HEARTFELT

Baylor Hospital allows transplant patients to hold their hearts in their hands

Story by WILL MADDOX I Photos by DANNY FULGENCIO

After a trip to the Philippines in 1996, Brad Rountree went to the cardiologist with chest pain and was told his heart may have been attacked by a virus. Nearly 20 years later, he held his heart through Baylor Hospital’s Heart to Heart program.

In 2015, he was diagnosed with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that causes the ventricle to stretch and thin, losing the ability to pump blood effectively.

“My heart had a shelf life,” Rountree says.

He needed a heart transplant and was put on the list. Three days later, he had a new heart.

Rountree knows how fortunate he is to have received a transplant which is both expensive and rare. “They said I had 24 hours to live,” he says. “But when I opened my eyes, I had blood coursing through every vessel in my body. I felt like I was 25 years old. ‘Is this going to go away?’ I thought. ‘Nope!’ ”

While overjoyed, he knew that receiving a transplant meant someone else had died. His heart came from a 24-year-old man who died from brain tumors. me at ease,” Rountree says. “He wanted to know what my story was and what I thought.”

Rountree wrote a letter to the man’s family, describing his children, his job as a pastor at New Liberty Baptist Church in Garland and his role singing in the Dallas Symphony Chorus. “I wanted to thank them for being willing to give life,” he says.

The heart looks more like a raw chicken breast than a pulsing blood pumper, but for many it provides a closure to a trying process and allows them to say goodbye to an essential part of themselves. “This is the heart that my mom and dad gave me,” Rountree says.

As a result, Rountree now volunteers at Baylor, talking with recent and future heart transplant patients.

Baylor’s Heart to Heart program offered another opportunity for emotional closure. The idea started when a former heart transplant patient approached Dr. William Roberts, Executive Director of Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute. “I understand, Dr. Roberts, that you have my heart,” the patient said.

Roberts invited the patient to the weekly cardiac pathology conference, where he could see his ticker. A tradition was born.

Rountree, too, listened to Roberts talk about his heart. Then he held it in his hands. “It was educational and put

Roberts is 85 years old and still busy as ever, penning articles, cracking jokes, running the institute while spreading the gospel of a pescatarian diet.

“It ends one very traumatic phase of life,” Roberts says. “It opens the door for this new normal phase, with vigor, enthusiasm and happiness returning. Patients have an added responsibility to take care of this new heart.”

DID YOU KNOW?

Baylor Hospital surgeons have performed 870 heart transplants since 1960 and complete about 60 per year. More than 100 patients have taken part in the Heart to Heart program.

News And Notes

Trees Please

When property owner Edens began taking out some plants in Casa Linda Plaza, neighbors became alarmed that a set of 70-year-old cedar elm trees would be killed. The removal is in the plans, but was put on hold when Edens agreed to meet with neighborhood leaders and see if a compromise could be reached. The redo of the complex includes planting more trees than currently exist, but neighbors want to save the trees that were originally part of the 1946 shopping center.

Sewage Tsunami

When a construction crew ruptured a pipe in Plano, over a million gallons of sewage spilled into White Rock Creek and started flowing toward White Rock Lake, over 10 miles away. Due to low water levels, the sewage did not get very far, but lake activities were canceled for a few days as a precaution. Less than a week later, authorities had sucked all of the sewage out of the creek.

COSTCO COMING?

After some sleuthing by the Dallas Morning News into soil testing records, it was discovered that Costco is doing testing on a former Sam’s Club site on Park Lane between Greenville and Shady Brook. This would be the grocery and retail giant’s second store in Dallas proper, and would be the closest for East Dallas shoppers.

Food News

Maya’s Modern Mediterranean is slated to open in the northeast corner of Casa Linda in late August. The family-friendly fast casual restaurant will serve creamy Palestinian hummus, kabobs, shawarma, schnitzel and other fare in plate, wrap or bowl form. Don’t forget to dip strawberries or pretzels into their dessert hummus.

Utopia Food and Fitness is replacing the Little Lakewood Salon Boutique and Playhouse in Lakewood. Utopia will offer healthy meals that can be picked up à la carte or as part of a meal and workout program designed to help patrons lose weight and gain strength. Circuit workouts are performed onsite and take just 20 minutes.

The Food Network weighed in with its list of the best pizza in the U.S.’s 52 largest cities, and they named CaneRosso as the premier pizza in the ‘plex. What began as a mobile oven now has six locations in Dallas with others in Austin, Fort Worth and Houston. The Neapolitan treat is cooked in just 90 seconds at 900 degrees and is a favorite for East Dallasites.

The M-Streets was flanked by two openings this month: BurgerFi and Pizzeria Testa. Pizzeria Testa, which took the place of Graham Dodds’ Wayward Sons at 3525 Greenville Ave., opened last month. The Neapolitan style pizzeria hails from Frisco and will serve calzones, appetizers, salads and panuozzi, which is something between a pizza, calzone and a sandwich.

BurgerFi replaced the Burger King at McMillan and Mockingbird. The fast-casual restaurant serves natural burgers and hot dogs free of steroids and antibiotics. The restaurant has a focus on recycled materials. It is part of a chain with locations all over the country, including several opening up in the DFW area. It can be found at 5456 E. Mockingbird Lane.

School News

Richard Kastl will be the executive director over the Northeast Secondary Network in Dallas ISD after leading Bryan Adams High School as principal for five years. Under Kastl’s leadership, Bryan Adams has gone from on the edge of reconstitution to earning six of seven distinctions from the Texas Education Agency, becoming a Leadership Academy and an Early College High School.

Ryan Bott will be the new principal at Bryan Adams High School after spending three years as an assistant principal at Molina High School in southwest Dallas. Dallas ISD administration introduced Bott in a letter to the Bryan Adams community. In 2015 he became an assistant principal at Molina High School, where he led a high achieving math department and Early College High School.

Woodrow Wilson High School’s new principal will be former Bryan Adams High School Assistant Principal Michael Moran. Moran will be the fifth principal in the last four school years, but has a history at the school when he taught and coached there for several years. He was an administrator at Bryan Adams for five years before returning to Woodrow.

Pool Blues

The resort style aquatic center at SamuellGrand Park was set to open the first weekend of summer, but according to park staff, the latest construction timeline pushed the opening of the pool back to August 18. Dallas ISD starts school on August 20. Acquiring permits, studying the soil for contaminants, shipping equipment from overseas and making sure the new buildings’ stone matches the original buildings have all factored into the delay, but the Park Department is going to extend the pool season to allow neighbors to enjoy the pool into September.