This is the Health Show, a presentation of national productions.
You meet the most interesting people doing a show on health every week.
Some are brilliant, some are funny, and some, like you just want to take home and introduce
them to mom.
On today's Health Show, we'll visit one more time with some of the most interesting people
we ran across this year.
For two siblings to have a hard transplant, to both have hard transplant, we are, I believe,
one of four families in the country should be under the circumstances.
We'll hear from a pair of brothers who both needed hard transplants, talk to a New York
actress who turned a life-altering accident into a one-woman show, and get some more words
of wisdom about weight loss from our friend Sandy D.
I'm Dr. Nina Sack.
I'm Bob Barrett, and this is the Health Show.
Two teenagers from Northern New York are spreading the word about the importance of
organ donation.
What makes their effort different is that their family faced a rare circumstance.
Both brothers needed a hard transplant.
The Health Show's Pat Bradley visited student athletes Conor and Brock Marvin and talked
about their experiences and their advocacy for organ donation.
Brock Marvin is 18 years old and will study sports marketing at college beginning this
fall on an athletic scholarship.
Sixteen-year-old Conor Marvin is on the soccer team at Elizabeth Town Lewis High School.
Brock received a heart transplant in December 2010.
Younger brother Conor's procedure occurred this year.
I received mine this year much first.
Return to school about a month and a half after, and it's good to be home again.
Now you both had the heart transplants due to something called dilated cardiomyopathy?
You have dilated cardiomyopathy.
It's a genetic condition and it was passed on through our mother and we unfortunately
both inherited it.
And I understand that not everybody has to have a transplant when they have this condition,
though.
A lot of times you can live with this condition with medications that regulate different
things in your body.
You're able to live with it.
It can be taken care of.
Our risk was very severe so we ended up getting weak enough to the point where we had to
have transplants.
How unusual is it for multiple members of a family to get to that point?
I've been told by several people that for two siblings to have a heart transplant,
to both have heart transplants, we are, I believe, one of four families in the country
to be under the circumstances.
So it's really interesting.
Brock, you said you actually had a heart attack?
I did, yeah.
Were you aware that your family even had this disease at that point?
The only thing that we were aware of was that my mom had had heart problems when she
was younger and I was very healthy, very, very healthy.
I was in incredible shape for a long time and never thought had any symptoms of a heart
condition.
For me it was really big shock when I had the whole attack because I was in such a
great shape.
We had no idea that it was genetic.
How long did you end up being on the waiting list when you were told that you needed to have
a heart transplant?
There's different stages of a heart transplant list.
There are status 2, there's status 1b and 1a.
When you're status 1a you're basically in the hospital and you need a transplant immediately
when you find the right heart.
One b is you can be at home or in the hospital and two is when you're at home relatively
healthy for somebody who needs a heart transplant.
And I waited on status 2 for a heart transplant here at home for about four months and then
my heart got so weak to the point where I needed to be in the hospital I waited 10 days
at status 1a and then received my transplant.
It was very lucky.
Connor, how about you?
I was put on the heart transplant list in June of 2011 and I was status 2 until November
15th, 2011.
I waited, had a short break home in December over Christmas and went back to the hospital
and waited until March 1st.
So I had a longer wait in the hospital than he did.
So Connor, having seen what your brother went through, did that make it easier or harder
for you?
Everything was much easier for me to know just to look at him where he was.
He was back on the soccer field when I went in and it was just great to know that you're
so I would be doing the same exact thing that he's doing so he's been a great help to
me.
You're 18 and Connor, you said you're 16, you're very athletic, you're very much into soccer.
How big a factor in your recovery from this and still being so healthy is the fact that
you were so very active and athletic beforehand.
You know, that's a big difference in our surges than you see with a lot of cases is that
although my heart was incredibly weak when I needed the transplant and Connor's was also
our bodies were in very good physical condition for somebody laying in a hospital bed.
And that's why we've done so well post transplant.
We've had no doubts with rejection from the heart.
The doctors tell us that because of our bodies in such great physical condition and our
other organs being in great condition with the surgery and other things really went together
well and overall made for a good surgery and us being in good shape led to successful
surgery.
What does it say to about the technology of transplants and how far along we've come?
Yeah, since the idea of organ transplants came around, I believe was the first heart transplant
was in the 60s.
The medical field has advanced so much technologically.
Almost all transplants are successful now.
Very, very seldom do you see a transplant go wrong.
The doctors and the physicians are very, very careful about picking and choosing hearts
that will be good matches for you, lessening the chance of rejection.
And with the new medications, as far as anti-rejection medications that we take and blood pressure
medications and antibiotics, it really, really, really lessens the chance of bouts of rejection
for any transplant recipient.
Despite the fact that yours has been successful and in the case of U-Brock, you only had to
wait about four months for your heart.
Connor, you said it was a slightly longer wait.
You're being very public about your transplants because you're trying to spread awareness about
the need for organ transplants.
I take it, you saw a lot of people that were waiting even longer.
It really confuses me and sends me when you see people waiting for transplants die.
Because in a lot of different countries, basically what they do, you are born somebody who
donates your organs if you were to pass unless you sign up not to be an organ donor.
But unfortunately here in the United States, we have a different policy.
And I really try to push the message of organ donation because that's all you really can
do.
And when you're in the hospital, you meet different families and you meet, you make
friends with people.
And I know in Connor's case, he became very close to the family and their daughter passed
waiting for an organ transplant.
And that very easily could have been prevented.
I don't see why the USA doesn't have the policy that other countries in Europe do.
Like Brock said, the young girl that passed in the hospital, it's sad to see that.
And it shouldn't happen.
It doesn't make any sense to me why everyone's not an organ donor.
What do you think the biggest misconception people have about organ donation?
To me, the biggest misconception of organ donation is that people think that their organs,
whether they are a smoker, whether they are a drinker, whatever they are, if they are
overweight, whatever it is.
Sometimes people feel like their organs really wouldn't do anybody any good, which is not
true.
When I hear people say, well, you don't need this, you don't need this for me, you don't
need this.
A lot of people do.
You'd be surprised.
We were very, very lucky to have two people with two good hearts that were donated to us.
They were the gifts of life we were given.
And we were incredibly lucky.
But the biggest misconception is that people think that their organs are a waste.
Their organs would do somebody else no good.
And that's pretty upsetting sometimes to hear something like that.
Do you think too they focus too much on the major organs?
I mean, when somebody signs up for an organ transplant to be an organ donor, I don't think
they're thinking about skin or cornea or things like that.
And yet that can be a part of organ donation.
Absolutely.
Yeah, a lot of times people forget that.
People focus a lot on your internal main organs.
But forget that you can save, I believe it's up to 15 lives and enhance up to 50 by donating
your body.
Brock and Connor, Marvin, will you seek out your donor families at all?
I plan on doing my best to be able to somehow be, you know, get in contact with a family.
It is their option whether they'd like to meet me or not.
But I would like that, absolutely.
My wish is to eventually write a letter to them and hopefully meet them someday because
they gave me the gift of life and thank you as an enough.
Thank you will never be enough.
Connor and Brock, Marvin, received their heart transplants at Children's Hospital in Boston.
Reporting for the health show, I'm Pat Bradley.
Still to come, a New York City actress got into a life-altering accident that did what
any self-respecting New York City actress would do.
Wrote a show about it.
That's next on the health show.
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This is the health show, I'm Bob Barrett.
And I'm Dr. Nina Sacks.
This model Hogan Gorman was living the typical New York working actors life, auditions and
classes by day, waitressing by night, when she was hit by a car and suffered debilitating
injuries.
And of course, she had no health insurance.
So being a typical New York actor, she turned the experience into an acclaimed one woman's
show.
She also wrote a book called Hot Cripple, an incurable smart Alec takes on the health
care system and lives to tell the tale.
Okay, the title really doesn't say smart Alec, but you know, you get the idea.
Earlier this year, the health show's Joe Donnie, who spoke with Hogan Gorman and asked
when she knew she was going to write about this experience.
Well, after I had recovered, it was the only way I could process it and being an actress,
it's the only way I knew how to process it.
So I wrote the one woman's show first.
And through writing it, I realized it wasn't just my story.
It was the story of millions of Americans going through the same thing.
How long does it take you to process it even to the point where you can write about it?
I mean, it seems to me that you just would have to cogitate on that for a while in your
own mind before...
I did.
I, you know, the recovery was quite long.
It was three, four years and during the last years when I wrote it.
When it happened, what were your thoughts?
What was your prognosis for yourself?
Well, when I was hit by the car, I should probably say they hit me going roughly about
40 miles an hour.
My head took out the entire windshield.
They slammed on the brakes and I went flying ten feet.
Then I was taken to the hospital and once they found out I didn't have insurance, I was
basically ignored.
I had to beg for a cat scan of my head, the man in the bed next to me who would only
faint during dinner, whose cat scan was fine and who had insurance, was kept overnight
for observation and I was released with the neck brace and a good luck.
And over the next few days, it became apparent how truly injured I was.
But no doctor would see me until I found a lawyer to be covered by something called
no fault, which in certain states, including New York, covers people, hurt an accident, up
to a certain amount of money if the driver has insurance.
But they can cut you off at any time, which they ended up doing.
And that's when I ended up maxing out my credit card going through a little savings I
had because I couldn't work, ended up on food stamps, Medicaid disability.
And the only reason I didn't have insurance was because I couldn't afford it on my own
in between rent and eating and the nightclub I worked in didn't offer health insurance.
What was the sense of the extent of your injury?
They were to your head, to your back?
Yeah, I had a head injury and a very severe concussion.
And my short-term memory was shot from us two years.
I had vision problems, balance problems, constant pain, it herniated five discs between
my neck and lower back, which I'll press on nerve so I could go weeks with my right leg
being completely numb.
At times my hands would get paralyzed for about 30 minutes at a time.
And then it tore two ligaments in my knee and it chunked off the back of my knee cap.
When you decided to work on this project, at one point did you become comfortable with
the word cripple?
Well, that is something that somebody called me as I was limping down the street on my
cane.
Man said, oh man, that is so cool.
It's not often that you see a hot cripple.
And obviously I was horrified.
When I went to write the show, it seemed like the only title for it to take that power
away from that name that I had been called and turn it into something else.
What was the rehabilitation like?
Did you know what you were informing?
Did they tell you it was going to be years?
They didn't know.
Injuries like that, you just don't know.
I'm lucky that I'm doing well now.
And I have to stay on top of my recovery to this day.
I got to the gym five days a week and do physical therapy exercises.
I've turned more to an Eastern approach to medicine now and I have a non-aggressive chiropractor,
no cracking or jarring involved.
But she just aligns my spine and does cheney theology and then I use meditation to deal
with the pain.
So now I'm doing really well.
The show, the book, tell of all of the stories along the way, everything from a stalker,
ambulance driver to lawyers who are lazy and judges who are insane and doctors who are
very attractive and obviously the pain that you were going through.
Meanwhile you're trying to have relationships.
That isn't working out.
A lot of you get sympathy from some people.
A lot of people you don't get sympathy from.
And at what point do you turn to humor?
What point does that become funny?
I think my sense of humor was the only thing not injured in the accident.
And when something like this happens to you and it's just one thing after the next,
I went so far down the rabbit hole and there's a certain point you're like, what?
No, I mean this is not something else can happen and then it does.
It gets to the point where you're, you know, you just have to surrender and start laughing
at the irony of it all.
That's what I did and that's the only thing that saved me I think.
So what's it like to share the story?
What do you get back from an audience that helps?
Because I assume that plays a role in the extended version of it as well.
It does, after the show, people wait for me and want to talk to me and tell me about
their healthcare or welfare and nightmares or something that's happened to a family member
or a friend and I think it just opens up these doors of communication that are so great.
And a lot of people are just saying, you know, thank you for telling what I've been going
through or what my family member has been going through and making me laugh about it at
the same time and that's what I get back.
One of the stories you're telling the book was just amazing.
So you get hit by the car.
The driver's wife comes out.
She says, I'm a doctor, you're not hurt and basically just get up and get over it.
Is there, was there a point that you realized that you really were hurt?
Oh no, I knew I was hurt.
No, I mean was there a point that she realized it or did she just move on?
Yeah, I have no idea.
Yeah, you know, I was taken away in an ambulance and that was the last time I saw her.
Wow.
And it would seem to me that would make you angry.
I was very angry over that at the lack of humanity, but at a certain point you can only
hang on to that anger so long before it starts eating you like a cancer.
Right.
And I had to, you know, eventually let it go.
But you're angry about that and then there's the healthcare system and then you have the
welfare system.
And I mean, at some point do you feel like, okay, look, I'm just trying to do what I'm
trying to do, which is get better.
And it seems like there are just too many obstacles in my way.
Well, it's like navigating a labyrinth.
Yeah.
It really is.
And especially when you're injured or when you're sick, it's just, it's so much.
It's so much.
And yeah, you do feel like can someone just help me please?
You know, I mean, really, we are in America, right?
You know, it just, it is really overwhelming.
But when you start off with the baseline of being yelled at by the person who hits you
and the anger starts there and nothing gets easy along the way, it would seem that you
could become a very bitter person.
Oh, yeah.
I could have.
But you have a choice.
You can become the bitter person or you can just get through it.
And bitter, bitter is just not a cute look for anyone.
Well, no.
No.
No.
I try to pull it off, but it just doesn't work.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It works.
It works.
Small increments.
Two years of it.
I don't think that would work.
Again, the name of Hogan Gorman's book is Hot Cripple.
An incurable smart Alec takes on the healthcare system and lives to tell the tale.
She spoke with the health shows Joe Donnie.
Our friends, Sandy Daigler, stop by a few times this year.
This time looking for love.
There is one thing that I've been sure of my entire life and it is this.
Food equals love.
My early memories are, for the most part, memories of eating.
And with the exception of my father's enthusiastic summer grilling, all of the food I ate as
a child was made by the female members of my family.
There were my grandmother's potato dumplings.
The endless parade of cakes and cookies and casseroles made by an equally endless parade
of ants.
My mother's ketchup drenched meatloaf.
Substantial and satisfying dishes that filled my belly as they soothed and comforted.
What's not to love about that?
Well, maybe the fact that after a lifetime of eating that way, I found my mother's
home myself weighing over 250 pounds.
You know what happened next because I've told this story many times.
How I got the health wake up call and lost over 100 pounds.
How I've worked diligently for the last four years to keep off the weight I lost.
I'm a weight loss success story, right?
But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that, deep down, I still believe what I've always
believed.
That food equals love.
And that is why this salad eating health nut still finds herself in the kitchen making
brownies for her college-age nephews.
It's what a loving aunt does.
Lord knows I've tried to transform that paradigm.
Take thanksgiving.
The last few years I've made an utterly delicious green bean salad for my family celebration.
The recipe calls for lots of herbs and lemon, sweet red peppers and juicy tomatoes, a
delicious Dijon mustard vinaigrette.
Surely such a concoction could be nothing short of love in your tummy.
But what gets all the ooze and aes?
The pumpkin cheesecake made by my sister-in-law.
The fact is healthy food may help you live a longer life and avoid disease, but it is not
love, not by a long shot.
Yet, I have noticed some changes in my beliefs about food.
Recently, I was watching a program on the cooking channel.
One of my favorite TV chefs was making a dinner for a friend, and as she described the ingredients
for a cake she had planned for dessert, I found myself becoming a bit agitated.
Two cups of sugar.
Four egg yolks.
A big splash of cream.
Is she crazy, I thought?
Does she know how much fat and how many calories those things contain?
Even it struck me that five years ago, my reaction would have been very different.
Back then I would have muttered one word.
Yum!
But now it's a brave and strange new world.
Last Valentine's Day I begged my husband not to buy me chocolate.
Shocking you say.
After all, isn't chocolate the most special form of love?
How could I ask such a thing?
Yet I knew that if there were chocolate in the house, I would eat it, and that might
lead to eating something else, and then something else.
A few extra pounds here or there.
Maybe more than a few pounds.
You know, they don't call them love handles for nothing.
So what's a former fat girl to do if food no longer equals love?
What replaces the cake with buttercream frosting that my husband wants me to make on his birthday?
If I feed him grilled fish and steamed broccoli, low fat, nutritious fare that nourishes him
without elevating his cholesterol level when what he really craves is prime rib and mashed
potatoes with gravy, is that love?
So many questions, so few answers.
When I was still heavy, I thought losing weight was a simple proposition.
Eat less, exercise more.
It is that simple.
And it's not.
Food is love, and it's not.
I tell you, the truth just ain't what it used to be.
Sandy Dagler is a writer and architect living in Troy, New York.
You can read more of her writing on her blog, one-little-cookie.blogspot.com.
That's all the time we have for this week's health show.
If you'd like to listen again, join us online at healthshow.org.
You can explore the archive for any programs you might have missed or would like to hear
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You can also subscribe to our podcast, that's healthshow.org.
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Then follow us on Facebook.
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And if you have any questions or comments about the program, send them in.
Our email address is letters at healthshow.org.
I'm Bob Barrett.
And I'm Dr. Nina Sacks.
Stay healthy and be sure to join us next time for another edition of the health show.
Dr. Nina Sacks is a practicing member of the American College of Gastroenterology.
Bob Barrett is producer of the health show.
Dr. Alan Shartock is executive producer.
The health show is a presentation of national productions, which is solely responsible for
its content.
