NORWICH – A Norwich native is among one of the rarest examples of medical marvel of the twentieth century, and for more than a quarter century – he has defied the odds and continued living despite the ill fortune of a compromised heart condition.
It was late January 1989 when Tom Cook, Norwich High School graduate – class of '81, was rushed to a Washington area hospital for chest pain, resulting devastating diagnosis.
Cook was told that he would need a heart valve replacement in order to survive only after undergoing a emergency repair procedure of his aorta, the main artery of the human body that supplies all of the systemic circulation – which means that the entire body, except for the lungs receives its blood from the aorta.
Nearly a week after his surgery at the Washington Medical Canter – while awaiting discharge – Cook began to notice that something felt wrong. While watching the heart monitors at his bedside, he began to wonder if all was well in his chest.
After his mother, Norwich resident Anna Kennedy urged her son to notify the medical staff of his worries, it was discovered that he had been having a series of heart attacks – and that his heart had all but been destroyed. Almost simultaneously, and amidst a hail of activity, Kennedy and her husband Tom found themselves waiting in the Hallway once again as doctors, nurses and specialists worked to diagnose and manage Cook's care.
“It just happened all of a sudden,” said Kennedy, “Doctors and nurses cam from every direction and ushered us right out of the room in a hurry.”
Cook was then rushed back into the intensive care unit and would be informed that he would need a heart replacement in order to survive.
With a simple twist of fate, 27 year-old Jeffrey Brown was admitted to the hospital after being involved in a motor vehicle accident on his motorcycle which left him brain dead.
Luckily, for Cook, Brown was an organ donor who was in good physical condition, which made him a prime candidate for the heart donation Cook would need in order to survive. After some preliminary assessments, the medical staff at Washington Medical determined that the transplant would go on, and Tom Cook has been thankful ever since.
Twenty-five years later, Brown's heart still beats within the chest of Cook, strong as ever. With the survival rates hovering somewhere around the 36 percentile at the 20 year mark, Cook says “The doctors don't have answers about my life expectancy, they tell me nobody knows.” Cook went on, “I feel I my own mind that as long as I take my medications and follow the advice of of the doctors, with the grace of God I will live to be an old man.”
Cook, now retired, still lives in Sharpsburg, Md. and leads a normal, healthy life. He resides with his wife, Shelly and together they care for Tom's mother-in-law who lives with them and their two dogs.
While Cook may not have shattered any world records, he's steadfastly on pace to take that title in the future. With each passing day he inches closer to being the longest living heart transplant patient, a title which is currently held by British man, John McCafferty, 71, who was told that he had five years to live when he had the operation 31 years ago.
He has now passed the previous record of 30 years, 11 months and ten days set by Tony Huesman, an American, who died of cancer in 2009.
“The moral of the story,” said Kennedy, “is that everyone should become an organ donor. It's not something that most people think about everyday and it usually doesn’t come up until a tragedy takes place, but the decision need to happen before death; before it's too late.”