Stem cell procedure succeeds, despite complication - Part 2 August 9, 2007

By Kathy Engle

Thursday, August 9, 2007 9:45 PM MDT

MARIO AGUILAR | GREEN VALLEY NEWS
Air Force Major Buck Brumble says, “I hope my experience will encourage others, because my stem cell therapy has an 80 percent success rate, which is amazing considering how bad some of these hearts are.”

A good friend and retired Registered Nurse, Loretta Noll. planned to accompany retired Air Force Major Buck Brumble to Bangkok for a stem cell procedure on his heart because he would not be allowed to fly alone. After the operation was rescheduled for March, Noll had other commitments, so Brumble’s good friend John Sonderegger, a retired professor of geological engineering at Montana Tech, agreed to accompany him.

Sonderegger said he really didn’t want to go, but knew he had to.

“It’s something you do for a friend and it needed to be done. He had no business trying to go on his own. My job was to tell him not to worry and that I would handle the problems. He’s a Type- A person with a lot of worry. Occasionally, it pays to have an optimist along to lighten things up,” Sonderegger said.

Complications with flight

There were many complications with the international flights, which Sonderegger and a local travel agent helped smooth over.

Before he left for Bangkok in March, Brumble’s Ejection Fraction, a measurement of how well the heart is beating, was down to a dangerous 10 percent to 15 percent. “I was literally on my last legs. I know John was very concerned that I would even survive the trip. What would I do if I had heart failure in flight? I know I put him through so much,” Brumble said.

After multiple complications with the airlines, Brumble survived the flight and John, who had brought his laptop with him, set up an e-mail system in their room at the hotel in Bangkok so Brumble could keep in touch with his family and friends all over the United States.

“John almost daily went out in the 90 degrees, 90 percent humidity weather to get us snacks, water and other items He was actually afraid to leave me alone in the room. He was concerned as only a good friend could be,” Brumble said.

While waiting for his stem cells to be returned from Israel, Brumble underwent a angiogram, a catherization of the heart to examine his left ventricle and determine whether there was any valve leakage. The angiogram was conducted at the Bangkok Heart Hospital, where his physician later performed the stem cell implant procedure. For the procedure, an incision was made in Brumble’s left side between the ribs. His left lung was then deflated , exposing the heart.

The physician used 30 injections into his left ventricle to implant nearly 40 million altered stem cells.

Following the implants, the doctors put a drain in his chest cavity, a normal procedure, but one which did not work. The second day doctors removed the drain, hoping to release him on the third day.

Complications after procedure

But the doctors found Brumble bloated in his chest cavity, and saw that his arms, alarmingly, had filled with fluid. The doctors had to insert another drain and add a siphon, so his scheduled three-day hospital stay turned into 10 days.

“I was beginning to be a not-so- good patient,” Brumble recalled, noting that he sometimes had problems with his medications and communicating with the nurses, who spoke little English.

“John could somehow communicate with them and they would understand him. I was just too tense. John came to the hospital every day and stayed with me all day. This trip was really taking toll on him also,” Brumble said.

Pain after surgery

The surgery caused quite a bit of pain, he said, and the painkillers “just had too many side effects.”

“John somehow handled all this in stride, telling me to be quiet and relax,” Brumble recalled.

Among other things, Brumble’s extended hospital stay meant rescheduling the flight home,

Chinese Airlines could not seem to find a flight for them and in late March told Brumble they thought they might not get them booked until April 22.

After being released from the hospital, Brumble worried about hotel, food and other expenses mounting up. The operation had literally cost him all his home equity.

“I was confined to the room and by now my leg and arm muscles were beginning to atrophy. I had been lying in beds so long, that it was increasingly difficult to get out of bed and stand up,” he said.

Finally, after several go-rounds with the airlines, Brumble and Sonderegger boarded a Thai Airways airplane for a direct flight to Los Angeles, but the two found they had to sit in the Los Angeles Airport overnight since the last flight to Tucson had already departed.

A friend met them at the Tucson airport. and took over Brumble’s care from John. Neighbors helped with food and care and Brumble came home to dozens of cards wishing him well, and a happy Easter.

His doctors’ instructions were to do very little for the next three months to allow the stem cells to grow and multiply.

After a month, Brumble was up to walking a half mile, but still needed oxygen most of the time.

“Dr. Lapan saw me immediately after I returned home and said I appeared to be fine. After a month, he said he could definitely hear my heart beating much stronger, but it was too early to do an ‘echo.’”

Walking again

Two months after the procedure, Brumble said he was up to walking a mile or more each day and slowly resumed yardwork and housework.

By May 6, he was able to return to his church, Desert Hills Lutheran, for the first time.

“What a wonderful welcome I received. Now I felt like I was really back,” he said.

At the time of the three-month follow-up check, Brumble was walking one to two miles, five times a week.

“Dr. Lapan had a big smile when he told me my EF was now up to 25 percent. I know I still have a ways to go, and I do get tired if I try to do too much, but what a start I have! I still want to see my EF climb above 30 percent and then I will have my full quality of life again,” Brumble said.

He added that he hoped his experience would encourage others to consider stem cell therapy.

“I know it’s coming in this country, and I am not bitter about our government not allowing it now. I hope my experience will encourage others, because my stem cell therapy has an 80 percent success rate, which is amazing considering how bad some of these hearts are,” he said,

“The alternative is you’re dead. Considering the alternative, it wasn’t hard to take the risk.

“For that doctor, who back in February, told me this was just a “crapshoot, it may be. But if it is, I won!, Brumble said, adding that he felt good enough to return last month to his 50th high school class reunion in Ankeny, Iowa.

kengle@gvnews.com | 547-9732

Editor’s Note
This is Part II of a two-part series on Green Valley resident Buck Brumble’s trip to Thailand to undergo a new stem cell procedure to save his heart and, ultimately, his life.