Next week, I'll check into Mayo, one of the world's premier hospitals, to undergo additional treatment in preparation for receiving a new heart. Since my brain tumor turned out to be benign and my prostate cancer has responded to treatment, doctors there said those issues no longer should disqualify me as a candidate for a heart transplant.With the competetion for patients underway as the large health care system land-grab extends across state lines and overseas (See here and here), have the selection criteria for transplant patients remained a form of rationing or really become a form of marketing?
Now that I'm on the list, I am on an around-the-clock standby alert. I have to be ready to be on the operating table within four hours once a compatible heart becomes available. The fact that Chicago is 331 miles from Mayo, in Rochester, Minn., complicates things since I don't have my own charter jet. But the Mayo Med Air charter service could assist me if a commercial flight can't get me there quickly enough.
The challenge now is the wait. The heart I need will become available only when the donor is declared brain-dead and his heart can be taken from him and implanted in me within four hours. I am told the fact my blood type is B positive increases the chances of me getting a transplant quicker, though there are other patients ahead of me.
I had wanted it all to happen at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where world-renowned Dr. Valluvan Jeevanandam, who performed a triple-bypass on me in 2001, has done more than 1,000 transplants. But that hospital takes a more conservative approach to the fact my prostate cancer still is in remission. They wouldn't put me on the transplant list until I had been using an implanted heart pump ''for several years.''
Fortunately, the Mayo Clinic and Northwestern Memorial Hospital feel I have progressed enough in my recovery from the slow-growing prostate cancer to be eligible for a heart now.
I wonder.
-Wes
Seriously, how old is this person? If you have prostate CA you can't be too young (even if it is in 'remission'--and all you doctor-types know that the 5-year survivability of prostate CA is the same if you get 'full' treatment or eat baloney sandwiches). After doing a cardiac transplant for a 50ish gentleman with CRI and diabetes (who received a healthy 19 y.o. heart) I personally shredded my donor card. The hospitals love to talk about that preteen/teenager who received a new organ and went on to live a normal life but a majority of the organs (in my experience) go to those who have little life expectancy left.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone has the right to life. This is sacred. The fact that there are medical centers who are willing to give you a chance to fight for life and not worried about their statistics is admirable.
ReplyDeleteAs a 36 year old with cardiomyopathy who was able to go to class I from III with a bivent, going back to congestive heart failure and needing a heart transplant is my biggest fears. I also have an abonormal origination of circumflex artery and always wondered if in case I do need a surgery for bypass or transplant if they could do it or I would be rejected. This is a question I am afraid to ask my cardiologist. Hopefully I would never have to discuss it. The fact that there are places like Mayo Clinic is encouraging that would never give up. I am surprised about University of Chicago rejecting the guy as they are known as the place who would take cases that no one else would take.
E