67 procedures. But this one was different - it was their first-ever third heart transplant on a single patient.
Finding New Purpose
Six weeks after surgery, Duevel is able to walk several blocks. His sights are set on camping in Minnesota this fall.
“We as a community, healthcare and just humanity are able to do so many wonderful things for each other if we choose to,” Duevel said. “I think that gets lost sometimes.”
Dr. Patel said he believes Duevel’s story will help future patients and serve as a case study for those who need additional transplants.
“He was able to share some of these difficult situations and translate them into hope,” he said. “We’ve been able to change our attitude from ‘why’ to ‘why not.’”
He added that Duevel’s journey is “affecting lives he’ll never meet.”
To others facing similar challenges, Duevel offers straightforward advice: “Don’t try to do it alone.”
And as each day brings new meaning as he balances future goals with the present, his advice remains simple: “Live the moment every moment.”
