Dallas-area heart patient was helped by his own stem cells September 13, 2007

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McKinney: A patient spreads the word on how his own stem cells aided him

12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, September 13, 2007

By MIKKI KIRBY / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

McKINNEY– As Joe Woolfolk took the podium at a McKinney Rotary Club meeting, he was finally in the position he had been waiting for.

“I came here today to tell a story,” the 63-year-old Frisco resident said at the Sept. 7 meeting. “This time last year, I couldn’t walk 50 yards. I knew I wasn’t going to live much longer.”

“If I don’t live another day, I’ve had eight months of a quality of life that was unimaginable.”

Because of adult stem cell procedure, Mr. Woolfolk said, he is now able to share his journey and introduce others to the possibility of surviving a damaged heart.

Almost 20 years ago, Mr. Woolfolk suffered the first of his three heart attacks. With his health deteriorating, most doctors had written him off by the summer of 2006.

In December, he said, he made a decision to live. After researching about how adult stem cells can restore heart tissue, he flew to Bangkok, Thailand, where the procedure is being done.

After he had arrived in Thailand, doctors drew a pint of his blood and sent it to Israel to a lab where his stem cells were produced. His blood grew 6.2 million cells in a week. The cells were then injected into his heart. Within five days, he flew back to the United States.

Two weeks after returning, he played 18 holes of golf.

“Before the procedure, I could barely get through four holes,” he said. “Now I have a new mission; to help people live. This may not be for everyone, but it’s worth looking into.”

He and his wife of 42 years, Judy, had started 26 businesses, adopted a son, and were constantly on the go. Mr. Woolfolk is a licensed massage therapist, a golf instructor, and an avid angler.

“Needless to say, when he started having health problems, life as we knew it changed dramatically,” Mrs. Woolfolk said. “I knew he wouldn’t stand for that.”

Mr. Woolfolk believes that a person’s thought process can influence the body’s recovery. He had gotten to a point that theory wasn’t working. And he simply lost the energy to think.

Mr. Woolfolk’s zest for life has resurfaced with his new mission.

“The concern he has for others and trying to help them to get the procedure is in earnest. If anyone can help someone, it’s Joe,” said neighbor Charlie Taylor.

Mr. Taylor noticed Mr. Woolfolk’s pace slowing two years ago.

“Joe had always been energetic and athletic, so when he began to take it easy I began to worry,” Mr. Taylor said.

The two friends own adjoining lakefront properties where they have spent most weekends over the last five years fishing. Mr. Taylor describes his friend as a “ball of fire”.

His tireless determination has been witnessed over the years by Dr. Waenard Miller, a specialist with the Legacy Heart Center in Plano. Dr. Miller has treated Mr. Woolfolk since 1989.

He explained that a patient’s health can be looked at from two angles. Subjectively, Mr. Woolfolk is feeling better. Objectively, there is no improvement in his heart.

“It may just be too soon to see improvement through testing. Something is making him feel so much better. We’re just not sure what yet,” he said. “When we measure the strength of his heart, it hasn’t changed. But objective measurements don’t always show improvement.”

Feeling better is all Mr. Woolfolk says he needs to be convinced that others should have the opportunity that he has had.

“I’ll speak to one person or 10,000. There is an alternative to dying, and people should know that,” he said.

Mikki Kirby is a freelance writer in Dallas.

mikkikirby@yahoo.com