Orange City, Iowa (KTIV) — Anne, a native of Esterville, Iowa, has adopted Rugbry from a different perspective after undergoing a double lung transplant just seven months ago.
“So it's kind of weird that we're here without the oxygen tanks filling up with me this year,” said Barb Heenan, who completed the Rugbray five times, including 2024.
“Last year I was wearing 15 liters of oxygen. I changed the tank every 30 minutes,” she explained. “I carried tanks and two teammates always carried two tanks around, so I would always have five tanks on the route with me.”
Heenan has scleroderma and has fought the disease for over 30 years.
“Scleroderma is an autoimmune disease that is an overproduction of collagen,” she explained. “So, on the outside, it can strengthen the skin, and on the inside, it can solidify internal organs such as the lungs.”
Five years ago, when she began to feel the effects of the disease on her lungs, she decided it was time to conquer the bucket list, and that included ragrai.
She also put a rope on her childhood friend, Randin Crouch, to do so.
“It wasn't about me,” said Crouch of Orange City with a laugh.
The two do their first ragry together, and Crouch is riding for her best friend this year.
“Landin and I were both born and raised in Iowa, and it was always on the bucket list,” Heenan said.
When Heenan took oxygen last year, she thought Ragbrai's days were over.
“I wouldn't be able to do that,” Henan recalled when he learned that she needed to take oxygen. “And last year I'm doing it, we were doing this. I'm going to remove the last mile from these lungs God gave me.”
With the help of her friends and family, she did things she couldn't think of, doing some lagbri, oxygen tanks, etc. anyway, but waiting for a double lung transplant.
“It was December 5th last year, so we just celebrated our seven-month anniversary,” Heenan said of the transplant surgery.
I can't ride Heenan this year. Instead, she is the support driver for the team. However, next year, she plans to return to the route and feel healthy.
“It feels really good and I'm looking forward to being able to actually ride it next year,” she said. “I have asked my port team many times this year and they say it's definitely not. Not this year, you're too close to a port, but you can ride it again next year.”
Her transplant team did not clear her to ride a Ragbri in 2025, but some of them have pledged to join Heenan for Ragbri 2026 to celebrate her health journey.
“I pooped him when I said it would take a year for the transplant team to recover. “And that's really true. It takes a year to recover from a transplant. There's a lot of it. And you know that physically, emotionally, there are a lot of medicines, and only your body is used to new organs.”
She will use four wheels this year instead of two, but Heenan and her team are tribute to those who gave her the chance to ride again.
“To honor my donors and use these lungs. That's a great sacrifice,” she said with tears in her eyes. “It's good to know who the donors are.”
“And it's important to be a donor, a registered donor,” Crouch said. “We're always promoting it, and Barb is an inspiration and if Barb knew who her donor was, she'd be loud and respectful.”
The two friends have a Facebook page sharing their journey with Ragbrai. You can follow us at Facebook.com/sclerowhatadventures1.
For full coverage of Ktiv's Ragbrai Lii, please visit the Ragbrai page on ktiv.com.
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