A 54-year-old New Jersey woman was facing death, and the medical team caring for her decided a traditional transplant wouldn’t work. So they gave her a world-first combination surgery: a pig kidney and a heart pump. Lisa Pisano’s combined heart and kidney failure left her too sick to qualify for a traditional transplant. So doctors at NYU Langone Health came up with a new approach, the Associated Press reports . They implanted a mechanical pump to keep Pisano’s heart beating on April 4, and eight days later, on April 12, transplanted a kidney from a genetically modified pig. Pisano is the first person in the world to have this combination surgery. She’s now recovering well, her doctors said Wednesday. This week, she was able to walk a few steps with the help of a walker. “I was at the end of the line. I was just taking a chance. If it doesn’t work for me, it’s going to work for somebody else and it’s going to help the next person,” Pisano told the AP. Dr. Robert Montgomery, the transplant institute’s director, said there was applause in the operating room when the transplanted kidney began producing urine. “It’s been transformative,” Montgomery said of the early results. The heart surgeon who implanted the heart pump cautioned that “the jury’s still out” on the long-term prospects, however. “This surgery is going to allow me to see my wife smile again,” Pisano’s husband, Todd, said Wednesday. Pisano is the first woman to receive a pig organ. Unlike in previous xenotransplantation attempts, both her heart and kidneys had failed. She went into cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated before the experimental surgeries, making her ineligible for a human kidney transplant. “I was just miserable,” she said. While the early results are positive, with no signs of organ rejection, the AP notes that the long-term outcome of this dual surgery is unknown. Read Also: Man transplanted with genetically modified pig kidney in world first (in Portuguese)