God bless you.
It's simply eerie the way God keeps on blessing me in my efforts to get the best
treatments in the best ways for my end-stage congestive heart failure, prostate cancer
and brain tumor.
Thanks to God's grace, I now can have the rest of my heart care done by
the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation in Chicago, just 30 miles from my home
in Hazel Crest, instead of in Rochester, Minn., 371 miles away.
outstanding and world-renown Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. It ended some 19 months
of futility after the University of Chicago Medical Center cardiologists had determined that
I needed a heart transplant. Unfortunately, discovery of prostate cancer in the spring of
2008 quickly disqualified me from being a transplant candidate until the cancer was in
sufficient remission.
Additional medicines prescribed by UCMC's Dr. Allen Anderson and Dr. Valluvan
Jeevanandam have succeeded in retarding my heart's deterioration in the interim. They
also spared me the urgent need to have a heart pump (a Heartmate II, Left Ventricular
Assist Device) implanted in me.
But although brachetherapy, or the implantation of radiation seeds, have lowered
my prostate's PSA reading from 5.5 to .83, the UCMC, where I was hoping to have the
transplant done, still didn't feel that was enough progress. They admittedly are much
more conservative than most other hospitals in their approach to treating prostate cancer.
And while still refusing to tell me what PSA number represented sufficient progress, they
told me that I should have a heart implanted and use it "for several years" before they
would be willing to implant a new heart in me.
That's when Mayo came in. This non-profit hospital is revered by many as the best
all-round hospital in the world because of its consistency in premium medical efficiency
across the board. For example, U.S. News and World Report, ranks Mayo first in the
care of diabetes and endocrine disorders, first in digestive disorders, first in neurology
and neurosurgery and first in orthopedics and second in heart and heart surgery.
the 60-year, dynamic dean of the Chicago Board of Trade, plus some help from Mayo
insider James Hodge, I was able to secure two weeks of examinations by and interviews
with an academy of some of the world's finest doctors from all over the world.
Heading my Mayo team is Puerto Rico's Dr. Alfredo Clavell, an most charming
fellow and highly distinguished cardiologist, whose wife is also on the Mayo staff. Dr.
Clavell, assisted by nurse Jody Hanson, streamlined a regimen where at least a dozen
doctors meticulously examined my past and current medical history, and each gave me
a detailed write-up of their finding to bring home with me.
The biggest breakthrough came when Dr. Lance Myderse, Mayo urologist,
determined that the degree of remission already experienced with my prostate cancer
was sufficient progress for Mayo to classify my heart as transplant-worthy. The rate of
remission already exhibited by my prostate cancer, Mynderse concluded, ranked me in
the 99th percentile of patients surviving at least 19 years after undergoing brachetheray.
Let me say that I have never been examined as thoroughly and treated as
courteously as I am being treated at Mayo. And the fact they ranked second in the world
in the successful treatment of congestive heart failure, right behind the Cleveland Clinic,
assured me that I had picked the right institution in terms of treatment.
But because my wife, Joyce, and I aren't scheduled to retire until next year,
retaining Mayo as my primary treatment provider posed some financial problems
because it would require Joyce and me to stop work and relocate.
Joyce, who works for Cushman-Wakefield, would have to take off time without pay
to be my primary caregiver. By the grace of God, I work for the Sun-Times, whose union
contract allows me six month of sick leave or disability with pay for serious medical issues
such as what I am faced with.
Mayo requires that if they implant me with a heart pump as a bridge procedure to
heart transplant, I'd have to stay there at least a month afterward for monitoring and for
any other necessary treatment. Plus, when they perform a heart transplant, they require
the patient to stay in Rochester for at least three months,
What this means is that once we relocated to Rochester, we could be there for
anywhere from two or three weeks to four, five or six months or maybe more, depending
upon how well I responded to treatment and how quickly a compatible heart can be made
available to me.
Since Cushman and Wakefield are obligated to hold me wife's job for just three or
fourth months, she would not only have to care for me without pay but also lose her job.
Moreover, if my wait for a heart or recovery from a transplant extends beyond six
months, I'd be still sick and there would be no paycheck coming in but we'd still have
bills, including a mortgage, to pay. There is also our commitment to help care for our
grandson, Caleb, whose single mother often has to work late and can't pick him up
after school.
I was all prepared to go to the Mayo Monday and be checked into their hospital
today until Northwestern Hospital responded to my query, telling me they agreed with
Mayo's findings and are willing to take up my treatment along the same lines that Mayo
was operation. That is: Heart transplant is top priority and anything else would be as a
bridge procedure with minimum lag time, if any, in between.
Dr. James Flaherty, Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation cardiologist, and Dr.
Williams Cotts, NMFF cardiac surgeon, will be heading that team through
Northwestern's famed Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. Dr. Edwin C. McGee, Jr., is
NMFF's cardiac transplant surgeon.
What this means is that I will be able to stay home (in Chicago, that is) for
the upcoming holidays and that my wife and I can save thousands of dollars and still be
able to work and maintain our wonderful home. It also means we can stay close to our
daughters, Noelle and Nicole, and their families and that I might be able to preach a
couple of times more while awaiting a new heart.
Now, ain't God good, or ain't God good?
Joyce and I are former high school sweethearts since meeting each other at
Sumner High School in Kansas City, Kan., her hometown. We have been married for 41
years and have been in love and going together 48 years. All our five kids, including
twin sons who died at birth, and five grandchildren were born in Chicago. I was born in
Lyon, Miss. But Chicago is our HOME. And as that favorite songs goes,
"Oh there's no place like home for the holidays,
'cause no matter how far away you roam
When you pine for the sunshine or a friendly face
For the holidays, you can't beat home sweet home."
With these latest developments, I asked the Mayo Clinic for time to make sure
Northwestern will agree to take over where they left off and Miss Hanson was very,
very considerate and compassionate in granting my request. So within the next few
days, I will check into Northwestern to resume treatment in preparation for a heart
transplant. If Mayo gets me one first, I can go there. If Northwestern gets one first, I
can stay here.
But since there is just a four-hour period for me to get on the operation
table as soon as a heart becomes available for me, it obviously would be easier for me
to drive 30 miles from my house to Northwestern, than it would be for me to travel 371
miles from my house to the Mayo.
God bless you.
God bless you.
For the last 19 months, I have been asking God to either heal my sick heart or to
replace it with a healthier one through a heart transplant. He had already healed a brain
tumor, which was almost instantly declared benign. And He is applying the finishing
touches to healing me of prostate cancer.
Then on Monday, Nov. 2, 2009, after undergoing two weeks of extensive tests,
interviews and reviews of my medical records, I was approved to be a "status 2"
candidate for a heart transplant at the world-renown, highly-acclaimed non-profit Mayo
Clinic's main facility in Rochester, Minn.
Dr. Alfredo L. Clavell, veteran Mayo cardiologist, called me with the good news after
he and a dozen other doctors, including cardiac surgeons, a urologist, endocrinologist and
psychiatrist, had convened to consider the latest patch of patients applying for organ
transplantation.
Originally, I had wanted my procedure to be done in my Chicago hometown because
of its many conveniences with my family having lived here for 41 years and with the
presence of friends and relatives who could help my wife, Joyce, my primary caregiver,
during the critical stage of my recovery. The Chicago operation also would have been
cheaper in terms of post-operative expenses.
Unfortunately, Chicago doctors, I talked to, felt my prostate cancer diagnosis of
2008 kept me at least two more years away from heart transplant candidacy, despite the
fact that my radiation brachytherapy treatment on May 21, 2008, has since dropped my
PSA from 5.5 to .83.
Doctors at the University of Chicago Medical Center, for example, require me to have
a heart pump implanted until my PSA drops to a level they consider acceptable for heart
transplant candidacy. But nobody there would tell me what that PSA level must be when I
asked for it.
At the Mayo Clinic, however, Dr. Lance Mynderse, a urologist, determined that my
rate of progress from the brachytherapy places me in the 99th percentile of patients
expected to live at least 15 years after the that treatment for prostate cancer.
"You are a lot more likely to die from congestive heart failure or a heart attack than
from prostate cancer," Dr. Mynderse said.
In short order, the cardiologists and cardiologists at Mayo agreed with Mynderse.
Dr. Clavell added that different hospitals and doctors have different opinions on how
aggressively to treat prostate cancer, even when it is early-stage and localized as mine
was said to be after a biopsy by Dr Glenn Gerber at the UCMC.
"Prostate cancers are among the slower-growing cancers," Dr. Clavell said. "And
our knowledge and treatment of the disease have greatly improved."
Thus, since my chances of getting a heart transplant are much quicker at Mayo,
where I could maybe even have to undergo only one serious surgery, the heart transplant,
instead of two, I have chosen to go with Mayo. Moreover, Mayo is one of the top hospitals
in the world in terms of across-the-board medical efficiency.
I was extremely impressed with the thorough and speedy care I got from Mayo from
the very start. They approached and explored me as a vast, integrated team
concentrating collectively on every area of my health to make sure that their investment
of somebody else's heart in me would not be a vain one. I had to be sick enough to need
it, healthy enough to receive it and committed and disciplined enough to make the best
use of it with a heathful and healthy lifestyle.
At the Mayo, I was examined and tested by a dozen doctors specializing in
cardiology, cardiac surgery, endocrinology, urology, neurology, infectious disease,
psychiatry and general surgery.
I am especially thankful to the invaluable assistance and intervention from former
Sting owner Lee B. Stern, a 60-year member of the Chicago Board of Trade, and of
James Hodge, a Mayo executive insider and longtime friend of Stern's. Yes, it pays to
have friends in high places.
I am also thankful to the University of Chicago Medical Center and Northwestern
Memorial Hospital for providing medical records of their treatments of me to help bring
the Mayo team up to date on my overall state of health. UCMC's Dr. Valluvan
Jeevanandam performed a triple bypass on me on Feb. 14, 2001, and those grafts
remain open. Northwestern's Dr. Mark Ricciardi finally brought my runaway high blood
pressure under control and performed two stentings when there were clogging problems
in my main arteries in 2003 and 2005. UCMC's Dr. Allen Anderson also prescribed
additional medicines to help my heart successfully endure the wait for a heart transplant.
The Mayo has given me and my wife a week or two to prepare for my admission into
the hospital there for transplant preparations that will include the administrations of
medications and the possible implantation of a defibrillator (ICD) or even a heart pump if
my heart worsens while I await a healthier heart. Doctors feel that my blood type, B
positive, may affect a shorter wait.
doctors say, is a best option for long-term survival. But I will keep you informed of my
progress as long as the Sun-Times permits me. This is a story that needs to be told to
it very end. It is a source of tremendous encouragement to countless people in need as
they struggle with their health issues and life problems.
I am in no pain or ongoing discomfort whatsoever. I simply have a weaken, diseased
heart that prevents me from doing much before fatigue and shortness of breath stops me
and has me vulnerable to a potentially fatal heart attack. I am still on medications, taking
some 25 pills a day to help keep my functioning at minimum efficiency and productivity.
But these medicines appear to have reached their limit.
God is still large and in charge. He could still move in the twinkling of an eye and
heal me to where I won't need a transplant. But receiving a heart transplant does not
discount God's healing powers. Any help we get from doctors and other scientists comes
through them but from God, in whom we all live and move and have our being.
God bless you.
God bless you.
A week of being examined, undergoing tests and consulting with a dozen doctors
and a dozen nurses at the fame Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., propelled me to
postpone undergoing open-heart surgery on Oct. 26 at the University of Chicago Medical
Center, where I was to have a heart pump implanted in me.
I still may undergo the implantation of the Heartmate II, either at UCMC or the Mayo
or even Northwestern within the next couple of weeks. But new information I received
from the Mayo suggest that I may already qualify for a heart transplant at their
institution. The pump would then be a short-term bridge procedure.
The UCMC said the discovery of my brain tumor and prostate canter in March of 2008
disqualified me from being placed on their heart transplant list. Although the brain tumor
was declared benign early on, Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam and Dr. Allen Anderson say I'd
have to have a very low PSA reading from my prostate cancer to get on the heart
transplant list. Unfortunately, nobody tells me what that figure must be. This UCMC has
told me that their best treatment would be the implantation of the heart pump until my
PSA drops to ???. Then I would be eligible to undergo another open-heart surgery for
a heart transplantaton.
But Mayo doctors tell me they feel that, based on the progress I've already made in
recovering from the prostate cancer, I would qualify for a heart transplant now. After being
personally examined by a dozen doctors and a dozen nurses in the areas of cardiology,
urology, neurology and general internal medicine, two breakthroughs led to my request
for postponement of the surgery to implant me with a pump.
First, Dr. Lance Mynderse, Mayo urologist, concluded that my prostate cancer
diagnosis should not prevent me from being an immediate candidate for heart
transplantation because of my rather rapid rate of progress.
UCMC doctors have said that my prostate cancer disqualified me from immediate
heart transplant candidacy and that I should have the LVAD and pacemaker-defibrilator
implanted as a bridge during a wait of two or three years while my PSA dropped to a
certain level, which you refuse to specify, acceptable for heart transplant candidacy.
But Dr. Mynderse says that since my PSA has dropped from 5.5, before my May 21,
2008, brachetherapy, to .85, as of last week, I rank in the 99th percentile of brachetherapy
patients who are expected to still be alive at least 15 years after the procedure. Yes,
that's 15 years, not five years, after brachetherapy.
"At that rate, you are a lot more likely to die from heart failure than from prostate
cancer," Dr. Mynderse said.
Second, when I shared this information of Dr. Alfredo Clavell, the Mayo cardiologist and
the overlord of my Mayo examinations, he refused to disagree with Dr. Mynderse because
Mayo has no set PSA requirement for heart transplant candidacy. What he thus
recommends is that I meet with and be examined by his full team of Mayo cardiologists
and cardiac surgeons and transplant specialists so that they can determine whether they
would put me on the heart transplant list right away than on the heart pump transplant list.
I realize that continued deterioration of my heart may still require me to have a pump
implanted. But at the Mayo, it would definitely be more of a bridge procedure rather than
a more extended destination procedure. Obviously, different hospitals have different
standards of operation. If I find a system that would require one open-heart surgery
instead of two, I would prefer that after already having had my chest sawed open twice in
2001.
I am being scheduled to return to the Mayo for three or four days of additional testing,
examination and consultation Oct. 26-Oct. 29. I will keep you posted on the results of
those tests and the conclusion of clinic's cardiac team. I am presently on vacation. But my
weakened heart is such that I can not presently perform my job as a 37-year veteran
Chicago Sun-Times newspaper reporter on a full-time basis until my health improves and
I have thus requested medical leave in my diligent efforts to save my life and restore my
health.
Within a week, I expect to have a firm picture of my next move. Obviously, I'd
rather undergo one open-heart surgery than two. And that one would be the heart
transplant, uness the Lord heals me soon and spares me the need for either.
God bless you.
God bless you.
As I ponder a Oct. 26 surgical date with a heart pump, I do so with added hope after
a wonderful weekend of good news from two families, whose loved ones were helped by
the God-blessed modern medical technology of organ transplantation.
First, there is Jessie Ramirez' family on Chicago's southwestside. For months,
Tomas and his sister Patty have been begging me to come to their home to break bread
and to hear` how the transplantation of a heart pump gave them and their father, Jessie,
a retired butcher, a lifetime of joy by adding four extra years to his life.
Second, there is the family of my dear friend, Rev. Gregory Macon. His wife of 40
years, Vaughn, shouted to high heavens when his six-year wait was rewarded with a new
kidney. When I led her in prayer over the phone, after she had made me one of the first
to receive the good news, she shouted the way my dear mother, Sarah Loraine Banks,
used to shout over this kind of good news and the joy of the Lord.
I felt good for both families and led both in prayer thanking God for blessing
mankind with the medical breakthroughs that are enabling us to live longer. After all,
all our help comes from the Lord. Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down
from above, down from the Lord of lights, in whom there is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning.
After years of high blood pressure and diabetes that mutated into end-stage
congestive heart failure, Jessie, at age 60, was so weak he could hardly get out of
his easy chair in front of the giant-screen living-room TV and walk to the front door 17
feet away.
Doctors told him, he was a dying man who could only be saved by a heart pump
because he had gotten too weak from his multiple health issues to receive a heart
transplant. Faced with the gruesome alternative, it was a no-brainer for Jessie to choose
the pump because he just had too much to live for.
First, there was his lovely wife of some 40 years, Maria, who has the face of an
angel and a demeanor to match. Quiet, charming and graced with the smooth olive-hued
skin of a baby, she had been his primary caregiver, his best friend, the mother of his
children, the apply of his eye and the spice of his life.
Second, there were his children: sons Tomas, Marco and Jessie Jr., and daughters
Patty, Sandra and Kristina.
Third, there was his other relatives headed by his sister-in-law Chila, who has been
Maria's support system whenever she was wearied by the weight of her husband's
woes.
Fourth, there was the promise of seeing a grandchild or two, every father's dream.
"His will to live was greater than his fear of death," Tomas said. "He loved his
family dearly and he longed to bounce a grandchild on his knees before leaving this
world. He fought like heck. He was a warrior. We all love him so and will forever miss
him."
The pump added four more years to Jessie's life.
"But they were precious years we enjoyed with our father," Patty said. "The pump
restored a lot of his strength and his vitality, He'd get up and go out for walks. He could
not keep still. And we were happy to see him enjoy life again."
Those four years were even more precious for Jessie, too, because it was during
that time that his children gave him two grandsons, three-year-old Stefano (Tomas' boy)
and two-year-old Christopher (Patty's boy), who are both thrust a couple of months apart.
When I walked into Jessie's home to enjoy dinner, I felt the warmth of his loving
spirit for his family still thick in the air. I felt also the afterglow of his family's love for him.
This mutual passion was so perfect and palpable.
First, the family answered a variety of questions I had about the pump, how Jessy
adjusted to it, how his care became a whole family affair and not just Maria's job, how
he reveled in holding his grandkids and other things.
After an hour, we retired to the dinning room where Maria served up a delicious
dish of pozole, a rich soup of hominy grits with vegetables and chucks of beef. Hmmmm.
La comida estaba muy deliciosa! Afterward, I wolfed down a slice of pie.
Then Patty closed the show and brought down the house with a 15-minute DVD
of family photos that invited me to journey down the family's memory lane and enjoy
photos of Jessie and Maria from the time there were teenage lovers in Ocoplan, Jalisco
in Mexico, through their beautiful church wedding, through a slew of joyful family
reunions and picnics. It touched my heart so deeply, the profound sense of family of the
Ramirez household, that I had to see the DVD twice. Patty obliged.
It was a chilly, rainy night outside. But a lot of warm sunshine pulsated inside that
house. I felt honored to be in the midst of such a lavish family love nest.
The very next morning, Saturday, Oct. 3, Mrs. Macon phoned me with the good
news. Rev. Macon has been through a lot of health challenges. But he never let them
get the best of him. A couple of times, he collapsed into a coma while out of town
running a revival. You, see, Rev. Macon is one of those old-school Baptist preacher,
steeped in the whooping tradition forged by the promethean likes of Rev. C. L.
Franklin, Rev. Caesar W. Clark, Rev. Clay Evans, Rev. Donald Parson, Rec. Leo
Daniels, Rev. L. L. Laws, Rev. Jasper Williams, Rev. Johnny Miller and Rev. Gordon H.
Humphrey.
He preaches with power an aerobic athleticism until he is lathered with sweat and
saints are shouting like crazy and demons are screaming for mercy and the devil is
screaming, "Ouch! That hurts! Ouch!" Rev. Macon's kind of preaching with grow hair on
a bald-headed man, make a bulldog hug a hound and make a sinner repent and become
a saint.
Six years, he waited diligently and often painfully. Six years, he underwent dialysis
three times a week. Six years, he had his blood washed almost 1,000 times. Six years
he endured needles and pills and bills for his ills. But six years, he and his prayer
partners never gave up hope. The switchboard in heaven stayed busy 24-7 with prayers
of the righteous being offered up on Macon's behalf.
In my mind, I can hear angelic operators saying, "My, my, my. That Rev. Macon
and Jessy Ramirez' family sure have a lot of prayer partners."
Before I let you know, I want you all to know that God is still answering prayers.
God is still saving to the utmost. God is still delivering. God is still feeding and leading.
God is still fighting the battle for the underdogs and the downtrodden all around the
world. God is still in the healing and blessing business. Just ask the Ramirez and
Macon families. Their souls are a witness for my Lord.
And right now, wherever you are and regardless of what you're going through, if
you drop down on your knees and prayer the prayer of faith asking in Jesus' name, God
will hear and answer prayer. I love Him. I trust Him. any way He wants to heal me is
alright with me.
God bless you.
God bless you.
As most of you know from news reports over the last few months, the Sun-Times, the
newspaper for which I've worked 37 years, is fighting for its life just as I have been fighting
for my life the last 19 months and sharing my struggles with you in this blog.
If an agreement for its sale is not reached between we union member and a
prospective buyer by early October, there is a chance our bankrupted paper may have to
close down. We're all working hard to save the paper.
Meantime, unless God's healing or a health emergency demands otherwise, I am
tentatively scheduled to undergo a major open-heart surgery Oct. 26 at the University of
Chicago Hospital to have Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam affix a pumping machine to my
heart's left ventricle.
For the last 19 months, I have been praying for God to heal my brain tumor, prostate
cancer and especially my diseased, malfunctioning heart so that I would not have to take
any more pills or have another open-heart operation. I underwent a successful triple-
bypass in 2001 also at UCMC, where Dr. Jeevanandam performed that procedure.
So far, God has not exercised His will to heal me directly and completely.
My brain tumor is benign, and I thank Him dearly for that.
My prostate cancer is in remission after I underwent radiation treatment last year,
and I thank Him dearly for that, too.
But my heart remains my primary concern. While I have refused during the last 15
months to have the pump implanted, my heart has gotten weaker and its increasing
failure to pump blood properly has resulted in the rest of my body part becoming also
weaker and frail.
In the last five months, sisters and brothers, I have lost more than 40 pounds!
I have retarded this deterioration with prayer, consistent exercise, rest, pills and
smart eating. But my best treatment for long-term relief appears to be a new pumping
device called Heartmate II. It is the most efficient, flexible, compact and durable device of
its kind to date.
The pump can sustain me for another five to 10 or more years while my prostate
cancer dissolves to a non-discernible level where I could then be eligible for a heart
transplant if my heart does not get any better.
Having the pump implanted in me will result in me being battery-powered outside my
home and AC-powered within it. But I will not only be alive, the improved blood circulation
it renders will reverse the systematic breakdown of the rest of my body and restore a very
significant amount of strength, vim, vigor and vitality that I have lost.
I want to live and I thank God that He has blessed mankind with prolonged like
through advanced medical technology that's enabling us to recover from health problems
that previously killed us. All our help comes from the Lord. It may come through other
people, through machines, through life experiences, money, nature, medicines, the police,
doctors, lawyers, judges, government, the fire department and whatever else. But all our
help comes originally from the Lord.
While I am fighting for my one physical life, the Sun-Times is a company where the
professional livelihood of some 1,800 workers is at stake. I feel for my fellow employees.
Like me, they all have to eat, too. Most also have families and loved ones to support. And
as badly as I want my physical life saved, I have a greater concern for the professional
lives of all us paper employees. I am not a selfish person. When other hurts, I hurt
because I try hard to be my brother's keeper.
That's why if there is an order in which God will attend to our survival needs, I wish
God would save the life of this great newspaper ahead of me. But like everything else, in
the final analysis, I yield to His will because Jesus taught us redeemed to pray that God's
kingdom come and that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
I appreciate the prayers, best wishes and tremendous encouragement you readers
have shared on my behalf and the paper's behalf. That's because people's health and
jobs are closely related in many ways. But notice that despite the uncertainty of our
paper's future,which is cause for many to be despondent and paralyzed with
hopelessness, we staffers come to work everyday and work our best to give Chicago and
the rest of the world the best reporting we can give.
A strong, well-managed and honestly-run newspaper of professional integrity,
courage and honesty is one of the most valuable components of a democratic society. We
hold accountable the powerful and popular people who are supposed to be serving the
public's best interests.
I will shortly go on extended medical leave to prepare my house, my family and my
body for the radical revisions imposed by the pump. I will still blog about my condition,
bad or good, as long as this paper is in business and allows me to blog. It would be a
shame if after sharing my journey and experience al these months that you end up not
being able to know my final outcome in this paper.
God bless you.
God bless you.
Since doctors told me 17 months ago that I have end-stage congestive heart failure,
prostate cancer and a brain tumor, not one day has passed without me thinking about
death and seeing myself dying from one of these serious illnesses.
Yes, I'm still praying to be healed of these sicknesses. I'll never give up and I thank
all of you prayer partners for continuing to touch and agree with me on the desires of my
heart for those healings.
At the same time, because I am a practical man, as well as a preaching man of
faith, I'm not sitting idly by, waiting for some cataclysmic healing to drop from the sky.
Rather, I take about 30 pills a day for these illnesses. And when pill-taking time
comes, I spread the proper pills out on a table or counter and I remember why I am
swallowing each one. I take them because I am a very sick man who wants to live and I'm
doing my best to take full advantage of every blessing available to keep me alive.
The deaths of celebrities this year remind us again and again that no earthling is
going to get out of life alive. While the death of Senator Edward Kennedy sadden all
men of good will, it's not too surprising because we knew that he was had been fighting
brain cancer for a year. Plus, he was 77 years old.
Neither was it that shocking when historian John Hope Franklin died at age 94,
network news anchorman Walter Cronkite died at 92, actor Karl Malden died at 97,
humantarian Eunice Kennedy Shriver died at 88, former defense secretary Robert
McNamara died at 93 or guitarist Les Paul died at 94. These dears souls were up in
years.
Famed Michael Jackson, one of my all-time favorite entertainers, shocked us all
when he died young at age 50. But the circumstances of his death now help us to
better understand why he died so young.
Meantime, while I am no longer young at age 66, I am not really old, either, by
today's standards that include the best medical care so far ever available in human
history. Even better, I am blessed to be gainfully employed and have access to this care.
If this care had been enjoyed by my immediate family members, my oldest sister, Mrs.
Maude Lee Burrell, would not have died at age 66. Or my father Rev. A.D. Banks at age
64, my youngest brother Hansel at age 51, my mother at age 43, my premature
twin sons or my five other sisters and brothers at infancy.
Like all of you, I want to live a longer, meaningful and enjoyable life. But I'm no
longer afraid to die like I was when I was a boy. Death doesn't bother me because I've
already lived 66 sensational years. Death doesn't bother me because I've already seen
three daughters become distinguished ladies with college degrees, including one with
a Christian husband and four children and another a Christian single mother with one
marvelous son.
I'm not afraid to die because I have already enjoyed many other priceless
blessings.
I have seen, hugged and kissed five grandchildren.
I have known the fiery love and sweet companionship of Joyce, my high school
sweetheart who has been a perfect wife for more than 41 years.
I have been blessed to work my way up from eating neckbones to eating T-bones.
I've been blessed to rise from a Mississippi cotton picker earning $3 a day to
being sports reporter for this newspaper and a preacher earning almost 100 times that
much.
I casted one of the votes that elected America's first black President.
I marched in civil rights demonstrations with Dr. Martin Luther King.
I was the first person in my immediate family to get a college degree.
I've preached in more than 100 Chicago churches alone, plus churches in Kansas,
Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania,
Michigan, Arkansas and California during the last 57 years.
I've set foot in 35 American states and I have vacationed in England, Mexico,
France, Germany, Holland and Canada. I've been mightily blessed.
But the main reason I'm not afraid to die is because I have a savior in Jesus Christ.
And because He is my savior, I have a permanent home for my soul when this life is
over.
If I had my choice, I'd rather die quick and easy, preaching God's gospel in some
pulpit or wherever. Because of poor medical care and racial prejudice, my mother, Sarah
Lorane Sanders Banks, died suffering excruciating pain over several days after being
poisoned by a dead infant she was too weak to deliver.
I was 11 years old at that time. They called me home from running a revival in Cape
Gerardeau, Mo. She was dying in a hospital bed in Mt. Bayou, Miss., an all-Black
town and an all-Black hospital. I got there just in time to see her smile through incredible
pain a day before she died. I was mad at the world. Especially the white world and the
Mississippi racism that conspired to deny her better medical care. I've grown beyond that
rage. But I still hate racism and I still hurt when I think of how my mother died so young.
Yes, I want to live. I have so much to live for. I have loved ones to live for. I have
causes to live for. I want to do what I can to make this world better for everybody and to
help suffering people everywhere.
I want to live badly. But because of my faith, I declare unto you all that death, for me,
is a win-win situation.
Doctors still tell me that I need a heart pump or a heart transplant or both if I am
to live out the year. Daily pains are making me agree with them, unless God heals me
first.
I have become a reluctant daily companion of unwelcomed pain. All kinds of pain.
Stinging pains. Burning pains. Aching pains. Acute pains. Dull pains. My arms and legs
are growing weaker and my finger tips scream, through stinging sensations, for their fair
share of circulated blood.
Three weeks ago, I underwent a back surgery to relieve me from extreme pains in
my lower back. Pains persists in my left groin and left legs. But I am blessed to be able
to endure these pains and to enjoy far more positives than negatives. I am still able to
preach and work. I am still able to encourage others to fight for their lives. And I say
unto you, sisters and brothers, fight. Fight for your lives. Fight for your love. Fight to
love and be loved. Fight for the good of all mankind. Fight for every breath and for every
heartbeat until.........
God bless you.
God bless you.
Since April of 2008, I have been fighting a brain tumor, prostate cancer, end-stage
congestive heart failure and a progressively bad back.
By the grace of God, I have been gainfully employed for 37 years as a newspaper
reporter and I also have been able to have great medical insurance coverage for my
family and myself.
But after undergoing back surgery (a lumbar laminectomy) on Monday, Aug. 10, I
found myself two days later having to verbally protest against efforts to release me before
I had experienced sufficient recovery where I could stand and at least stagger on my
own.
Dr. Frederick Brown, a highly acclaimed neurosugeon with the University of Chicago
Medical Center, had performed the 90-minute operation on me. The operation was a
success in terms of me surviving it. But long before it could be determined whether it had
repaired my herniated disc to allow me to stand and walk without pain, a couple of lower
ranked doctors (Dt. I. T. and Dr. K. H.) were trying to get me to agree that the hospital had
done all it could do for me and to agree with their desire to release me.
For most patients undergoing a lumbar laminectomy, I am told that this operation
is done on an out-patient basis and that the patient is released either on the day of or the
day after his surgery. I was hoping for a response close to that. But because of my
high-risk status as an end-stage congestive, heart-failure patient, I was expected to be
held over for a day or two to make sure the operation had no serious, adverse effect upon
my heart.
For my birthday on Tuesday, and for Wednesday, my recovery was so slow that
pain, soreness and stiffness in the area of my surgery prevented me from standing or
walking on my own. I was disappointed by this slow recovery. But I was not hopeless. I
was realistic. At my age and with my weak-circulating heart, I did not expect a speedy
response to treatment.
But as early as Wednesday morning, Dr. I.T. was suggesting that the hospital was
ready to release me and that I could continue painful recovery at home. I told him that I
could not see myself leaving earlier than Thursday and was hoping that I would be able
to at least stand and walk on my own before leaving at all or that I'd just immediately
check into another hospital.
On Thursday morning, although I had been transferred from the ICU to a regular
room at 1:30 a.m., I still had not progressed well enough to leave the hospital. But Dr. I. T.
said that the hospital might have to release me Friday because the physical therapist
said she felt I was ready to go home.
"I find it hard to believe that a doctor would release a patient based solely on what
a physical therapist says," I told Dr. I. T. "Especially since that therapist has yet to see
me stand and walk on my own."
Allow me to say that in my 40 years of going to the University of Chicago
Hospital for medical care, on the whole, I have been treated well. It is not a perfect
hospital. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had three ribs broken during my 2001 triple bypass
or had to undergo another serious operation to stabilized my sternum when some
experimental titanium plates failed to do the job. But the fact I still seek care from them
is because I have confidence in the likes of Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam, Dr. Allen
Anderson, Dr. Kenneth Brown, Dr. Loveland, Dr. Darby, Dr. Fedson, Dr. Al-Sadir, etc.
So when Friday morning came, I was still in the UCMC. I had progressed well
enough to stand and walk on my own. But I remained in dire pain. Still, I felt for sure that
I could be able to leave by Saturday morning. Dr. I. T. apologized for giving me the
impression that he was trying to rush me out of the hospital. He also defended the
therapist, who gave me the impression she was trying harder to get rid of me than to help
me recovery.
"Maybe she did a good job helping you to recover from whatever," I said. "Or maybe
she has done a great job on everybody else you have seen her work with. I can't argue
about those possibilities because I know nothing about them. I can only speak about my
relationship of working with her and the impression she gave me."
But when Saturday morning came, suddenly nobody was anxious to push me out
the door when my blood test suggested some kidney problems. For the first time, since
I was moved out of Intensive Care, my blood was drawn and tested. I was happy about
the efficient, painless job that Joseph Wells did in drawing my blood. Hospital personnel
say that I am a difficult stick when drawing blood because my veins are so small.
"But the truth is that a lot of personnel either don't know what they are doing, may
be in a bad mood and may be a little scared at the time they are drawing blood," Wells
said. "So they don't do a good job. They have to stick the patient several times. But I
start looking for the best veins as soon as I'm entering the room. I believe I'm good at
this because I believe it's gift to be able to take blood without hurting people. This job
also requires patience as much as skill."
Wells, a native of Pascagoula, Miss., says he got his training from Northwestern
Hospital in Evanston, and that he hopes to keep working and learning so that he can
go as far as he possibly can in the medical field.
"It's all in the touch," said Wells, who is built like an NFL fullback or linebacker. "You
have to have a tender touch and you have to have a passion for helping people get
well."
Now, it's Sunday morning, and I still am in pain as I am being transferred into the
cardiac ward to continue my recovery from the back surgery and to start preparation for
the implantation on a heart pump as a bridge to heart transplantation.
But I don't think I'll ever get over my displeasure at a physical therapist and a doctor
trying to rush me out of the hospital before I was well enough to leave even though I
had first-class insurance coverage plus Medicare as a supplement.
God bless you.
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