God bless you.
Sorry for me long delay. But I'm really just blessed to be alive. Period.
Until further notice, Lacy J. Banks is a battery-operated man.
So, next time you see me, I'll be packing. A two-pound battery will be holstered on
each hip. They will then provide 10 to 12 hours of electrical energy that channels through
a big buckle-like System Controller that transfers the power through a drive line through
my skin into a heart pump that will keep me alive.
On Jan. 29, after years of progressive pain and weakness from wear and tear, on an
operating table at the University of Chicago Medical Center, Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam
retired the main part of my heart and surgically replaced it with a D-battery-size, $80,000
machine called the Heartmate II LVAD. The whole operation lasted eight hours, engaged
a team of six and totaled some $150,000 in cost.
Now, I am a member of a most exclusive segmet of America. I am one of only 300
patients in the Chicago area wearing an LVAD and one of roughly 3,000 in the entire U.S.
LVADS are growing more and more popular. UCMC performed 40 last year. Dr.
Jeevanandam has implanted some 1,000 himself. He is preimminent in this field.
For more than 66 years, my life and body were powered by an eight-ounce heart that
my mother, Sarah Lorrane Sanders, gave me at birth.
It has served me well despite a few aches, breaks and surgeries along the way. I
have sung and enjoyed music and other arts with my heart, loved, hated, marveled at the
beauties of nature. Then it started giving out.
"You've had a cadiomyopathy for many years probably due to (high blood pressure),'
Dr. Jeevavnandam said. "as in a common scenario, your heart continued to slowly
deteriorate......But your incredible will/drive/faith kept you going. You are a blessed man."
My faith in God, prayer, treatment from doctors at the Mayo Clinic and Northwestern
hospital, and an alteration in medication sustained me until the morning of Jan. 11 I got a
most disturbing telephone call from an individual representing my union's group health
insurance policy.
"We have a document here that says you were fired by the Sun-Times Dec. 31,
2009, and thus you are no longer covered by us," the caller said.
The news drove me to hyperventilate while phoning Sun-Times and union managers
and collegues for confirmation. I felt dizzy, short of breath and chest pains. I called 911.
Paramedics rushed me to nearby South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest, where, within
minutes my heart went into cardiogenic shock. It was beating at a deadly rate of 155 a
minute until doctors put me under and than used those high-powerer defibrillator padals to
shock my heart back into norma rhythm.
"You had only about three hours to live in that condition," Jeevanandam said.
"Clearly at that time (putting aside the issue of prostate CA), you were a poor transplant
candidate because you were so debilitated and would not have done well. Your only
choice was a LVAD.
" You were a particularly difficult LVAD implant because 1) previous (2001 triple-
bypass) surgery 2) physical debilitation 3) heart failure that now involved the right
ventricle as well 4) worsening kidney function. The risks of a LVAD had probably
increased four-fold from the first time it was suggested to you.
"The implant surgery was a challenge (8 out of 10). However, with God's Grace your
LVAD implant went flawlessly and more important your body has recovered faster than
expected. I fully expected you to require in-patient rehab. Due to your incredible
resilience, you may go directly home! It is now time for you to get stronger, put on muscle
and enjoy not being in heart failure. Within a month, you probably do not have to be on
strict water or salt restriction.
"Yes you can have hot dogs and pizza (not that I am suggesting such an unhealthy
cuisine). You should be able to do anything except swim or go on amusement park rides.
We would expect you to go back to work. Your main potential complications are bleeding,
stroke or infection."
Because I am not yet totally free of my prostate cancer or 2008, and a donor heart is
not readily available, the Heartmate heart pump will tide me over until then.
My family and I are just happy I'll still alive and will be able to enjoy a reasonable
quality of life.
I never wanted to live a tethered life. I feel sorry for cats and dogs restricted by short
leash. But that's my lot for now.
When I'm home, my drive line connects to a power module the size of a combo
VHS-DVD player that plugs into a ground wall outlet. Outside the house, a pair of
batteries will sustain me for 10-12 hours. My home is also now place on the top-priority list
with Commenwealth Edison in case of power outage.
God bless you.
Happy birthday, Jesus, and Merry Christmas to everybody else.
I feel like having church, if you don't mind. I said I feel like having church John
Powers, Marcia Starks, Pastor Charles Jenkins, Pastor Clay Evans, Maria, Donna,
George, Connie, Posey, the Kizart brothers, Veryuncye, Gwen Murphy, Carole, Betty,
Eugene McKinney, Deacon Erwin Dabney, Sister Veola Broyles, Sister Beverly Rogers,
Rev. Darrell Jackson, Rev. Joseph Jackson, Rev. DeVille, Rev. Hardy and the rest of
y'all.
Hallelujah!!!!!!!
Thank you Jesus!!!!!!
Joy to the world because the Lord is come!!!!
Hark the heralded angels sing, "Glory to the new-born king. Peace on earth and
mercy mild. God and sinner reconciled."
In case some of y'all just tuned in, here is late-breaking news from heaven's anchor
desk with the prophet Isaiah reporting in the field of Old Testament antiquity: "For unto us
a child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder:
and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace."
It's been some 2,740 years since my fellow news reporter Isaiah filed this
report. And just as it was shouting news then, it's "sho nuff" is shouting news today. And
I'm mighty glad about it. Are you?
This is my 66th Christmas. 'Tis the season to be jolly, to be sure. Yes, this is the
happiest time of the year. Colorful lights, smiling faces, jingle bells, beautiful sacred and
secular decorations and laughter fill the air.
But Christmas will not give my cross or your cross the day off. Sickness, sadness
still abound all around town to make us fill down and wear a frown. But no cross, no
crown.
Even when King Jesus was finally born of the virgin Mary, sired by God through
the Holy Ghost, who had sacred sex with the virgin Mary; hear me now, born He was in
Bethlehem, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger because there was no
room for Him in the inn.
That's why one day a songwriter took a pen and wrote these lyrics: "Away in a
manger, no crib for a day, the little Lord Jesus lay down His sweet head. The stars in the
bright sky looked down where He lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep in the hay."
Even then, when sin got wind of God's grace coming 'round the bend, there sat
upon Israel's throne, a psychotic, neurotic, manic depressive, schizophrenic king named
Herold, who tried to kill the sweet little baby Jesus. And while heaven air-lifted Jesus
and His family out of Bethlehem and placed them in a witness-protection program in
Egypt, Israel's previous home of bondage, Herold had his police, his highway patrol, his
FBI, CIA and secret service agents of that day engage in an infanticidal sweep of the holy
land, killing babies two years old and younger, in an effort to crush Christ in His cradle.
The New Testament writer Matthew reported, "In Rama, was there a voice heard,
lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and
would not be comforted, because they are not." Yes, mothers had babies ripped from
their hugging arms and slaughtered like cattle. This was an abomination of extreme,
obscene atrocity. I wouldn't be surprised this treacherous tragedy broke up choir
practice in heaven. I wouldn't be surprised if the four and twenty elders dropped a tear
or two. Yes, there was limited joy to the world and limited silent night for the first
Christmas.
Listen!
I said, listen!
Can't you hear those poor mothers screaming?
Can't you hear those ear-screeching screams? Screaming like my mama screamed
when she got the news one morning that her sister Senia Bell Crump had died.
Screaming like my daddy screamed when my mother died of blood poisoning and a racist
health care system at age 42 in Lyon, Miss.
I wonder if anybody else feels like screaming right now. Ain't no harm to scream
sometimes. Even I find relief in screaming. Sometimes when I'm all by myself, I scream.
I scream not just screams of sadness but sometimes I scream screams of gladness
because earth has no sorrow that heaven can not heal.
What a cross that was that Jesus had to bear early with that price placed on His
heads and thousands of babies ending up dead in His stead. But whereas others died
for King Jesus in the beginning, King Jesus turned right around and died for us in the
end.
Yes, we know about the Easter cross. We know about how Jesus eventually died
for our sins on that old rugged cross on Calvary's hill far away. We know about how He
surrendered Himself to be wounded for our transgressions, to be bruised for our iniquity
and to have the chasetisement of our peace striped upon His blistered back and His
nail-pierced hands, arms and feet. We know about all that.
But after He died that Friday evening and stayed in the grave Friday night,
Saturday and Saturday night, well, right early Sunday morning, right about the crack
of dawn, He gave the roosters the morning off, and woke up the world by Himself
through His resurrection from the dead.
Thus, He, for whom there was no motel room in Bethlehem's INN, made mercy
room for us in the heavenly END.
That was the miracle of the Easter cross.
Well, I feel like preachin', if you don't mind.
Just as there would be an Easter cross, there was and still is a Christmas cross.
King Jesus was born in the midst of mass misery.
Born in a time of terrible turmoil.
Born in a world of wickedness.
Born on the wrong side of the tracks and the downside of the demographics.
Born at a time when His earthly mama, the virgin Mary, and her husband, were
turned down by every hotel and motel they came across.......until.....hallelujah!.......one
anonymous innkeeper couldn't take it anymore. He just gave in to his compassionate
heart.
He must have said something like this: "I'm sorry, y'all. I know y'all's tired and I know
this young lady is in labor. As y'all know, y'all didn't make any reservations and this, being
Passover, is our busiest time of the year. There have been no cancellations and we have
hundreds of other people on the waiting list. I wish I could give y'all a nice clean room.
But we don't have any. What I can do--and please don't get mad at me--what I can
do is give y'all a stall in the stable among the donkeys and the mules, the sheep and
the cows. It's nasty and dirty in there. But that's all I got. It's cold and stinky in there. But
that's all I got. If you want it, you can have it. That's the best that I can do."
Well, that was a shame. But the divinity of king Jesus was too supreme to be
discounted, demeaned or devalued by poverty, and man's petty misprioritizing. It didn't
matter where He was born. What mattered was THAT He was born. And although His
birth triggered the mass murder of innocent babies, He was born anyway and thus
survived the conspiracy of evil men trying to do Him in.
At this Christmas time, I'm glad that the Spirit of the Lord has moved through U.S.
senators to approve President Obama's health care reform. What this means is that
some 50 million Americans are closer to enjoyin a more merry Christmas. Because of this
legislation, much of a mighty cross has been lifted off the backs of 50 million Americans
who do not have health insurance.
This great cross, this tragic predicament, along with the loss of jobs that included
affordable group health plans, has cost millions their savings, their cars, their homes,
their marriages, their peace of mind, their health and, for many, their lives.
I still can't understand how so many ruthless Republicans opposed this
legislation that would help millions of their own voters. I can't understand how millions
of Americans could be so selfish and so insensitive and so un-loving so as to oppose
the rescue of legions of their less-fortunate fellow Americans.
But thank God that at this Christmastide, millions of Americans will now receive the
welcomed present of health insurance. This gives me another reason to sing "Joy to the
the world."
As a patient in my second year of battling cancer and a bad heart, I can sympathize
with these people because my family and I would have been ruined if I did not have
affordable medical insurance and a union contract that affords me time to seek and
receive appropriate medical care.
My sickness remains a cross of sorts. But every day that finds me still alive and
fighting for wholeness of health is a miracle. And in due season, when God gets ready, He
will heal me completely of my sicknesses and their symptoms.
From a material and physical standpoint, this health care package is the best
massive Christmas present that Americans could receive. And we ought to thank and
praise God for that.
Once again, happy birthday Jesus, and Merry Christmas to everybody else.
God bless you.
God bless you.
It's been four weeks since an academy of doctors, headed by Dr. James Flaherty
and Dr. William Cotts, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, admitted me as an in-patient,
ran me through five days of tests, concluded that I did not need either a heart transplant
or a heart pump at that time and then altered my medications.
They wanted to see if the new recipe of medications could not only stabilize my
progressively failing heart but improve it. Remember, I was originally scheduled to have a
heart pump implanted in me on Oct. 26 at the University of Chicago Hospital. But the Lord
used Lee Stern, former Sting owner and a 60-year, commodity broker on the Chicago
Board of Trade, and his friend James Hodge, an executive administrator at the Mayo
Clinic, to open doors for me to go to the clinic in Rochester, Minn.
The Mayo Clinic examined me extensively. And although the doctors there placed
me on the heart transplant list, they also gave me encouraging reports about my heart,
assuring me that other measures could also help sustain me and they were planning to
try them after I was to be admitted to their St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester on Nov. 17.
But when doctors at Northwestern promised to take over where Mayo had left off
and provide the same care, which would spare me and my wife Joyce the expensive
relocation to Rochester, I decided to give Northwestern a chance to see what they
could do.
Well, so far, so so.
My heart is still weak.
I remain a healing in progress.
I'm still getting by without a transplant or pump, my prostate cancer has yet to be
totally erased and my brain tumor remains benign. But if I don't sense significant
improvement in my heart by next month and I continue to get weaker overall, I will have to
get that heart pump as a bridge procedure to transplantation.
I promised you from the very start of this blog that I would keep you informed of
this whole process with my ups and downs, my progress and my setbacks. I am still
praying for a complete healing of my heart and prostate. But I still suffer troubling
symptoms that tell me I am not yet whole.
I thank God that I'm still alive and that I still have hope and that something positive
has happened at every hospital stop. The Lord just keeps right on blessing me. But God
does not need me to lie about my progress to try to make Him look good before you. I
know that He's able. I know and all the redeemed of the Lord know that He can heal me
if He wants to. But if He chooses to heal me no more than He has already healed me,
blessed be His name.
A lot of people, with the help of false prophets and phony preachers, fake
healings to impress people looking for hope so that they can win these people's trust
and gain fame and fortune. Well, God doesn't need that mess and that's not me. I am
an anointed vessel of God and I deal for real on this healing thing. He has already
healed me SOME, but not completely. And I share every phase of progress and every
segment of healing as it occurs.
What matters most is that He has blessed me to still be alive, to still be receiving
professional medical care and to be able to enjoy these precious Thanksgiving,
Christmas and New Year holidays at home with my wife, our three daughters Nicole,
Noelle and Natasha, and our five grandchildren Lauren, David, Timothy, Caleb and
Nina.
Yes, I still have trouble climbing the stairs in my home. It's difficult and painful.
Yes, I still suffer pain from my prostate cancer, from my lower back, that underwent
surgery Aug. 10, and from my left groin's hernia.
Yes, my hands, legs and feet have grown sore, cold, fragile and weak from poor
circulation.
Yes, I still have dizzy spells and occasional shortness of breath.
Yes, I still have to take pain pills when I have to stand or walk for more than five
or 10 minutes.
Yes, I started seeing blood in my urine a week ago and now must get that matter
resolved.
Yes, I still can not enjoy a good night's sleep without taking a sleeping pill.
Yes, I have lost 55 pounds in the last five months, my appetite is poor and I now
weigh less than 200 pounds for the first time in more than 30 years.
But, I now take 15 pills a day instead of 21. Plus, I still draw a paycheck because I
am a member of a labor union that negotiated a contract that includes medical and
life insurance, medical leave and disability pay.
Most of all, I'm still alive. I'm still able to preach every now and then, do some
basic things for myself and my pain is tolerable.
Don't you? Well, let's thank and praise God for that.
God bless you.
God bless you.
This week, two days before Thanksgiving, cardiologist with Northwestern
Memorial Hospital's Faculty Foundation (NMFF) concluded from four days of testing
that at this present time my heart has recovered so well so quickly that they no
longer feel I need a heart transplant or a heart pump at this particular time.
"Don't get us wrong, you are still a very sick man and you certainly need to get
a defibrillator implanted and you may eventually need a heart pump or a heart
transplant," Dr. James Flaherty said. "But not at this time. Based on your good
performance in our stress test and other numbers, we feel that a change in medications,
a continuation of your weight decrease, consistent exercise and heart-healthy
dieting will help you and we want to see how you respond to that in the next few weeks."
Hallelujah!!!
Thank you Jesus!!!
I was released from the hospital Tuesday and on Wednesday night when I went
to the Osco Pharmacy in Homewood, Ill., to pick up replacements for five of my
previous 13 medications, I just couldn't help restrain myself any longer. So on a rainy
Thanksgiving-eve night, I cried and shouted in the drugstore as I waited my
pharmacist to fill the prescriptions. Rich (?) and his assistant Marge (?) had to think I
was crazy and couldn't decide whether to call the police or paramedics.
As for my brain tumor? It remains benign and NMFF has taken me off that
medication because it has not affected its size.
As for my prostate cancer? My PSA was determined to have decreased to .49
earlier this week.
"Are you OK, Mr. Banks," Marge said. "Yes, I'm more than OK. I'm just thankful to
God to be alive and to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving at home with my family. I have
so much to be thankful for."
I was originally scheduled to by a patient in the Mayo Clinic's St. Mary's Hospital
awaiting a heart transplant 371 miles from Chicago. But again my treatment schedule
has been changed in a manner that more reflects a miracle in progress than a mistake.
So will somebody hold my mule while I shout my shout, pray my prayer or
thanksgiving and dance my dance of praise?
Meantime, happy Thanksgiving everybody. I'm sure having one. In fact, this may be
my happiest to date because, although I am still seriously ill, I'm getting better overall and
I'm home to celebrate Thanksgiving with my three daughters and five grandchildren all
jammed into my home for praise, prayer, turkey dinner prepared by my wife, Joyce,
and sweet fellowship.
Let's retrace our journey so far.
In the spring of 2008, I was at my lowest point in life, physically, emotionally and
mentally, when I was diagnosed with end-stage congestive heart failure. Thus, doctors
at the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) and the Northwestern Memorial
Faculty Foundation (NMFF) concluded that I desperately needed a heart transplant.
But they discovered that I had a brain tumor and prostate cancer, which instantly
disqualified as a heart transplant candidate.
After the brain tumor was ruled benign, the prostate cancer was ruled localized
and early-staged with a PSA of 5.5 and started responding positively to radiation seeds
implantation administered on May 21, 2008. Earlier this year, my heart had gotten
worse and UCMC doctors said I needed to have a heart pump implanted or I probably
would not live out this year.
When my PSA had dropped to .83 three weeks ago, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester,
Minn., ruled me eligible for a new heart and placed me on the heart transplant list as a
Stage 2 candidate. But when Northwestern Hospital agreed to the same conclusion, I
switched my care to the NMFF to cut costs and make it easier for my family to care
for me and visit me. My wife and I could have been in Rochester, Minn., for months
living in hotels and waiting for a transplant.
If that had happened, my wife would have gone months without pay and when my
medical leave expired, we'd have no money coming in and still be charged with paying
bills to maintain a house in Hazel Crest and a temporary residence in Rochester.
Oh, yes. My weight? Well, last weekend while I was a patient in Northwestern
Hospital, it dropped below to 200 pounds to 198.5 for the first time in more than 30
years. Five months ago, I had weighed 255 pounds.
Yeah, will somebody hold my mule while I shout again?
If the superb care provided by NMFF doctors like Dr. Flaherty, Dr. Williams Cotts,
Dr. Jasper Lee, Dr. Robert Gordon, Dr. Smriti Banthia, Dr. Gaurav Chaturvedi, Dr. Amy
Gordon, Dr. Wenyu Huang, Dr. Justin Fox, Dr. Eric Hart, Dr. Timothy Scanlon, Dr. Esther
Shao and Dr. Lisa F. Wolfe was not enough to make to happy, my nurse, Sanyu
Sempebwa brought down the house with a soul-stirring testimony just before I left
the hospital.
The 35-year-old registered nurse escaped the poverty and violent political unrest
in her native Uganda in 2000 with just prayer and a dream. The oldest of six kids born
to a computer programmer and an airline attendant, she earned scholarships and
worked and prayed her way to a degree from Mount Mary College in Milwaukee to
become a nurse. Now, she, her husband Raymond Luganda, a cab driver, and their
daughter, Claire, are happy, hopeful residents of Chicago as she and Raymond look
forward to becoming U.S. citizens.
Now you tell me: ain't God good or ain't God good?
Sunday morning at 11 a.m., I will preach for Rev. Leonard Deville at Alpha Temple
Baptist Church, 6701 Emerald Street on Chicago's South Side. Once he heard of my
latest progress, he offered me a chance to preach about it and that invitation is just
another blessing. This miracle in progress is something I can preach about again and
again and again.
God bless you.
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.
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