Lean over and tell somebody near you, "Lacy Banks told me to tell you

that God is still in the blessing business."

Sisters and brothers, as of yesterday (Nov. 16, 2010), The Mayo Clinic's

main unit, in Rochester, Minn., has elevated me to the very top of their heart

transplant list.

I am now in the 1A classification, the clinic's highest, with nobody ahead of

me for B-positive blood types.

If I get my healthier heart within the next month, I want to retire within the

following six weeks. This is half the time normally accorded for heart

transplantation recovery. But it will give me time to have the operation covered by

a major insurance carriers as primary provider and Medicare as secondary, thus

sparing my wife and me exorbitant out-of-pockets expenses. It would also provide

valuable time to make the transition to Medicare as primary provider and find the

best Medicare supplement.

At age 67, I believe I am the oldest reporter at the paper. I have been

working for the Sun-Times for 38 years and two and a half months. I'm tired

children. Joyce, my wife of 42 years and girlfriend for 49, has already returned

at age 65. And she makes me sick being able to chill whenever she wants to.

I want to get me new heart, retire, preach God's word better than ever and enjoy

some retirement. My mama died at 42 and never got to retire. My father died at

64, after pastoring for 50 years. He never retired and we never had health

insurance and we had to pass the hat to help bury him. My father-in-law also died

at age 64 just months after he had retired. I pray to do better for my family.

When a heart becomes available in the Mayo Clinic's midwest region of

Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas, I will be its first recipient if the heart is for

my blood type and body size. If a heart, within my blood type and body size,

becomes available within 500 miles of Rochester, to include Chicago, St. Louis,

Kansas City, Etc., I would also qualify for it after the first regional option has been

exhausted and if I am the leading candidate within 500 miles..

According to Jody Hanson, my heart transplant coordinator of the clinic,

there is "a very strong possibility," some rank it as high at 70 percent, that I will

receive my new heart within a month.

Because I am being sustained by a heart pump, or Heartmate II LVAD (left-

ventricular assist device), and because I am 385 miles away from Rochester and

not an in-patient in Rochester, I am being accorded this privileged rank through

the month of December.

Joyce and I already have our bags pack and a choice or two air

ambulances and two private jets on standby alert to fly us to Rochester within

the four hours they want me to be on the operating table once they locate a

heart for me.

In the spring of this year, I had all along hoped to retire no later than the end

of next month because I was hoping to have had my new heart by now.

Unfortunately, I had suffered a critical setback. False information in a Jan. 11 phone

call from Sheri Stokes, Blue Cross Blue Shield, telling me that my Sun-Times

employment and health insurance coverage had been terminated, excited me into

a heart attack (more specifically, a cardio-genic shock) as I desperately called

Jeannie Smyers, Barbara Ercoli, my union reps, my sports editor and others at the

paper trying to confirm the devastating news.

By the time I was assured, by Jeannie and Barbara, that this was false

information, I had spent 30 days in the hospital--rotating between South Suburban

Hospital, Northwestern Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center--

trying to save my life. I was placed on three-day life support twice before I

underwent open-heart surgery to have the heart pump implanted by Dr. Valluvan

Jeevanandam on Jan. 29 at the UCMC.

I resumed work for the Chicago Sun-Times on April 5.

I appreciate the patience and generous cooperation by the Sun-Times in

helping ease the load during this period of my grave health issues. I know that the

paper has been laying off employees younger and more talented. I am presently

conversing with human resources and union insurance reps to lay the foundation

for my retirement and transition in insurance coverage.

It's been 31 months since Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam, University of Chicago

Medical Center chief cardiac surgeon, and Dr. Allen Anderson, UCMC's ace

cardiologist, diagnosed me for end-stage congestive heart failure and told me I

needed a heart transplant to live longer than three or four years.

But in the process of examining to make sure I was healthy enough to risk

being given somebody else's precious heart, I was disqualified when they

discovered a cancerous brain tumor on my brain and a cancerous prostate tumor.

During these last 31 months, after God blessed me to be examined and

treated by 97 different doctors at eight different hospitals in three different states,

my brain tumor and prostate cancer have been brought under control, I have been

implanted with a heart pump and I have rallied from being refused admittance to

the national heart transplant list to rising to the very top of it.

Thank you, Jesus!

In the Mayo Clinic's midwest region, that includes Minnesota, Wisconsin

and the Dakotas, NOBODY is ahead of me among B-positive blood types. If a

heart becomes available in a more remote region during this period, then I will be

eligible to receive that heart, too, so long as it is a B-positive blood-type heart.

Each year some 800,000 patients around the world need a heart transplant.

Only 3,500 receive them.

Some 4,000 Americans need a heart transplant each year. Less than 2,000

get them. At Mayo Clinic, 97.7 percent of heart transplant recipients survive at least

one month, 94.85 survive at least one year, 80 percent survive three years and 75

percent survive at least five years.

As I told y'all before, I feel guilty and unworthy knowing somebody has to die

for me to get his or her heart. Then I calm down and think scientific progress. Death

has always been inevitable with us humans. But God has blessed medical science

to acquire the skill to salvage organs from dead donors and transplant them to save

the lives of others.

My wife, Joyce, my family, friends, Sun-Times staff and you readers have

been most comforting and encouraging to me. Thank you. More than 1,000

comments have been submitted to my blog (http://blogs.suntimes.com/banks/),

where I have been keeping you informed of my situation.

Once I am told a heart is available, I must be on the operating table in

Rochester in four hours. Joyce and I already have our bags packed and four

different air ambulances and private charter planes are ready to transport me.

Regardless of the outcome, I will inform you myself.

"Yeah, but how is Lacy Banks going to keep us informed if he is dead?",

well you just relax and let me assure you that while we're all trying to figure it out,

God has already worked it out.

God bless you.

This month, after waiting for more than two and a half years, I hope to receive my new heart at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn..

I've already made contact with the owner and pilot of a private charter plane. He assures me that he can be at a nearby private airport within 90 minutes ready for takeoff. He'd fly me in for $1,700. Mayo Clinic also has an air ambulance, that would cost $10,000, to be paid by my insurance company because they require air ambulances.

I live just 15 miles from that airport for private planes and I can get there in 20 minutes or less. The 365-mile flight will take roughly 90 minutes. And since I must be on the operating table 90 minutes after I get the call that a new heart is ready for me, I have roughly an hour of wiggle room to get me from the Rochester, Minn., Airport to the Mayo Clinic's St. Mary's Hospital, where the heart transplant surgeries are performed.

At times, I was a nervous wreck because there are other personal and family matters that I have to attend to.

The first priority is the successful transplantation of a new heart as soon as possible because I want to retire as soon as I get it. Otherwise, to retire beforehand and lose my affordable group health insurance coverage would devastate my family financially. I have rebuilt roughly three months of medical leave allowed in our union contract. A layoff at this point of my life and in the situations that I'm in would be a DEATH SENTENCE.

Another top priority is for me to start getting my pension that I thought I would have and should have had by now if the paper and Prudential had honored their Jan. 22, 2010 letter they sent me, which I was in the hospital fighting for my life and preparing for the Jan. 29 open-heart surgery.

That letter offered me the option of receiving my pension payout in one lump sum. But after more than two months after the Jan. 22 letter, and one month after they had given a fellow employee his lump sum payout, they not only refused to give me mine, they said the deadline for receiving a lump sum had expired at Jan. 1, 2010, three weeks before they sent me the letter officially offering me the lump sum option.

Another priority is the will for my wife Joyce and me. After years of promising to do it, I finally wrote out last will and testament last night. That, my sisters and brothers, was an awesome task.

It's one thing to write out your will at age 30, 40 or even 50 years old. But when you cross age 65, are fighting prostate cancer, have a cancerous tumor on your brain, are being sustained by a mechanical pump and are in dire need of a new heart, writing a will is a rueful reckoning with approaching death.

When I was a little boy, I was so much afraid of dead people and death. I wanted nothing to do with dead people because I feared that death was contagious. I preferred life, especially the youth of life when all things are fresh and your perception of all that you can see, hear, smell, touch, taste and imagine are so razor sharp and crystal clear. Add energy and agility to that youth and you are in a wonderland.

I was so in love with my youth that I went over behind a Mississippi barn one day and made a pact with myself, promising that I would never dare get old and die. Boy, was I one cock-eyed, naive, insane optimist!

Finally, and not too suddenly at all, I am sick while I am getting old. My grandson, Caleb, likes to remind Joyce and me, laughingly, "Y'all are old, grandpa. Just face it. Y'all are old. But don't worry. I still love you grandpa and grandma."

Yeah, that's well and good Caleb. But what I way to tell that to us.

So I sat down and finally wrote our Last Will and Testament that remains to be notarized and witnessed. The next thing we want to do, and it's something Joyce has been asking me to do for years, is to get our side-by-side burial plots.

I used to ask Joyce to promise me that she will never stop loving me and never marry another man. She agreed. Then I felt I was being too selfish. Then I had her to promise me that if she married another man, make sure that he isn't some broke guy, who only has sex to offer, and will have to move in with her and live in the house I paid for and sleep in the bed I slept in and live over the money and property I leave her. I'd rather he has a house he can move her into. Otherwise, she can do bad all by herself. Just date him and wish him well. But don't take on a son you'll have to take care of because you'll have far more than he does and you'll in essence be taking care of him.

I saw my mother-in-law completely forget and disrespect her first husband, the loving father of her children, the grandfather of my children, and the man who worked two and three jobs to buy her a house to live in and he financially set her up for life. But she married a man who was broke, in debt , moved in with her and even got her to put his name in her will to inherit everything her first husband acquired to give to her second husband and his daughter and other family members if my mother-in-law died first.

The whole affair sickens me, my wife and her sisters because the man, and sometimes only, man she praises in her life is her second husband, whose relatives stole half of their savings days after her second husband suffered a stroke one day and came back the next day to get the remaining $30,000.

So I beg, Joyce. Please, baby, don't do me that way. Always remember that I was your first love, the faithful, hard-working, loving father of our children, and the grandfather of our grandchildren. And if you marry again, make sure you marry somebody who has more money than you do. There are TOO MANY black women supporting black men who are good-for-nothing leeches, ingrates and deadbeats. Far, far too many!

I'm ol' school. If a man never thought enough for himself to get Jesus as his Savior, get a good education, a good job, make good money, save, get married, love his wife and children and help raised those kid, I, to be honest, don't have much respect at all for men living off of women because they are lazy and never grow up and assume responsibility for themselves and their family.

I don't want these guys as son-in-laws marrying my daughters or granddaughters and I sure don't want them likewise becoming husband to my widowed wife.

Things like this came to mind while I sat down writing our will. We're allowing for some money to go to my grandchildren. But it will only be for their education and they must be law-abiding, hard-working, serious-minded students, who are in good standing with some educational institution and maintaining a grade average no less than a C.

I pray that it will be a long time before our Will have to be opened up because one of us has died. But just in case, that Will makes sure our earthly affairs will be in order. Our heavenly affairs were taken care of long, log ago. Our final retirement in the cosmic condo of heaven is already paid up in full. Jesus paid it all. All to Him we owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. But He washed it white as snow.

God bless you.

We are closing in on 1,000 comments to this blog.

In fact, we are three comments away from what I would call a

"scheherazade." I started this blog 29 months ago, posting my first on May 5

2008. This is my 85th entry. I am told this is one of the paper's most popular

blogs.

I thank God for the time and energy and mind to write this blog.

I thank God for the Chicago Sun-Times for employing me for more than

38 years and for allowing me to blog my fight against a cancerous brain tumor

that was quickly declared benign, a malignant prostate tumor that was caught when

it was early and localized, and a weakened heart that now needs to be

replaced.

And now, I am about to celebrate a "scheharazade."

For you who don't know, I am a voracious lover of classical music. I have

been for some 55 years since I saw a black-and-white, televised production of

"The Mikado," an operetta by the British tandem of librettist William S. Gilbert and

composer Authur Sullivan.

Over the years, I have listened to hundreds of symphonies and innumerable

operas, motets, cantatas, quartets, trios, serenades, tone poems, sonatas, concerti

for different instruments and so on and on and on.

One of my favorite pieces, however, is "Scheherazade," a symphonic suite

composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, a Russian music master. This piece was

delicious to my ears from the very first time I heard it. "Scheherazade" is

crafted around "The Book of One Thousand Nights,'' also referred to as the Arabian

Nights. It is a composition lushly laced with oriental euphoria. I have always been

fascinated by the culture, the art, the beauty, the myths and the cuisine of the

Orient.

Now, here comes my 'Scheherazade."

Key word of all this, now, is one thousand, which, you all know, is a

millennium. A millennium of anything good is a proud milestone. Nobody, in his

right mind, wants to suffer 1,000 cuts, or to be shot 1,000 times, or to be whipped

1,000 lashes, or to serve 1,000 days in a dungeon or prison.

But 1,000 kisses, 1,000 hugs, 1,000 friendly pats on the back, 1,000 honest

handshakes, 1,000 roses, 1,000 bullion of gold or 1,000 diamonds or 1,000 of

anything good is another story.

Yes, as I write this entry, we are three comments away from 1,000. And I

thank the Lord that you precious , encouraging and enlightening souls have seen

fit to take time and energy to "reach out and touch somebody's hand....to make this

a better world." And that somebody just happens to be me. Thank you.

In those 997 comments written so far are countless tears, smiles, prayers,

best wishes, inspirations, challenges, chastisements, visions, prophecies, poems

and powerful, poignant pieces of advice.

I'm looking forward to my 1,000th comment from you. Yes, one person will

write a comment that will be the thousandth of this blog. But you will be a symbol

of the whole pool because one of you is responsible for about 50 comments. Some

of you have sent dozens and dozens. Some of you wanted to write one, but wrote

none. Yet, heaven gives us credit for the desires of our hearts. It gives us credit

for what we mean to do rather what what we actually do. As such, this blog

has generated billions or maybe even trillions of impulses, good impulses. They

may have never gotten far enough to be made manifest in print or in voice, in tears

or cheers. But they still count if they help you in some way and you whisper or

just think something nice about this blog.

Thank you, sisters and brother. Thank you one and all. I want to thank each

of you at least 1,000 times. But this number would still be far, far too small to

begin to articulate my gratitude.

God bless you.

As I wait for my new heart, I am blessed to still be alive, blessed to not be

in ongoing pain and blessed to have competent, affordable, group-insured health

care.

As a Christian and preacher, I am a man of faith. I believe in God and I trust

Him to continue healing me with or without the aid of modern medicine.

But as a formally-educated, veteran, newspaper reporter, I am also a man of

fact, a realist dedicated to doing his best and trusting God for the rest.

Whenever I got sick, I prayed. But I also sought help from doctors and also

used my common sense and took initiative to be an active participant in the

process of my recovery. I studied my illnesses, the medicines I was taking and their

side effects. I also got in closer tune with my body, listened to it and did what I

needed to do, as best I could, to help myself instead of calling the doctor every

time I didn't feel good.

It's alright to pray for God to feed you. But don't expect God to drop meat and

bread down from the sky into your lap or onto your dinner table without you

working to earn and acquire the money to buy food. And when you get the food,

you have to cook it, if necessary. Then you have to feed yourself or be fed by

body else to be nourished.

It's alright to pray to God for a job. But make an effort to prepare and look for

that job. Don't expect that job to look for you, make you accept it and force you to

come to work and perform.

It's alright to pray for God to heal you when you are sick. But I believe it is

foolish, cruel and even in-human for people to deny them or their loved ones life-

saving professional medical care under the excuse that all you have to do is pray

for it. Poor, innocent children have been tortured and murdered with that kind

of ignorance, arrogance and insensitivity. That's just the devil. I hate him.

My health challenges have been excruciating at times. I've already

undergone and survived three critical operations in nine years where doctors had

to saw my chest apart. I've been on life support four times. I've battled and still

am battling prostate cancer and a benign tumor on my brain. I've undergone

back surgery and hernia surgery. I've undergone life-saving defibrillation of my

heart.

But the fact I'm still here is really no credit to me. I thank and praise the

Lord for me coming this far by faith.

Needing a new heart and being on the Mayo Clinic's heart transplant list

means that my chest will have to be sawed apart at least a fourth time. It also

means that I will be on life-support again with a breathing tube jammed down

my throat. It also means I will have to have a lot of needles pushed into my

small veins, which nurses claim are too small. So they often have to stick me again

and again, claiming also that I have "rolling veins." That's not something I'll enjoy

doing.

But I want to live more. Don't you? And I don't believe I'm being greedy still

wanting to live at the age of 67. I love this thing of breathing in and out. I love

touching, feeling, tasting, thinking and hearing. For me, on the whole, life is good.

Nevertheless, I'm sure there's not many of you reading this blog who

would love to change your health for my health. A few of you, who are in pain

and have been told you are much closer to death, would gladly change. But the

great majority of you would not. And I'm very happy about that. I pray the best for

you all. I pray that you get better before I do and also better if I don't.

When my grandchildren were last brought to the hospital to see me while I

lay in a coma with that breathing tube coming out of my mouth, it scared them half

to death. And when I got well enough to come home, my youngest grandkids were

too scared to give me a hug or have me touch them. That hurt. Only after the older

ones, bless their little hearts, had touched me without being harmed did the

younger ones feel brave enough to do so, and even then reluctantly.

Now, I'm going to be honest with y'all. I feel my strength and courage

weakening a little because I am fighting other problems than health problems.

They are taking their toll. My humanity and mortality are being exposed to my utter

embarrassment and shame.

But, thank God, I know how to address that. I'm going to have to pray harder

and pray more to Him. I know that I have not been praying as hard as I should and

could. I need the Lord to increase my faith. If I don't have even a mustard seed-size

portion of faith, all the prayers in the world will avail little.

I preach to people again and again that it pays to serve Jesus and that they

should have faith in God for anything. I must do a better job of practicing what I

preach. Thanks for loaning me your shoulders to cry on a little bit. But I'll be alright

because I know the Lord is still in the prayer-hearing and prayer-answering

business. Otherwise, I would have been dead and gone long, long ago.

Yes, I'm presently getting a whipping. But I'm not whipped and, by God's grace

and mercy and my faith in Him, I won't be.

God bless you.

Last week, Jody Hanson, chief nurse of the Mayo Clinic's Heart Transplant

program in Rochester, Minn., informed me that there are only three patients now

ahead of me on Mayo's heart transplant list and that my prostate cancer's PSA had

dropped all the way down to .25, just a quarter of a point from so-called "cancer-

free."

Thank you Jesus!

Thank my wife, Joyce, for sticking by me and caring for me.

Thank you readers, my friends and relatives for praying with me and for me.

Thank God, especially, for the marvelous and magnificent Mayo Clinic. This

non-profit hospital remains one of the very finest in this world.

Preimminent! Yes, the Mayo Clinic is preimminent.

Search the records, if you will, read the annual rankings by U.S. News and

World Report magazine, and you will see the Mayo Clinic ranked first or second in

most all the areas of successful medical treatment for all manner of sickness.

John Hopkins and the Cleveland Clinic are also big dogs in the hunt. But the Mayo

Clinic is the King of the kennel.

When I started blogging my fight with prostate cancer, a cancerous brain

tumor and end-stage congestive heart failure (CHF) 30 months ago (April, 20,

2008), things didn't look too good, sisters and brothers.

I needed a heart transplant because of my end-stage CHF. But I couldn't be

placed on the heart transplant list until my cancers were conquered.

So I started praying harder than ever, and I asked y'all to pray with me and

for me. Well, God got busy. And when God moves, ain't no mountain high enough,

ain't no valley low enough and ain't no river wide enough to keep God's will from

being done and His Kingdom from coming..

The first enemy to be brought under control was the brain tumor. Itt had

been discovered at Northwestern Hospital by Dr. Allison Hahr in March of 2008. By

the grace and mercy of God, within weeks, after hundreds of x-rays of my brain, that

tumor was ruled benign.

And we kept on praying........

The second enemy to be brought under control was the prostate cancer that

had been diagnosed by Dr. Glenn Gerber at the University of Chicago Medical

Center on April 10, 2010. After he took a biopsy of that tumor, he diagnosed it as

"early stage" and "localized." This meant there was still time to stop it in its tracks.

So we kept on praying.......

By the grace and mercy of God, on May 21, 2008, I received implantation of

some 89 radiation seeds by Dr. Brian Moran at the Chicago Prostate Cancer

Center in Westmont, Ill.

When my prostate tumor was first found, my PSA, which measures one's

susceptability to cancer, was 5.7, or .7 above the acceptable level.

But we kept on praying, smacked prostate cancer in the face, made it call us

by our proper names and sent it into remission.

Year by year, month by month, week by week and day by day, my prostate

cancer dropped deeper and deeper into welcomed remission.

On Nov. 5, last year, the Mayo Clinic concluded that my prostate cancer

was in sufficient remission to place me on their heart transplant list. My PSA was

aroung 2.0 at the time. Sisters and brothers, this indeed was a sign that our prayers

were still being answered and that the mighty healing hand of God was making

itself manifest in The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Can I hear somebody say "Aman." Not "Amen," the proper term. But

"Aman" the way we normally say it in church.

So we kept on praying.......

The devil then counter-attacked and struck me down, but not out, on Jan. 11

of this year with a heart attack that answered also to the name of

"cardio-genic shock." I spent 30 straight days in three different hospitals: South

Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest, Ill., Northwestern and UCMC in Chicago. I was

placed on life support twice. Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam, USMS's chief heart

surgeon, had to implant a heart pump in me on Jan. 29 to keep me alive.

But we kept on praying until I got off life support in three days, was released

from the hospital on Feb. 10, 2010, and then went through three months of

successful rehabilitation before being OKed to return to work at the Sun-Times,

where I have been working as a reporter for 38 years.

All the while, my prostate cancer continued in remission. Then last week,

Hanson told me my prostate cancer's PSA is now .25, an all-time low for me as far

as I know. That's a quarter of a point away from "cancer free."

But maybe the best news of all is that there were only three patients ahead

of me on Mayo's heart transplant list. I have been elevated on the list because of

God's grace, His blessing me to receive a heart pump and to have Type B-positive

blood.

The only thing remaining to be done before I can be upgraded from 1B to

1A for 30 days, where there would be one patient ahead of me, is to undergo a

hernia operation that should enable me to stand and walk long periods without the

pain in my groins, especially my left, and thighs forcing me to sit and rest, even with

the aid of powerful pain killers.

The hernia operation, an out-patient procedure, is scheduled for this week at

the UCMC.

I'm taking nothing for granted. Any operation can be a dangerous event.

Doctors aren't perfect. Sometimes, they mis-diagnose and sometimes they may

diagnose correctly but make a costly mistake in the operating room. The last thing

you want to hear a doctor say when you are on the operating table is "Opps!"

So, I'm praying that that goes as well as expected, too.

The Lord just keeps right on blessing me.

I don't deserve it. I don't deserve His grace and mercy. I don't deserve even

being alive right now. And I certainly don't deserve anybody's heart. They have to

make the supreme sacrifice for a heart transplant patient to get that heart to extend

his life.

I've done many wrongs in my life. I've made some terrible mistakes. I've hurt

some people, innocent people and guilty people. I've had my share of ups and

downs. But at the end of the day, I'm still here because God keeps right on blessing

me. And I'm saved by God's grace through faith that Jesus authored and finished.

I know some of you don't believe in God or any other god. Some of you

believe in good luck. Some of you believe in random chance. Some of you believe

in mind power, muscles, money, good looks, fine figure, so-called friends and other

things.

But as for me, make mine Jesus. I respect other people's faith in whomever

and whatever they want to worship. We are blessed to be in America, where we

can pick and choose our own praying ground.

But, once more, as for me and my house, we're going to keep serving the

Lord, believing in Jesus and praising God with His Holy Ghost. I'll take my place

with the Lord's despised few. But I'll started with Jesus 58 years ago when I

accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. And I'm going through.

Will somebody hold my mule and my straw hat while I take off my shoes and

dance and shout praise to the the Lord like I'm going out of my ever-loving mind?

Now there I go again, acting all Mississippi cotton field and stuff. But I won't

apologize. This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine.

What about you?

God bless you.

Joyce, my wife of 42 years, and I have just gotten back from our summer vacation.

Please, God, in Jesus' name I pray, don't let this be our last vacation together.

We had planned this vacation early last year, when we agreed that Joyce would retire at the end of July and that, if health and other circumstances permitted, I would retire at the end of the year.

My brain tumor, prostate cancer and end-staged congestive heart failure, for which the Mayo Clinic placed me on the heart transplant list last Nov. 5, placed fearful uncertainty on my being able to vacation with Joyce.

She can vacation all she wants now because she retired at the end of July. I couldn't because I was still working. And part of our vacation would have to be at our expense because my previous four weeks of vacation had been cut in half. Any extra vacations days would be without pay.

Then came my life-threatening 30-day hospital stay, after I had suffered a cardio-genic attack, a deadly member of the "heart attack" family. I was placed on life support twice and each time my family was called to my bedside to possibly watch me breathe my last breath.

"Is it alright to cry now?" my nine-year-old grandson, Timothy James Chapman, asked.

"You can cry if you feel like it," his mother, Nicole Chapman, said. "But what grandpa needs most of all is for us to pray for him and ask God to bring him through."

On Jan. 29, I underwent a life-saving implantation of a heart pump (Heartmate II, Left Ventricular Assist Device) at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Afterward, I was so weak I could not sit up in bed by myself. So I obviously could not stand or walk, either. I had to learn to do those all over again.

On Feb. 10, I was released from the hospital to come home as the chief recipient of answered prayers. Prayers that had been offered up to God by myself, my family and prayer partners like you.

Since then, I've been on the mend and were cleared to resume work on April 5. The company has been very helpful and understanding in not assigning me too much too soon. Some things, I still can't do too well.

* I can't climb the ramps at Wrigley Field without having to stop as rest at intervals.

* The same applies for the steep steps at Toyota Park.

* I can't stand too long for interviews before a back and legs start giving out.

* I can't run to post-game interviews as part of night-time deadline assignments.

* I can't go out on a news assignment without taking spar batteries for my heart pump, leaving extra early, taking pain pills to enable me to walk and stand long enough for interviews and always making sure I am near a rest room or a urinal.

I firmly believe that I am the only newspaper reporter handicapped in this way. But I'm still functional and my doctors agree that continuing to work is good for me mentally, physically and emotionally.

During my 45 years as a professional reporter, I have worked with reporters struggling with assorted physical handicaps. this is still the case. Some are blind. Some are paralyzed from the waist down. Some hobble around on crutches with a foot or leg in a cast. Some are in wheelchairs pushed by a caregiver. Some have battled terminal cancer to the very end until they could no longer work. Some are outfitted with pacemakers and defibrillators, artificial hips and artificial knees. Yet, they courageously go about their work as best they can and some perform better than others who have no handicap.

So I resumed preaching in Christian churches and working for the Sun-Times on April 5. For my first out-of-town assignments, I drove myself there, packed my $500,000 worth of machines that keep my heart pumping, and reassembled them in the hotels. When it was time to go out on assignment, I'd put in freshly charged batteries that would help my heart continue pumping for at least 12 hours before they need to be changed.

When Joyce and I left for vacation, I flew for the first time since being implanted with a heart pump. Because of my Premier status and an abundance of frequent flier points with United, we were about to fly first class, board the plane first, carry my heart equipment in roller luggage and store them in the overhead bends.

Because one bag weighs 25 pounds, I had to have help lifting it for the first time. Thereafter, I managed to store and remove them myself by sliding them out toward me. We went to Orlando and spent most of our time in the hotels except for when we went to a movie, went shopping or went to a restaurant.

Last year, we also went to Orlando and did Disney World with both of us riding in their motorized wheelchairs. My wife frequently crashed into me with her cart because, well, she was a bad driver.

I wasn't the first LVAD patient to fly. According to Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam, UCMC heart surgeon, who operated on me, and his assistant, Tracy Valeroso, other LVAD patients have been flying, too. One of Dr. V-J's recent LVAD implant patients flies regularly from Kuwait to Chicago for her heart care.

This information should be useful to those of you cogestive heart failure patients who may have to get a heart pump before you get a new heart. You can still work. You can still love. You can still play and you can still travel so long as you make sure you pack enough batteries to deal with an travel delays.

Yes, I was worried by serious problems other than my health during my vacaton. I've learned to pace myself and take my medicines in a manner to minimize painful side effects. There are serious pension issues yet to be resolved and that's tension, stress and anguish and anger I don't need.

But I'm blessed to be alive and as functional as I am. And it's largely, if not mostly, because of prayer. Thank you all for continuing to pray for me.

God bless you.

There was something delightful and frightful about the severe

thunderstorm that started my Father's Day weekend Friday.

The delightful thing is that I love serenades of thunderstorm and the

rhapsodies that the rains play upon my roof and against my window pane.

I love the pretty pictures from the sparkling diamond-like droplets of

rain that drizzle down the window panes and windshields. I love those

super-sensational summer rains.

I love the smell of rain in the balmy air just before its drops pelt my face

and its torrents ripple down my nose, jaws and chin. I love the pulsation of the

pelting. It is stimulating and invigorating.

That was the delightful thing about the thunderstorms that rocked the

Chicago area on Friday.

But there are also something quite frightful about that same delightful

summer rain. My neighborhood experienced a 4.5-hour power outage. That was

the first blackout I had experienced since my Jan. 29 open-heart surgery to have

a heart pump implanted to give me the life-saving pumping power my defective

mitral valve and left ventricle could no longer provide for the proper circulation of

blood to keep me alive until I get my new heart.

Once that Jan. 29 surgery made me a battery-operated, bionic man outside

the house, and a house-current-powered man when I go to bed, a power outage

became one of my most dangerous enemies.

The bedside power console that keeps me alive when I sleep went out. So

did the bedside charger of the 2-hour batteries that enable me to enjoy mobility

around

and outside the house.

Not only did the improved battery lives provide me comfort and confidence.

My eight batteries could thus sustain me for almost three days, and we've never

been without power for tmore than a day in the 34 years that my wife Joyce and I

have lived in Hazel Crest. But even better was the fact the blackout lasted just four

and a half hours.

Thank you, Jesus. When we heard on the newscasts that other areas were

hit much harder, with high winds uprooting trees and destroying property, and

downing power lines that would leave homes without electricity "for several days,"

Joyce and I thanked God that we weren't so unfortunate.

The return of electricity to our home Friday evening was welcomed. Then on

Saturday, my middle daughter, Noelle, let her nine-year-old son Caleb, my

youngest grandson, spend the night with Joyce and me.

For whatever reason, Caleb and I had the best bonding time that we have

ever had during the many times that he has stayed overnight with Joyce and me.

On Saturday, we went to a small lake to watch people fish and allow Caleb to

throw stones into the water for the first time in his life and to se those rocks

cause the water to erupt in splashes. Then we went to the grocery store for me to

buy some fruit and medicine and for him to get some candy.

Joyce and I then took him to an ice cream shop to buy and eat ice cream

there. I had a cup of the soft-serve vanilla ice cream. He and Joyce had one-scoop

cones of strawberry. Then we went to a park when he ran around and played.

Before home, we stopped at a drive-in to get some chicken.

That chicken was the smallest and most over-cooked chicken we've ever

had anywhere. But we salvaged what was left of the day when Caleb and I stayed

up until 3:30 a.m. to watch movies on our home DVD player. He loved "Avatar" and

a replay of the Laker-Celtic NBA championship-deciding Game 7. Then we

watched half of a Star Wars episode before I demanded that both of us go to

bed at 3:30 a.m.

The highlight of our late-night movie-watching, however, occurred at 12:30

a.m., when Caleb gave me my very first "Happy Father's Day" greeting.

"Grandpa," he said.

"Huh," I said.

"I love you," he said.

I love you, too," I said.

Wow! What joy he gave me with that affirmation of fervent affection!

Then Sunday morning, Joyce us a breakfast of the best pancakes and

bacon that we had ever eaten. Afterward, Caleb and I kneeled for prayer in the

living room. What a most enjoyable Father's Day for me, spending much of it

with my grandson, Caleb!

Meantime, to all you other good, dedicated fathers and grandfathers of

the world, "Happy Father's Day."

God bless you.

After spending a week being re-examined by doctors at the Mayo Clinic in

Rochester, Minn., I have been reclassified from Status 7 to Status 1B on the

national heart transplant list.

Thank you, Jesus!!!

Jody Hanson, highly celebrated veteran nurse and Mayo's heart transplant

coordinator, called me with the good news on Monday, June 14. She did so after

she had gotten the decision reached by the clinic's academy of cardiologists,

cardiac surgeons and other physicians and specialists who make these decisions

after reviewing the patient's latest medical information.

The highest rating is Status 1A. These congestive heart failure patients get

the first crack at a new heart because they are in serious condition, have suffered

a fresh heart attack, or they are already in-patients in one of Mayo's local hospitals.

The second rating is Status 1B--mine. This is for patients who are in dire

need of a heart transplant but are not in critical condition because medicines,

like Dobutamine, a so-called amphetamine for the heart, or a heart pump has

stabilized their health.

Mayo first placed me on the national heart transplant list on Nov. 5, 2009.

After being placed on the heart transplant list, I was hoping that my next major

surgery would be the heart transplant. I had already been through a triple bypass

on Feb. 14, 2001, another major surgery three months later to correct the failure

to stabilize my sternum on Feb. 14, a stenting of my main left artery in November of

2005, another stenting in May of 2006, a brachetherapy on May 21, 2008, when

radiation seeds were injected into my prostate to fight prostate cancer and a back

surgery on Aug. 10, 2009.

While preparing to return to the Mayo in January to be admitted to the

hospital in preparation for a 1A status, I suffered a life-threatening cardio-genic

shock on Jan. 11 while desperately trying to confirm a phone call from Blue Cross

Blue Shield telling me that they had been informed that my 38-year employment

with the Sun-Times and my heart insurance had both been terminated.

Is there any worse news a heart transplant candidate can receive?

The Jan. 11 setback resulted in a 30-day hospital stay where I was on life

support twice and had to have open-heart surgery on Jan. 29 at the University of

Chicago Medical Center, where world-renown cardiac surgeon, Dr. Valluvan

Jeevanandam, implanted the heart pump that probably saved my life and since

has been sustaining me until I get a new heart.

Baring a new setback or other changes, my next operation will be a heart

transplantation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. That could happen today,

tomorrow, next week, next month or later this year or next year, whenever a

heart is made available for a patient like me with B positive blood.

As some of you already know, and for you who don't, "O" blood (negative or

positive) is the most common blood type. "A", positive or negative, is the second

most common blood type. Then, "B", positive or negative, is the third most common.

"So your chances of getting a new heart are better than most because of

your blood type," Hanson said.

Status 1B means that I must now be prepared to be on the operating table

in four hours once I have been informed that a new heart is available for me.

Because Chicago is 365 miles from Rochester, I would have to be transported

by air ambulance to the Mayo to comply with the four-hour time window.

Another bit of good news during my extensive tests at the Mayo is the fact

that my PSA, which was 5.7 when my prostate cancer was diagnosed on April 10,

2008, is now at .36, its lowest since my dire diagnosis. This means my prostate

cancer remains in aggressive regression.

Oh what a mighty God we serve!

Now, by the grace and mercy of God, I am one step away from my new heart.

I was hoping to have that new heart by now since my wife of 42 years, Joyce, is

retiring next month and we want to have at least one more grand vacation before

the sun sets on our lives.

My father-in-law, Roscoe Wooten, worked hard at two jobs supporting his

family before retiring at age 64 . Then he died a few months later from lung

cancer.

My father, the late Rev. A.D. Banks, never saw any retirement before he

died of a stroke also at age 64.

My dear mother, Sarah Lorraine Banks, died of blooding poisoning at age

42 after the 13th baby she was bearing died in her womb and she, for several

reasons influenced by racism in Mississippi, where we lived at the time, could not

receive appropriate medical care in time.

I've obviously been through a lot. My body has been on bloody battlefield for a

phethora of sicknesses and surgeries.

But God has brought me through.

God remains my refuge and strength, a very present help in my times of

trouble.

God remains my primary care physician.

God's amazing grace remains sufficient for me. His mercy remains

everlasting and His truth still endures to all generations.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me, bless His holy name.

God bless you.

I made what could have been a fatal mistake Sunday. I went to cover a

Chicago Wolves hockey playoff game and forgot to carry a spare pair of

batteries that power the heart pump that is keeping me alive until I get a heart

transplant.

Everything would have been alright if I had remembered or if my wife Joyce would

have reminded me to change into a fresh pair of batteries when I left home. Or if I had

packed a spare pair. Or if the game had ended in regulation. Or if the game had ended in

the first overtime.

But once the game was extended an extra 70-something minutes by going

into second overtime, something told me to check my batteries because I already

had been using them for 10 hours and they normally are supposed to last me

12 hours.

Understand, now, that once my pump stops being powered by batteries

or by AC current, I'm a dead man within minutes because my heart will cease to

pump blood. The implantation of the pump retired my heart from having a

heartbeat because my blood circulation became powered by the D-size-battery

pump attached to my heart.

Normally, I pack a spare pair when I got out of the house for a

newspaper or preaching assignment because I never know how long I would

be out. I could get in a car accident or a traffic jam resulting from somebody else

having an accident. That way, I'm in good shape for at least 24 hours.

But Sunday, stupid me just left home wearing a pair of batteries that already

had been on me for just over five hours. I should have changed into a fresh pair

or packed a spare pair. I did neither.

On the sides of my batteries is a five-dot meter that tells me how much

charge is left in the battery. Five is 80 to 100 percent. Four is 60-80 percent. Three

means 40 to 60 percent. I change batteries one he meter ready two dots. But what

put me in trouble Sunday was that I live an hour's drive from Allstate Arena,

where the game was being played. Plus, it takes from 30 to 40 minutes for me to do

my post-game interviews, write and file my story.

Once I saw my meter flashed three dots, I did not know how close that was

to two dots and the game wasn't even over yet. It ended just before I left the press

room to rush home to change batteries. Thank goodness, this was an afternoon

game because that gave me extra time to file. With the help of Wolves publicist

Elizabeth Casey and coach Don Lever and a couple of players, I was able to get

the necessary phone interviews once I arrived home at 7:30 p.m.

Tracy Valeroso, the right-hand nurse of Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam,

world-famous cardiac surgeon a the University of Chicago Medical Center, had

already given me an exrta pair of exactly for these potential emergencies.

What if there had been one of those 18-wheeler jack-knife accident that blocked

all lanes and tied of traffic for miles and hours? What if I had been stranded in

something that and my batteries ran out? Well, you would be reading this or

any other blog entry from me anymore.

This pump has changed my life immensely after its implantation saved

my life. It is now a part of my body. It is my lifeline. It is more than just my little

friend. It presently is imperative for my survival.

So keep praying for me. Pray that I not only get a new heart, but that I not

forget always have at least one backup pair of batteries whenever I leave for

whatever.

God bless you.

My heart is better, much better after my Jan. 29th surgery where Dr.

Valluvan Jeevanandam implanted a heart pump at the University of Chicago

Medical Center. The pump will keep me alive until I can get a heart transplant.

In the interim, I'm feeling better, sleeping better, breathing better, walking

and talking and preaching better.

But my heart is very troubled over some other issues that won't let me rest

and threaten my life for I can not, for the life of me, abide them. Sometimes, one,

if he has strong principles, can be battered and backed into a corner so much

that he has to take a stand to the death. He has to fight for what's right. He has

to sacrifice for what is his. He's got to take an over-my-dead-body position.

The last thing I want this blog to be is overly morbid where every time you

look around I'm in trouble with a sad song to sing and some dragons to slay. But

that is the fate of us all. It is part of the dues we have to pay for living and working

with other people, who don't always keep their word or respect your rights or

your family's security. So I won't share the details. But I will say that if I told you,

99 per cent of you would be shocked. angry, compassionate and supportive.

So let's touch on the main positives. I'm back to work and back to

preaching and my first two weeks were successful and encouraging. I had to

function being hooked up to batteries and having to carry expensive, fragile

heart equipment on the back floors of my car on an out-of-town assignment

to Milwaukee. But the hotel bellmen and the hotels were very understanding and

helpful.

When all the handicapped parking spaces were taken, the hotels allowed

me to park right out front, just a few paces from the front door. I don't feel I ready

to fly yet. But that doesn't mean I won't. I most like will fly long before I actually

feel comfortable about doing so. It will be a leap of faith and an exertion of extra

energy.

Understand, now, that my heart is still weak. I am still an end-stage

congestive heart failure patient. And as a patient implanted with an LVAD

(Left ventricular Assist Device), I am even more in need or a heart transplant.

I still get tired easily. Steps and stairs are still drudgery and painful, depending

upon the number of steps I have to scale going upward. Coming down steps is

much easier because gravity is on my side. I still have to be careful going down

each step because I still have not regained full balance and strength in my legs.

But gravity makes it much easier for me to go down stairs rather than upstairs.

Then there are the cables. There is the main cable that is the lifeline

because it connects the heart pump inside me to battery power and the AC power

outside. There are the cable that connect to a bedside power console that keeps

me alive whilst I sleep.

I don't like them. They are a constant nuisance. But because they are

utterly vital toward keeping me alive, I am having to not just tolerate them but get

friendly and maybe even fall in love with them. After all, they are my little friends

helping me to feel better and to stay alive.

I thank God for the heart pump.

I thank God for the gift of heart transplantation.

Even my seven-year-old grandson, Caleb, knows the grief-stricken

gravity of my situation. The other day--and, you know, kids are something, they

can knock your socks off with their rapid rate of learning powerful realities--my

grandson Caleb and I were talking about my situation. And the subject of my

needing a heart transplant came up. And Caleb said in flawless flow, "Yes, and

you are going to have to wait until somebody else dies so that you are get their

heart to stay alive."

I said, "Yes, that's true son. It's regretful and unfortunate in many ways. But

that's the way things are."

I'm assuming that his mother, my darling daughter Noelle, took him off

to the side and explain these things to him. But maybe I even dropped this on

him one day in our random conversations. But that kid soaked up these details

like a sponge and they became a free-flowing part or my vocabulary and

mindset evidenced by the ease with which he spoke of the seeming ironic

ordeal of one saving his life at the expense of somebody else losing theirs.

I am not worthy on my own merits, and never will be, to live at somebody

else's expense. It is a gift that is priceless. You can never thank the benefactor

nor his wife, husband, mother, father, son, daughter, sister or brother enough

for the sacrifice. Not that that person died on purpose. Not that that person

donated a heart as one does a kidney, because a kidney donor is still left

alive unless he had donated his organs in the event of his untimely? death.

And what exactly is an untimely death? What death is ever planned

with clockwork precision except for a suicide? But the bottom line to me is that

I get to live because somebody else died. Still, on the other hand, why ever a

good heart go to waste if its host is dead and it can keep another person alive?

Let us continue to pray for each other and especially our secret

sufferings. Regretfully, even if I got a new heart, it would still be troubled by

my new challenges of troubles. But God is able to do anything. His grace is

sufficient to supply all our needs. We can do all things through Christ Jesus,

who strengthens us.

God bless you.