Jim Huffman

My story doesn’t start out much different than many country kids in Southwest Missouri.  Born to hard working parents, Mother wed at 15, finished school, and married before having me, was the first great accomplishment.  I grew up in town and on the farm with my Uncle and Aunt while my Mom went through health issues, was my first character building experience.  Yes, I have used outdoor toilets, awakened to bacon and eggs crackling on a wood stove and had to pick up walnuts for extra money in the fall.. I did a lot of bucket sitting during that chore.  If you have ever ridden a school bus 40 miles to school you know what yellow fever really is.

My passion over the years moved to horses and still is a large part of our everyday family life.  Maybe not the most financially responsible decision, but definitely the most gratifying. Here is where it all started changing.  My father was a lifetime smoker as most young men were in those days.  He suffered his first heart attack playing golf with me in a father and son tournament at the age of 38.  He survived but without an ambulance to take him to Springfield from Ava and with a teenager at the wheel, it was a wonder we even made it. My college career didn’t last long for many reasons and  I set out to become a horse trainer.  Then is where I really found my true love, Miss Donna.  It was dynamite. We were married on leave after  a low drafter number greeted me into adult life and we headed to the UP with a car top carrier and some much needed wedding gifts.

Then the tragedy, Dad’s second heart attack.  It was bad and with a sick grandfather, Uncle Sam let me come home on leave.  At 2am on the way home from the hospital I passed my Grandparents home and lights were on.  It wasn’t right so I stopped.  Granddad had passed in his sleep and we had to tell Dad the next day.  We lost him that afternoon and in a blink, my two guiding lights were gone.  What now.  Now became an order to be shipped to Vietnam.  With a lot of scrambling, the USAF made me an offer – Go home without any benefits or pack my dry socks and fly.  We loaded up a wrecked motorcycle and what was left of wedding gifts and headed back to the big city, Springfield.  Thank God Donna was still a phone operator and Ma Bell welcomed her back.

I was introduced to the factory life and worked nonstop at Dayco.  Horses would just have to wait for a while so we could start a family and finish growing up.  I don’t think either happened and we just started piling kids and horses in vehicles.  We were lucky to get back home in the wee hours of the mornings.  The factory job somehow changed to the car business and maybe I did grow up some because it was a cruel world out there in business.  I learned some good things and some bad things from guys along the way until I found that one very special man, Paul Schubach.  His theory of life and business was, “Tell it right the first time and you never have to remember what you said.”  Why is that so hard for the world to understand?

Paul, or Chunk, as he was called, was a Prince in the community.  He always knew how to connect with a person, whether in the wash bay or to the next Governor and later Attorney General of our country.  I was the luckiest guy in the world because he took me on that trip.  I had dinners with Stan the Man, signed Inaugural Decrees and  took trips only found in books.  And then the biggest heart on the planet stopped.

I hope you are getting the pattern of my life.  The heart is the organ and the soul that makes life exist.  My life has been changed by people with big hearts, but weak hearts.

After the loss of my mentor, my life took another direction.  I entered the insurance business and found a new day in the week, Saturday.  The horses multiplied and life and family blossomed.  My love got to retire and after a gear change I became the boss.  How did that even happen?

Then in a flash the theme music returned.  I had my first myocardial infarction.  Now it is a real thing, not just an attack on a part of your body. We dealt with it and because of another God-send to our life, Tom Naught, we survived.  The recovery went well and unlike celebrity rehab, cardiac rehab worked the pump back in shape.  That work was didn’t stick because the big one was a comin’.  I went down on the hottest day of the year and after a dozen shocks and broken ribs I survived again.

The next year was a challenge with family, business and the good old USDA thing, went down hill again.  A great guy with the best beside manner, Dr. Steven Rowe, had the only option, transplant.  Why rock the boat, let’s go for it!

This is were Heart to Heart really took on meaning and I do mean several meanings. Please follow my transplant experience as it will appear in different parts of my Special Cousin’s Caring and Giving Idea, Heart to Heart News.

Be sure to click each section below for more good reading…

• Doctors
• Anti-rejection Drugs
• Would you like to listen?
• Listen
• Superman
• What is Recovery?
• New Lease on Life – New! December 21, 2012
• Thank you …

This part of the trip really started with Dr. Steve, my local device doc (stints & pacers).  Although I was lucky enough to land the head of cardiology on my fist MI, I ended up having most of my work done by Dr. Steve.  As I have said,  you have to drive your own boat, so that is what I did.  I picked Dr. Steve as my go-to guy and that is what made this all possible.  He was a prior member of the staff here at St Luke’s and he made the referral.  My first visit was a little delayed by a med records mix-up.  That also is another story to come, but  with a happy ending.

So off we go to KC downtown on the Plaza, that is the upper class spot of the Midwest.  All the tall buildings, fancy shops and folks selling pies on the street corner was a cultural mix not found in the Ozarks every day.  St. Luke’s is a nice place, with an underground entry and a real streamline check-in that even I couldn’t have designed any better.  The next few folks were not docs but set the tone for how we were to be treated everyday.  From Derek the tech to Jennifer, these people were involved and committed.

This was an education day and not being approved yet, we did not know what to expect, but  it worked.  Our eagerness and the records delay seemed to help get us a jump start and we scheduled to come back in just a few days to be incarcerated for the “Eval”.  We were told what to expect and here is where the white coat parade started.  I guess I was a little sicker than everyone thought so a three day tour turned into a seven day hospital stay.  I saw not only one doc for a test, I saw a team of docs for every test.  It seemed most were of mid-Eastern heritage, with a splash of everything except old fat white guys like all country kids grew up with, and then He walked in.  Dr. Jimmy strolled in and sat down and said,  I am by myself but I am one of the surgeons you will never see.  My comment was “I just thought you were the token white guy,” and he turned kinda red and ducked his head and smirked.  And yes, I have never seen him again, but he was very memorable and just the country doc everyone loved in the big city. As the eval continued, we had skin docs, cancer docs, blood docs and some that I had no idea what they were nor could I understand what they were saying.  There was one common theme, they were there for one thing and that was to get me a new heart and they wanted to make dang sure when I got it, that it was getting a good home.  We passed.

I do want to add one thing and that is, some folks sometimes make comments about attitudes of these professionals.  I have heard and met some like Napoleon syndrome and God complex.  The last is one I have thought about a lot.  I don’t think it is that they have a complex but they have to be just a little smarter to figure out just how complex our God really is.  I hope the only extra part they ended up with after me, was the old one.  Try fixing your old toaster for a starter and them maybe you’ll get an idea of what it would be like to stick your hands into another persons body.

Thanks guys and girls! But a special thanks to the cutest creature on the planet, Dr. B.  wear that little red ribbon every once and a while.

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Anti-Rejection Drugs

This seems like a good idea, Anti rejection. Think about it. This could be a social media breakthrough. Maybe they need an app for that to cure the tweetie flu and the facebook ackine. Give it to the kids that can’t except other views or that might have inherited some kinda media bug that mutated from the coffee shop strains of their folks, gossip. We blame technology for today society, crap, it started someplace other than with a few semiconductors and mother boards. Maybe it was more like some boarded mothers. It could have even been the old party line, ever listen in to your neighbors?  I am sure if you did you never told anyone. That was social media at it’s start.

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“Would you like to listen?”

It would be shocking to count the number of nurses that have had a hand in my care over the past months. But there was one little gesture that put a big lump in my throat.

Kristen is one of my favorite names, which is obvious by the naming of our baby after the girl that shot JR. But this little Nurse Kristen was a bundle of joy. She was a chart-er. When she asked a question you better watch your answer because her next comment was “I’ll chart that.”  Yes, she accounted for every ounce that went in and out; down to the number of laps I walked in the wee hours of the morning, it went into my records.

Late on my second day back to the floor after leaving CICU, she came in to take my vitals. She did her very thorough exam and started to walk off to do her charting. She stopped, turned around and just ask, ” do you want to listen?”

It hit me like a big rock. She gently put her scope in my ears and touched the cold object to my chest. Thump, thump, thump. Tears flowed. I was whole again. What more can I say.

 

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Superman

Our bodies talk to us in different ways.  There’s pain, fatigue and other strange feelings I have never experienced until this transplant.  One of the strangest is the euphoric feeling of energy that has come with blood flow, something  I haven’t had for years.   But there is not enough strength in the muscles to take advantage of the energy you feel.

It is kind of like Superman going into a phone booth to change into his flying suit and can’t get out of the booth.  Is it my tail of the cape is caught on the door and I can’t get it open?  Or is it my body telling me it’s just not time yet.  Like I said, listen.

 

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What is Recovery?

As far as surgical recovery, I am finding out it comes in stages.  It is talked about.  It is written about in volumes and monitored by all the medical professionals, but it is ours to navigate.  Definitely  read and listen, but the thing you really need to listen to is your own body. One of the last things the Docs say before surgery is that they will see us in recovery.

Step one is that unit with different Cs and Is and some places have a V or other letters, but it is all the same.  CVICU is a fish bowl.  A few family members come in as the world begin to opens up.  My first feeling was my head bouncing off the pillow.  Wow,  it worked.  Man, this thing can pump!  I was a lucky guy because the tube was already out of my throat.  I didn’t feel anywhere close to as bad as I had expected to or was told I would.  Stage one went great for me, how was yours?

Stage two begins with going to “the floor.”  I was looking forward to that and then reality hit.  The soreness hit and the sleepy bowel that would not wake up.  It is not something I want to talk about,  but it is a reality that hits some of us.  Be prepared; I wasn’t.  But when “it passed” recovery jumped into high gear.  I can hardly remember the next couple of days, and I thought my recovery was over.

 

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New Lease on Life

As I continue to get better, it seems like it is hard to find time to write down my experiences. I am sure that is just part of the process for everyone. But now is the time I need to pay attention to some of the things people say.

I just had the privilege of doing some assigned Christmas shopping. And one of the guys at the tool store (at least I get to shop at the good places) has had some foot problems. The last I was in he was using a walking boot so I asked about his foot. He was surprised I remembered and as we talked I told him about my transplant. His parting comment was “I bet you feel like you have a new lease on life.” When I got in the car it hit me, yes that is just what it is, a lease.

It is up to each of us to make sure we don’t lose our security deposit and get evicted from our body. That almost happened to me. We all do have a real landLord. It is up to us to take care of our bodies and souls.

Taking care of this new heart is the real responsibility of the lease. I want to eat all those things I have missed over the past years and have now figured out I really didn’t miss them as bad as I thought. I had some fried bologna, biscuits and gray, and a ham steak –have not eaten a corndog, yet. I have a program to curb my eating habit and will share it with you only if you have the stomach for it. I asked Cindy to make a magic button to click on to see my old heart. Yes, the old one on a platter. Only click if you are ready to see a used body part.

I only hope that I get a chance to show my new one to all of you for the cards, prayers and support.

 

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Thank You To A Special Cousin

Just what is a cousin?   Is it a sister from another mother and your daddy’s brother?  Or is it the little girl you grew up with playing in the yard at your grandparents farm?  Or is it a good memory of that special person you always regret you forgot to call on Christmas or Thanksgiving?  Don’t let that happen to you, like it did to me.  Recapture that person in your life.  Just do it.  Call and set up a cousin’s dinner and get the gang together.  You might be surprised who will come and how much fun it could be for both of you or all of you.

I am so thankful my special cousin did just that.  With a couple of dinners we reconnected and almost forty years disappeared. This website and a deep family relationship started just that way.  I think God everyday for my heart, my wife, my kids and recently my cousin.  Cindy, thank you.  With your effort and your daughter’s vision, we hope to be able to inform and educate people on how to give the gift of life. 

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