Laugh of the Day

You must, must, MUST, click on this link for a wonderful, hilarious transplant cartoon I've had up on my refrigerator for about two years now. You will NOT regret it. I think it's important to one's wellbeing to laugh every day. Once upon a time, I worked at this job from hell. In fact, we called it The Job From Hell. And my secretary turned to me one day, as we were all going through YET ANOTHER meltdown, and she said to me, "You know what I love about you? Whenever there's a problem, you laugh first. That's cool." LOL...

My Cleavage

It's going to be a slice of my life today. I went for my first mammogram. I was very reticent to go. As I always am when I need to go see doctors. Like I've said in the past, I waited to long to see a transplant program and look what happened to me. LOL. But I had legitimate reasons to be concerned over the mammogram (or so I think. LOL). No one in my immediate family has had breast cancer. I've heard false positives are common (okay, okay, it's about 9%. But that's too high for me). And then I hear that Europe starts annual testing when women hit 50, instead of 40, and its mortality rate for breast cancer is the same at the US. Of course, all this snowballed until I started thinking, "well, maybe this is all a giant money-making conspiracy by the medical establishment." And then, finally, on Saturday, I went out with some friends. Well, they just SCARED THE LIFE OUT OF ME! One said she screamed. The other, who has... a very ample bosom, told me they squished her down to an inch. AN INCH. And my friends aren't crybabies, they're tough. Texas TOUGH. I left that excursion PARALYZED WITH FEAR.

But I went anyway.

Why go? I have insurance, that wasn't the issue. I guess it's because my meds put me at higher risk for cancer. And they keep badgering me over at the Transplant Center (hereinafter known as "The Program," does that sound adequately sinister?) to get more preventative care, so I just sucked it up and went.

Compared to having my chest cracked open and my heart yanked out, it wasn't so bad. Really. Cross my heart...ha ha. Got that one too. There was some pressure ,but it wasn't bad. I kept thinking of that arterial tap they gave me in the hospital when I was waiting for my heart. Most of the time they take blood from your veins. Tapping an artery is both more difficult and more painful. Gosh, I think that was the worst pain I've ever felt. That, and sneezing shortly after they put in my heart. Man, that was bad. This, this squashing of my boobs, really, it was nothing.

Moral of the story: Get your mammogram. It's a walk in the park. Kinda.

A Superhero With a Heart Transplant

The news today hasn't been good. The deaths at Fort Hood cast a pall on our Austin community. In addition, the news reports that Goldman Sachs and Citigroup in NYC have vaccinated "at-risk" employees for swine flu. Of course they have. Because the world would just stop if the investment bankers got sick, right? So, that news is for another blog. Let's get our minds off bad news today. Today we talk comic books.

Buddy and Sissy have started expressing interest in action heroes. Last night, as a reward for good report cards, we watched Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr. My kids loved the movie. And I love Robert Downey Jr. (especially now that he's clean). Hey, I'm an eighties girl at heart (ha ha, yeah, I got it). That being said, IRON MAN IS MY NEW HERO!!!

The premise of the comic is slightly different from the movie, in that the 1960's comic focuses on the Viet Cong as the villains, and the movie casts the villains as the more modern Afghanis. The main character is Tony Stark, playboy billionaire and weapons manufacturer.

Captured by the guerrilla army, Stark is coerced into making a weapon for the Vietcong, but teams up with fellow prisoner Professor Yinsen and builds a suit of armor that gives him the power to escape and keep his heart beating. Later, Stark would use his armor to battle super villains and other criminals.

Despite his new power, Stark would always have to wear his chest plate to stay alive, granting him an Achilles heel that Lee felt was important to all Marvel heroes. Although Stark received a heart transplant in Iron Man #19 (November 1969), subsequent comic book writers would cripple Stark in other ways, most notably by making him an alcoholic in Iron Man #120 (March 1979).

http://graphicnovelscomics.suite101.com/article.cfm/ the_real_origin_of_iron_man#ixzz0W1pdTSRP

Fascinating right? In the movie, this pacemaker looks almost like an LVAD. In the beginning, it's attached to a car battery. Interestingly, Stark's heart troubles contributed to his popularity.

The dichotomy of a frail man in a powerful suit of armor interested readers, allowing the Iron Man comic book to become a success. To Lee’s surprise, however, many of these fans were female. In a December 2006 talk, later included in the DVD Marvel Then and Now: An Evening with Stan Lee and Joe Quesada (2007), Lee recalls that the Iron Man comic book received more fan mail from female fans than any other Marvel comic book, and speculates that women were attracted to Stark’s vulnerable heart and wanted to take care of him.

Id.

Sigh, I get that all the time (tossing my hair). But it's hard to believe. A disabled superhero? A superhero with a ... gasp... heart transplant? Long live Iron Man! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment to preserve truth, justice and the American way. (Cue the music.)

Donate Life Hollywood Says....

I didn't even know there WAS a Donate Life Hollywood, but I know there are many celebrities who will face transplants someday, or perhaps already have, so here's to them! I got this message from Donate Life NY, from the Hollowood Chapter. Be sure to set your DVRs!:

On November 10, 2009 at 10pm the documentary D Tour will have its broadcast premiere on PBS’s Independent Lens. Everyone from the Donate Life community who has seen the film loves it. D Tour is unique because it shows the entire organ donation and transplant process unfold through one man’s story.

The film is about Pat, a drummer for Rogue Wave, undergoing peritoneal dialysis as he travels with his band and captures how it feels to wait for an organ. Through Pat’s friends we see the testing needed to become a living donor and meet two different families who give consent for the donation of a deceased loved one. There is a first time meeting between donor and recipient, a donor remembrance ceremony to honor deceased donors and a six antigen match kidney. With great music, high production value and lots of emotion you will see our stories in Pat’s story. Find out more about the film at: http://itvs.org/pressroom/press_detail.php?pressId=6677

Japan Has its First Living Lung Donor!

Japan just had its first living donation of two lung lobes! We've actually been talking about Japan and efforts to increase organ donation. I can't figure out how to fix the red highlighting on this snippet so I'm just going to leave it. This from the Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology:

On October 28, the first lung transplant operation was performed for a woman with serious lung disease in Okayama University Hospital, Okayama. The recipient of this operation, a 24-year-old woman, has been suffering from severe bronchiectasis, repeated pneumonia, and chronic respiratory failure since the age of 4. Her general condition had been relatively stable until late September this year, when she was admitted to Shinsyu University Hospital, Nagano, where she was living, due to worsening of the disease. She was then transported by helicopter to Okayama University Hospital whose ethics committee approved the living-donor transplant. In spite of new Japan's Organ Transplant Law, which took effect in October last year, no transplant operation has been performed from brain-dead donors so far. Therefore, since no brain-dead donor was expected in the immediate future, and since the patient's condition was getting worse, transplant operation was considered from the living donor. After one each diseased lobe of patients own lung was removed from both sides, healthy lobes of lung from the patient's 48-year-old mother and 21-year-old sister were transplanted. Surgical procedures were reported to be finished successfully. Further postoperative care is to be focused on the control of the rejection and infection of bacteria and fungi. So far as the present situation continues that transplant from the living donor is least expected, the sources for transplant cannot but rely on the living donors. For this reason, the partial liver transplant also has been performed from the living donors in Japan.

Lung Transplant, Cancer and the UK

I wanted to present this story in a way that does not discourage people from seeking transplants. Oftentimes, people resist the idea of joining The Transplantee Club (that's joke, there is no club) because they are frightened. I know this was the case with me. I waited too long to get on the list and as a result, it went a lot harder on both me and my family. I don't want to contribute to anyone saying, "well, I read this blog and it said X,Y and Z, and now I feel justified in saying I don't want a transplant." That's BS.

So I'm just going to come right out and say this, and I'm putting it in bold: This post is not intended to scare recipients. This post's purpose is to illustrate the lack of donors in the United Kingdom and to encourage increased organ donation.

That being said, a friend emailed me a story about a lung recipient -- an Iraqi war veteran -- who developed lung cancer passed on from his donor's lungs. The Times Online reports:

An Iraq war veteran died after receiving cancerous lungs from a heavy smoker in a transplant.

Matthew Millington, 31, a corporal in the Queen’s Royal Lancers, had the operation to save him from an incurable respiratory condition.

But the organs were from a donor who was believed to have smoked 30 to 50 roll-up cigarettes a day. A tumour was found after the transplant, and its growth was accelerated by the drugs that Mr Millington took to prevent his body rejecting the organs.

Because he was a cancer patient, he was not allowed to receive a further pair of lungs, under hospital rules. The soldier had radiotherapy but died at home in Stoke-on-Trent in February last year.

I actually enjoyed this comment from Bob Street following this article:

As many others have said, condolences to this brave family and thank you for displaying such dignity.

However, has anyone noticed the statistics quoted? 51% of all transplants come from smokers. The last I heard, only about 25% of the UK population are now still regular smokers. So, whilst non-smokers like to take the moral high ground on "the filthy habit", it seems that it's the smokers who are most happy to take the trouble to donate their organs. (Does this explain why the nicest, most personable people at parties and gatherings are always those standing outside "having a ciggy"?)

I completely agree. The United Kingdom has the lowest rate of organ donation amongst Western European countries. The lack of UK donations is documented in this article:

According to a study conducted by the UK Transplant organization it is found that the organ donation among the people of UK have fallen sharply. The main reason sited is that the relatives and family members are reluctant to allow transplantation procedures. Statistics show that out of 1 million only 12 come forward to donate their organs for transplant. The results of the study are published in the British Medical Journal. The family members deny their consent for organ donation.

In addition, Great Britain has only done 146 lung transplants in two years. 85 people died waiting. Moreover, the lungs used on Cpl. Millington were screened for tumors and found to be clear. Can a physician tell just by looking at the lungs, "Hey, these are cancerous! In five years (or in this case, a year), this guy's going to get cancer!" I don't know, but it seems unlikely. No one has a crystal ball, right? The question becomes: Do you want to wait for a nonsmoker to come along and donate or do you want to live? The only answer is: Increase British donation rates so eventually they can turn smokers away.

My Friend Jasmine is in the Daily News!

Yesterday, my pal Jasmine and her donor Barry were the subject of a beautiful article published in New York's Daily News. Jasmine survived not only her heart transplant, but a pregnancy post-transplant. And oh my gosh, her children are beautiful!!! I am lucky to count Jasmine as my friend. She and I formed an online support group for younger HTP survivors, and there was a period when we just had each other to talk to (thanks for putting up with me, sweetie!). She's a blessing to me, to our support group, and to her daughters.

Read it all here: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/11/01/2009-11-01_every_day_is_a_blessing_after_heart_transplant.html?page=1#ixzz0Veh6wsQO