Every day is a gift

by Peter Jakey– Managing Editor

People will say they are thankful for a lot of different things this holiday season. A couple of favorite answers, understandably enough, will be health and family. Sue Grulke of Rogers City is thankful for another breath. She?s grateful for knowledgeable doctors, technology, her faith, as well as a caring husband and family. She?s also thankful for a chance to see her children get married and to someday hug her grandchildren. After nine years of battling a terminal lung disease called primary pulmonary hypertension, Grulke underwent a successful double lung transplant operation June 7 at the University of Michigan Hospital. The results have been life altering.

?I?M ENJOYING life,? said Grulke. ?I?m very much enjoying my family, friends, and doing things I shied away from before.? Where once it was a labor to get up a flight of stairs, she now can run up them. ?At my friend’s wedding, she was out on the dance floor dancing,? said Sue?s daughter Megan, 22. ?I was so happy to see her being able to do that! Before the surgery she would never have had enough energy to do that.? Her husband Mike said, ?Her attitude has always been, she?ll do whatever it takes.? Grulke, who takes 11 different drugs, is also thankful her body hasn?t rejected the organ, since the most likely time for rejection is within the first six months. ?And interestingly, lungs are more likely to be rejected than some other organs, I don?t know why,? said Grulke. ?So, now I?m excited about the future.?

A LOT TIME and treatment had passed before the phone call every transplant candidate wants to receive came to the Grulkes? house June 7 about 6 a.m. Sue had gone to Thunder Bay Community Health Services in Rogers City in January 1999 for a routine blood test. Gretchen Leppert, L.P.N., noticed she was short of breath. An EKG was done and Brad Irwin, a physician?s assistant, said her EKG looked as if she?d had a heart attack.

?So, obviously my heart wasn?t operating correctly,? she said. ?They sent me to a cardiologist the very next day.? Eventually, Grulke would be diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension, a rare disease that forces the blood vessels in the lungs to constrict, and in turn make the heart work harder and cause heart failure. Doctors at a Detroit area hospital determined she was among the 25 percent of pulmonary hypertension patients who initially do well with oral medicine. Grulke later switched to the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. ?I was so fortunate there are specialists in Michigan who specifically deal with this disease,? she said. ?The only other places I could have gone that were somewhat close were the Cleveland Clinic or the Mayo Clinic.? She went from oral drugs to a Hickman catheter inserted directly into her chest in 2003. That provided 24 hour a day medicine through a pump with medicine she had to mix every day.

?I HAD TO CARRY my pump with me all the time,? said Grulke. ?Eventually that wasn?t working as well, so in the fall of 2005 I was told I should start thinking about a lung transplant.? ?We had run out of options,? said Mike. ?The lung transplant was the last option in order to prolong her life.? Before being placed on the organ donor list, she went through more than a dozen tests, ranging from a mammogram and a bone density test, to a dentist check-up. She was finally listed September 1, 2006. ?Of course it was hard waiting at times,? said Sue.

For some organ transplant candidates the call can come too late. After nine months of waiting, sometimes at the top of the donor list, and other days slipping down because her health was better, the phone finally rang. Grulke knew who it was, and when asked if she wanted to go through with the operation, there would be only one answer. Hospital officials told the couple to get there by noon. Eleven hours of surgery led by Dr. Christine Lau started around 3 p.m. and lasted into the night. There was excessive bleeding the next morning, so she went back into surgery for another four hours. ?That began a long period of recovery,? said Mike. ?She was out of it for several weeks.? Once home, it took weeks to build her strength back. She gets lots of exercise and is on a low-salt diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables and vitamins. ?They said I did a lot better than some PH patients,? said Grulke. THERE ARE still several risks. The steroids she is taking can cause 14 side effects including diabetes, osteoporosis, cancers, tumors, mood swings, and weight gain. Some of the drugs also have weakened her immune system, so she still has to be cautious at social events. That can be difficult since her husband teaches in the Posen Consolidated School and her son

Scott, 17 , attends Rogers City High School and are around hundreds of other people every day.

Grulke, who worked for 27 years as a reporter for The Advance and The Alpena News, still has a curiosity about whose lungs are keeping her alive. ?I would like to know if it was a man or a woman, and just what the circumstances were,? she said. ?I would like to know.? She hopes some time in the future she?ll be able to write to the donor?s family anonymously.

For now, Grulke is enjoying a new lease on life. The surgery also has had a positive effect on her family. ?We all appreciate each other more,? said Grulke.

?Our whole family is very blessed,? said Megan, ?and we are lucky to have her feeling well and doing great. All our friends and family are very thankful that everything went well.? Sue said, ?Everyday is a gift.?

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