CourierFeature
A Heart
Hugh Thomas
Full of Thanks
The gift of life… for better or worse, in sickness and in health!
What are you thankful for this holiday season? Most of us are thankful for the same things: family, friends, career, education, health and food and shelter.
The Thomas family, of Hickman, is thankful for those things too — that’s no surprise. But what may be a surprise to some of you is this: they are thankful for something most of us will never, ever have to be thankful for. They are thankful a family in despair had the courage and compassion to turn their tragedy into a triumph for a stranger.
That stranger was Hugh Thomas.
This is Hugh’s story.
Hugh is the son of the late Marion “Corky” Thomas and the late Ruby “Hermie” Hermadean-Thomas of the Willette community. Some of you may remember Corky when he ran a grocery store in Pleasant Shade. And you ladies may remember Hermie… she worked at the shirt factory in Carthage for many years. Hugh has two siblings: Jeff Thomas and Marcella ThomasRittenberry.
Hugh graduated from Red Boiling Springs High School in 1985. He loved playing basketball and did so in elementary and high school He was always healthy – never getting anything but good marks when he got a physical.
In 1987, Hugh began working at the James River Corporation in the county industrial park. That’s where he met his future wife, Penny Lancaster.
On April 14, 1989, Penny vowed to take Hugh to be her lawfully wedded husband. She recited the vows one by one — which included “in sickness and in health”. And that’s the vow I want to talk about… “in sickness and in health”. At the time of their marriage, Penny was 21 years old and Hugh was 23. Both were a picture of perfect health!
As they stood together reciting the vows, neither Penny nor Hugh thought for a second they’d face any type of “sickness” for years and years. But that vow was tested long before anybody could have ever imagined.
Three years into their marriage, Hugh got sick. Really sick. “My feet and legs were swelling a lot and I had some shortness of breath, but no chest pains. I always thought if your heart was bad you had chest pains, but I was wrong.” Hugh recalled. “At first, the doctors did not know what was wrong with me. I was only 26 and had been healthy my entire life. Eventually, a cardiologist realized the fluid retention was because my heart wasn’t pumping properly. It was out or rhythm and it was severely
Hugh was admitted to the hospital in Carthage where he stayed for several days. During that time he was given medication to force the fluid from his body. “It was terribly uncomfortable because I was going to the restroom every 5-7 minutes around the clock. But I knew it had to be done. In just a few days I’d lost 38 pounds of fluid.”
Once he was stabilized, Hugh went to St. Thomas Medical Center in Nashville to be checked out by a cardiologist who told him he was suffering from a condition called: idiopathic cardiomyopathy. “That doctor felt my condition could get better with medication and a type of treatment that shocked my heart into stopping then starting again. Months went by and by late 1993
- early 1994 we realized I was getting worse.”
That’s when the doctors told Hugh his only hope would be a heart transplant. At first, Hugh said no. “All I’d ever heard about heart transplants was that you’d live a few months and just die anyway. At that point, I thought, what’s the use. Penny and I talked about it and I had my mind made up. I would just go home.”
Then Hugh met Ronnie Holt from Dickson, who shared his transplant story.
“When I found out he had been living with a heart transplant for ten years, I agreed to do it. At this point, we had the two girls. Megan was about 4 and Jessica was one. I thought to myself, ten years is a long time… at least I can see them grow up.”
Hugh was put on a waiting list and sent home under strict medical guidelines ——— to wait! “I just had to wait until a donor was found for me. The waiting was tough. Penny was running the household… doing just about everything. I could wash a few clothes and cook a little bit, but not much else. I could not play with the girls like I wanted to. I could only sit in a chair and watch them. I got worse and worse. At one point I could barely walk to the mailbox and back.”
The hospital gave Hugh a beeper. He was told that when it beeped, it meant the hospital had a heart for him and he was to get ready immediately. Guess what? There were two false alarms. When Hugh told me this, I thought he meant the hospital “thought” they had a match and then found out they didn’t. Well, that was not the kind
V
of false alarm he was talking about. “I will never forget the first time it beeped. Penny and I jumped for joy. But when we called the number, it was a wrong number! Then it happened again. And, yes, it too was a wrong number”.
A year went by and Hugh got so bad the doctors admitted him to St. Thomas… to wait some more. That was in May of 1995. “It was too risky for me to stay at home by this point. The night before I left for the hospital was the hardest night of my life — knowing that I may never see our children again and having to explain this to them. It was rough. Rough. But I knew I had to go.”
There would be three more false alarms. Their hopes would get up and then something would happen. The donor would not be a match or the family would change their mind. Hugh was getting very discouraged. “On October 30th, they did some tests on me and discovered my heart was only working at two percent. The doctor patted me on the shoulder and said, if you don’t get a heart this week you will die. I said right then and there, alright, I’m going home. I will not die at this hospital. He said, you can’t leave – you can’t get the IV out of your arm, I told him I’d seen it put in for six months, and I most certainly could. He said Penny won’t let you do this. I told him I’d just get a cab… but I was going home!”
Hugh called Penny to tell her the bad news. She insisted he stay put, but he insisted it was time to go home. Penny was at work and could not leave right away. This is where it gets crazy. Almost unbelievable!!
A few hours after making that dreadful call to Penny, Hugh called her again to tell her ----- he had a heart! “I know she thought I was crazy, because the lack of blood flow had been affecting my memory, eyesight and everything else. But it was really real this time… no more false alarms. A man was at another hospital in Nashville for a surgery and he had an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. He was brain dead, but his heart was just fine. Three days later, his heart saved my life.”
Hugh went into surgery at 7:00 p.m. on November 3, 1995. Three hours later, he had a new lease on life!
I asked Hugh to tell me some of the more unusual stories or comments he’s had over the years as the result of him being a transplant patient. This one is a doozie! “ I was in church one Sunday and a woman said to me, you were suppose to die — you defied the Lord’s will by taking that man’s heart. I was floored — in shock. I had no idea how to respond. I told her that my family and I felt like the Lord had given doctors the knowledge to help sick people like me and that when it really was my time to go, I’d go. Ten years later she apologized, when her son-in-law was put on a waiting list for a kidney. I had already forgiven her because I knew I’d made the right choice”.
You might think that living with somebody else’s organ inside of you would be, well, weird. For Hugh, he sees it as a gift. A gift from an unselfish person — an unselfish family. The deceased man’s family did NOT have to do this, but they did and, for that, the Thomas family will forever be grateful and thankful!! Not a day goes by that they don’t think about what if they’d said no? They know the answer. Hugh would not be here today.
Hugh does not know the donor’s name. He’s never met his family and probably never will. “I sent a thank-you letter to the donor services organization and they may have given it to his family, I don’t know. But that was the only communication I was allowed to make. I never got a response. They want to remain anonymous and I respect that. I do hope they read my letter. Of course I will never know for sure.”
Penny thinks about the other part of that vow nowadays — the part about “in health” — because Hugh is doing well 15 years after a heart transplant! The couple is hopeful it will be a very, very long time before they have to deal with any “in sickness” again, because they certainly have had more than their share!
So, yes, Thanksgiving at the Thomas house is a bit different than most. They give thanks to a man they never met. The man who saved Hugh’s life!
Tressa Bush writer
These Titans players visited Hugh in the hospital.
November 3rd was the 15th anniversary of Hugh’s heart transplant. The family had a surprise party for him Sunday, November 7th.
While Hugh was in the hospital, he was able to have a picnic with Penny and the girls.
Hugh with wife, Penny, and daughters, Jessica and Megan.