Recently in Heart failure Category
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.
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.
First, the good news. My latest blood test, taken last week at the University of
Chicago Medical Center, revealed that my PSA reading is down to 1.92, the lowest I can
ever remember it being. This means my prostate cancer continues in remission as a
result of Dr. Brian Moran's implantation of radiation seeds last May 21. My prostate PSA
cancer must be close to nothing to be placed on the heart transplant list and doctors say it
may take another year before I reach an acceptable PSA score.
Now, the bad news. My UCMC cardiology team, headed by the world-renown Dr.
Valluvan Jeevanandam, tell me that I will not likely live out this year unless I undergo an
operation to have a heart pump, particularly an Heartmate II, implanted to do the
pumping that my defective left ventricle and mitral valve are increasingly failing to do as
they continue to deteriorate.
There are eight months left in this year after this month. So the math is easy. I thank
my doctors for being upfront. That's the first thing I told them I wanted coming in.
"Don't play games with me," I said. "Be my doctors and tell me what you see and
what you feel is best for me based on your medical knowledge and skills. We are a
team. I am the CEO in terms of making the decisions."
But, I also told them as I told you: God is my real primary care physician and He
has the last word.
While the right portion of my heart is still reasonably healthy, the poor job being
done by the left portion threatens the well-being of the right. So Dr. Jeevanandam and
Anderson, his right-hand man, strongly urge that I have the heart pump implanted as
soon as possible.
The addition of Isosorbide, Hydralazine and Dobutamine medicines by Dr.
Anderson has relieved me of the shortness of breath and fatigue and enabled my heart
to hold on a little while longer as is. But this relief is said to be short-termed and Dr.
Anderson says he is very pleased that I have done this well this long with the medicines.
"But it's like flogging a dying mule to get some extra work out of it," Dr. Anderson
said candidly and calmly while flashing that occasional funny little grimace on his face.
"And you can flog that mule only so many times until it just can't work anymore."
I'm having fun dying. I jokingly told Dr. Anderson that I took offense to that analogy
because I considered myself to be a horse, even a nice stallion, if you will, instead of a
mule. We laughed. But Dr. Jeevanandam cautions that my current decision to delay the
implantation is no laughing matter.
"If the right side of your heart gets in bad shape and other vital organs get
damaged as your poor circulation worsens, the only thing we may have to offer you then
is hospice," Dr. Jeevanandam said.
Hospice is where they send the terminally ill to try to make their last days as
comfortable and manageable as possible.
Joyce, my wife of 41 years, badly and madly wants me to do whatever I have to do to
stay alive as long as possible. The same for a long-time special prayer partner who
promises to be praying for me several times a day but wishes to remain anonymous.
"I don't want to lose you," Joyce says. "I love you. And if you really love me, you'll do
what you have to do to stay alive."
Wow! What a wife! What a woman!
My daughters, Nicole, Noelle and Natasha, and my brothers Rev. Jimmie Lee Banks
and Rev. Ephthallia Banks, also urge me to have the device implanted. So do others.
But right now, I feel relatively good and I'm still praying to and trusting God to heal
me so that I won't need the pump. So I'm continuing to work and preach as my health
permits.
This Friday at 1 p.m., April 10, I am preaching at Cosmopolitan Community Church,
5249 Wabash, as part of Pastor Henry Hardy's Seven Last Words preachathon for the
33rd straight year. And Sunday afternoon, at 3 p.m., I will be preaching the usher's
anniversary sermon at Liberty Baptist Church, 4849 South King Drive, where Rev. Darrell
Jackson is pastor.
Whether those engagements will be the last times I preach on this side of Heaven
is up to the Lord.
I may change my mind within the next few months. But, I presently have not
decided to have that pump installed. I don't fancy the idea of being tethered up to an AC
cord at home, or a pair of holstered 90-minute capacity batteries when I leave home, to
keep me alive.
Yes, I want to live. And I thank God that I have the sober, sane mind to decide for
myself which way I want to live. And until I either get more information or feel the urgency
to have one implanted, I'm going to keep praying, praising and preaching.
Meantime, this Good Friday, April 10, marks the one-year anniversary when last
April 10, Dr. Jeevanandam, a medical Mozart, who says he has performed more than 650
heart transplants, and his outstanding, celebrated staff had diagnosed me with suffering
end-stage congestive heart failure that required a heart transplant to keep me alive. But I
was quickly disqualified from being a heart transplant candidate when doctors diagnosed
me with brain cancer and prostate cancer.
I immediately went deep into prayer, asked many of you to pray for me and with me
and to watch God heal me. Well, I'm still here holding on to God's unchanging hands.
Since then, I have preached 12 times and covered some 50 pro hockey and college
basketball games, including a half dozen out-of-town assignments as my health permits.
Joyce and I were also able to fulfill our wish of celebrating our 40th wedding
anniversary with a two-week vacation in Hawaii.
God is good, my wife is priceless, loving and longsuffering and beautiful readers
and prayer partners like you have been invaluable sources of hope and encouragement.
Thank you all so much for your continued prayers. And if I am an encouragement to any
of you, please don't thank me. Thank God. To God be the glory, the praise and the
thanksgiving.
My first breakthrough was when further tests, X-rays and examinations revealed that
the tumor on my pituitary gland was benign. So I have been required by doctors to take
one pill a week--Cabergoline .5 mg--to treat that tumor.
"So you can strike brain cancer off your list," Dr. Anderson said.
For my bad back and chronic gout, I also take Colchicine, Allupurinal, Prednisone
and Indomedicin daily. And for my congestive heart failure, I take Correg,
Spironolactone, Lisinopril, Furosemide, K-Dur, Digitek and aspirin daily.
In total, I take an average of 25 pills a day. But the main things that are keeping me
alive is the grace of God, the love of my wife and the prayers of family and friends like
you.
In the next few blogs, I will interview patients who have had the heart pumps
implanted an how it hindered but also helped them tremendously. I am told that the pump
not only will keep me alive but me feel better and be strong enough to do whatever I
could do when I was in the best of health.
God bless you all.
God bless you.
For more than 65 years, the heart my mama and daddy teamed up to give me at
birth has kept me alive with millions and millions of beats pumping oxygenated blood
throughout my growing body in all kinds of weather and through good times and bad
times.
For more than 65 years, my heart has been my best friend and the very soul of me.
For more than 65 years, my heart has given charitably with the most generous
hearts in the world.
For more than 65 years, my heart has loved with the best, sung songs with the best,
written poems with the best, laughed and cried with the best, enjoyed music with the best,
written and preached sermons with the best, prayed to and praised God with the best.
For more than 65 years, my heart has defined me, inspired the best in me and
driven me to be the best that I can be.
For more than 65 years, my heart has been my best counselor and confidant. Some
of my greatest conversations have been with my heart and some of my best advice has
come from my heart.
My heart won the heart of my high school sweetheart, Joyce, and we have been
happily married for more than 40 years after our seven-year courtship.
Now, here I am once more a patient in the University of Chicago Hospital praying
to God and trying to get His doctors to use all their God-given know-how to help save my
poor heart that has grown weaker and appears to be on its last legs.
Unless the Lord heals me outright or through UCMC's academy of celebrated
physicians, I may have to say farewell to my heart in the next few months and have it
replaced by a mechanical, turbo-power heart pump, which UCMC Chief Cardiac
Surgeon Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam says is highly advanced, greatly-efficient, whisper-
quiet, silky smooth and tremendously durable.
Yes, I still have hope that God will heal and salvage this heart. At least, that has
been my prayer since I started this blog 10 months and 44 entries ago. At the same
time, I have been trying to do my best and trust God for the rest.
Wednesday night (March 12, 2009), I was admitted here again for new treatment
because, while my brain cancer is benign and my prostate cancer is in remission through
radiation treatment, my end-stage congestive heart failure has not progressed as well.
Two weeks ago, shortness of breath and fatigue again began to plague me, slow
me down, steal my sleep, suppress my joy and threaten my life. So to stay ahead of
things and not take anything for granted, I returned here to have the likes of Dr.
Jeevanandam, Dr. Allen Anderson, Dr. Matthew Sorentino, Dr. Savitra Fedson, Dr.
Kathy Wright, Dr. Alexandria Dunetriseu, Dr. David Miller, Dr. Jonathan Paul, Dr.
Sandeep Nathan, Dr. Neal Ray, Dr. Stuart Chen, Nurses Joly Jose, Cora Palmer, Cora
Tharps-Wilson, Melanira Ortez, Williams, Florita Lanier and Antonija Novakovich lend
their respective collective expertise in helping me resolve these serious health issues.
Thus, my weekend is being spent here going through a battery of tests to give
doctors an update of my heart's health and what can be done to relieve me of the fatigue
and shortness of breath. If some changes in my medication can do the trick, we will
explore that option. Otherwise, since my cancers eliminated me from heart transplant
candidacy last year, I may have no other choice for the pump since doctors here feel
my natural heart is too defective, too enlarged and too weak for something like a mitral
valve repair or replacement to do it much long-term good.
When I thought of the prospect of saying goodbye to my heart, I broke down and
cried in my hospital room just as most of you would if you were faced with the same
situation.
In fact, pause with me for a moment and just imagine yourself having to say
goodbye to your heart because it has given out after years of hard work and suffering.
For me, years of high blood pressure, emotional toils, trials and tribulations, burdens and
sorrows have placed tremendous pressure upon my heart because I have always been
a man of supreme passion and compassion. My greatest works I have always
endeavored to do with all my heart and from the very bottom of my heart.
A lot of people work through their minds, their muscle, their money and other
material resources. I have moved in cadence to the beat of my heart. In other words, if my
heart isn't in something, never expect my best.
So I ask you again Sisters and Brothers, could you really ever say "goodbye" to
your heart and not feel the greatest of loss?
Could you say "Goodbye" to your heart and not feel any pain? If your answer is "No,"
then you know where I'm coming from.
The Holy Bible says "from the heart flows the issues of life." The Holy Bible also
says that if confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe with our HEARTS that
God raised Him from the dead, we shall be saved. King David, the shepherd sovereign
and sweet singer of song, was revered as "a man after God's own heart."
God bless you.
One thing I have gotten from my seven-month fight against brain cancer, prostate
cancer and end-stage congestive heart failure is a weakened and much more sensitive
heart.
It pains me deeply to see others suffer.
It hurts me horribly to see greed in the highest places destroying our nation's
economy and wreaking untold havoc and suffering on the masses robbing them at the
gas pumps and stealing from their retirement and pensions funds and setting in motion a
lethal chain of events costing people their jobs, their homes, their savings, their medical
insurance, their hope and their peace of mind.
When I was younger and healthier, I was just as sensitive. I would hurt when I saw
other get hurt. But my heart was stronger then. I could endure it then and the tears I'd
be moved to shed were more affordable to the rest of my young nervous system.
But the deadly state of affairs reflected in our nation's critically sick economy
really tears me up. Then there are also individual tragedies like the firing of people I meet
and find to be good people to work with. My latest pain came Thursday when I was at
the Bears training camp doing interviews and I learned that the Blackhawks, a team a
co-cover, fired Hall of Fame coach and favorite-son alumnus Denis Savard for a
1-2-1 start. Perhaps, it may prove to be a good decision later if he successor does
a better job quickly. But Savy still got a raw deal.
Would a 4-0 or a 3-0-1 start or a 3-1 start have saved him? Was the die cast long
before hand? Were there powers upstairs hoping he'd get off to a slow start so that they
could fire him quickly before he got a chance to really show what he could do? I simply
think that, on the basis of his overall progress and promise, and on the basics of the
loyalty he had shown to the organization and the honors he had brought it in the past,
he deserved and had earned a better chance of at least 10 or 20 games before
chopping off his head.
I called Denis and thanked him for being himself--a good coach and a
kind human being. You see, I've worked with some mighty mean people in my
36-career of covering sports for the Sun-Times. I have worked with some of the most
evil blessed people on the face of the earth. I'm talking about athletes, coaches and
general managers who have been blessed with good health, great talent and super
opportunities to enjoy tremendous fame and fortune. And yet many of these people
turned out to be the most hateful, ungrateful, disrespectful, mean and arrogant people
for no good reason whatsoever.
When I first started covering the Bulls for the Sun-Times in 1972, Dick Motta had
his security guard to kick me out of the locker room because I asked him for a response
to fans who feel his penchant for technical fouls was hurting the team. I remember at
that time when Bob Greene and Tom Fitzpatrick, two superstar Sun-Times writers, came
to my defense. Later Motta would coach elsewhere and we were able to enjoy a better
working relationshp.
Since then, I've had other coaches to curse me, lie to me and lie about me simply
because they disagreed with what I wrote and could not intimidate and manipulate me.
But the roll call of good coaches who, in my opinion, got raw deals grows longer and
longer, sadder and sadder. Some were able to rebound elsewhere and do well. These
include the NBA likes of Jerry Sloan, Doug Collins, Phil Jackson, Lenny Wilkens, Rick
Carlisle, Mike Fratello and Byron Scott. Other good coaches like Ray Scott, Quinn
Buckner, Dick Versace, Dave Sarachan (soccer) and Willy Roy (soccer) have not been
allowed to rebound.
Now, bad firings and trades in pro sports are not all that tragic because of the
exorbitant salaries those players, coaches and GMs earn. But the real tragedy is what
had happened to America's job market as a whole. Wall Street has greedily and criminally
mismanaged much of our country's economy into massive financial ruin and the
fallout and collateral damages are catastrophic and pestilential.
Our nation's biggest financial institutions, headed supposedly by America's
finest financial minds, have behaved wantonly and destructively to the misfortune of
millions and millions of Americans. Not only has our government allowed and helped
wealthy businesses to outsource millions of previously American jobs to cheap foreign
labor. The crooked CEOs of those businesses have pockets tax breaks and stolen the
401K and other retirement and pension savings of the employees they're thrown out of
work.
Now, we are witnessing the planet's biggest bank robbery ever in the $700
billion bailout that is designed to help the rich first and the poor possibly and probabaly
never. The agony and anguish from this magnitude of evil is too much for even an
healthy heart to bear. And, trust me, because things are being handled this way, things
are going to get a whole lot worse before they get better.
It is seldom the nature of greedy people at the top to willingly and voluntarily allow
their wealth to trickle down to the middle class and to the poor at the bottom except by
force from law or labor unions. That history has repeated itself again and again, often
resulting in bloody revolutions where the suffering masses become so enraged they
retaliate with tumultuous violence.
What America needs is not the bailing out of the rich and greedy, but the return of
jobs to the poor and the needy. Give the people jobs, not handouts, and they will be able
to make the money they need to spend on food, clothes, houses, cars, other merchandise
as well as health insurance, health care and commercial services. What we have now is
a growing population of unemployed, uninsured American consumers buying foreign
products on credit while they are already deep, deep in debt.
Anybody with a heart, a real human, caring, sharing heart, has to hurt at the sight
of such blight. And as I continue to undergo the healing of my physical heart, I pray
more desperately for the healing of America's spiritual and economic heart. But the
disease is so advanced and pervasive that what America really needs is a heart
transplant of new leadership, fresh, honest leadership, whose competence is surpassed
only by it compassion.
God bless you.
not been so lucky.
