LEWISTON – At 68, Faith Towle has survived four open heart surgeries, including a failed heart valve surgery and a heart transplant. She’s survived two episodes of massive hemorrhaging, six weeks in an induced coma and an experimental procedure that kept her alive but bound – literally – to a machine the size of a small refrigerator.

She now takes 27 doses of medication a day, some that make her hands numb and her bones more brittle.

But on Thursday, she told a Central Maine Heart and Vascular Institute support group it’s all worth it.

“When I got out of the hospital, it was Memorial Day (2005),” she said. “I just sat on my porch and stared out at all the beautiful green. And I thought, ‘I’m alive!'”

Towle, a Lewiston-Auburn native, spoke for an hour-and-a-half, detailing her heart problems, transplant and recovery. Passionate and upbeat, she told the support group – filled with people who have had pacemakers and defibrillators implanted, as well as their friends and family – that they could get through their own heart problems, too.

“I’m so glad for the good stuff,” she said. “You can deal with anything if you have to. You can do it, you cope.”

Towle went into Central Maine Medical Center for heart-valve surgery in December 2004. Her husband had gone through a similar surgery without any problems, and she thought her operation and recovery would be just as easy.

“I said I’ll relax and let everybody wait on me. It’ll be great,” she said.

Doctors dealt with the valve without a problem. But when they took Towle off the heart-lung machine, they couldn’t get her heart to restart.

Towle’s only hope was a large machine, at Maine Medical Center in Portland, that could pump her heart for her. It would be an experiment, but doctors decided to try.

Although the Portland surgeon had never performed the surgery before, he was able to connect her to the machine and get it to pump for her. For six weeks, she lay in an induced coma. At one point, she hemorrhaged so badly doctors again thought she was going to die.

For the next three months, Towle worked to regain her strength. Although she was weak and although the tubes that tied her to the machine constantly slipped and pulled and tore at her, she was enthusiastic about rehab.

Her 35-year-old son had died in a skiing accident a year-and-a-half before, and she didn’t think her family could handle another death. She wanted to be with her husband, her son and grandchildren. She wanted to walk in the woods and sing with the Androscoggin Chorale again.

“I was determined I was going to get back. I had a lot to live for,” she said.

To keep her spirits up, she surrounded herself with family photos. She listened to music and imagined herself walking in the forest that surrounds her house in Raymond.

Doctors hoped her heart would mend on its own and begin pumping again. It never did.

In spring of 2005, they sent her to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston for a heart transplant. It was her last hope.

One night, seven weeks after she arrived in Boston, a heart became available.

“It still brings tears to my eyes,” she said. “I called my husband and said, ‘Are you ready for this? We have a heart. We have a heart.'”

Although doctors initially wouldn’t tell her anything about the donor, Towle recently learned the person was 36, just a year older than her son who’d died. Through the transplant coordinator, she wrote the donor’s family a letter, thanking them and telling them about her own loss.

Two years after the transplant, Towle is healthy. She is back singing with the Androscoggin Chorale, traveling to see her grandchildren and taking walks in the woods.

She’s monitored with annual checkups that include a small heart biopsy. She takes medication morning, noon and night.

“I can live with that, because life is good,” she said.

After the talk, several support group members said they were stunned by Towle’s upbeat attitude and openness. And they were encouraged.

“I think we’ve learned more in one hour than if we’d read 10 books,” said Norman Stone Jr., who brought a friend to the meeting.

Towle was honored to hear it. And happy to have helped.

“That’s my new philosophy of life: be positive,” she said.