Bloomington Herald-Times
November 5, 2009
Upcoming IU degree final chapter in family's liver transplant story
Mother lived nearly 7 years after getting portion of son's liver
By Dann Denny
November 5, 2009, last update: 11/5 @ 12:26 am EARLIER STORY: "IU senior pays back mom who gave him life."
Eva Elliott's dying wish was to see her only son, Nick Cole, get the college degree he put on hold to save her life.
Her dream was not fully realized. She died Oct. 22 at the age of 50, just weeks before Cole's scheduled graduation ceremony at Indiana University. But four days before she drew her last breath, her clouded eyes got to see an image of something that lifted her dying heart. More about that later.
A life-saving gift
In March of 2002, Cole was a senior at IU when he dropped out of school and moved to San Jose, Calif., to help care for his mother -- who'd just been diagnosed with late-stage cirrhosis of the liver.
Cole worked at Home Depot to help pay for Elliott's mounting medical bills, and drove her back and forth to the University of California at San Francisco for treatments. But her condition continued to decline.
When doctors told Elliott she needed a liver transplant to survive, Cole volunteered to be tested. He was an ideal match.
"My mom was young and unmarried when she got pregnant with me, and some relatives urged her to have an abortion," Cole said. "It was a blessing to give life back to the woman who had given life to me."
The day of the surgery, Cole and Elliott were sitting in a waiting area when Elliott turned to him and said, "Please don't go through with this unless you're absolutely sure."
"I'm sure, Mom," he said. "I have faith that we are both going to come through this OK."
Later that day, on Jan. 30, 2003, surgeons removed 60 percent of Cole's liver and transplanted it into his mother.
Healed relationship
After their surgeries, Cole and Elliott shared the same recovery room. During that time, they had some soul-deep talks that healed a relationship that had been strained for years.
"For many years, Mom and I had a dysfunctional relationship and were not real close," he said. "But in that recovery room, we would talk all night about God and family and regrets and the future. It was a very intense time. I told her I forgave her for all that had happened in the past and that I loved her."
Complications
In August 2003, just seven months after the transplant, Cole returned to IU to finish his degree.
"It was a bad decision," he admitted. "I rushed back too soon. My liver had grown back fully by then, but I developed physical complications and was in a lot of pain."
That pain, coupled with a heavy load of tough classes, forced him to drop out of school. He washed windows for the next year, then re-enrolled at IU in the fall of 2004. When that effort failed, it triggered a crisis of confidence.
"I was still pretty immature," he said. "At that point, I needed to do some major re-evaluating of my life."
For the next three years, he did mission work in inner cities and on Native American reservations with The International House of Prayer.
After that, he returned to Bloomington and washed windows and did odd jobs for several years. But all the while, he harbored the dream of someday returning to IU to finish his degree.
Her dying wish
As things turned out, Cole's gift to his mother bought her seven more years of life. She lived in Bloomington with her husband, Pete Elliott, making many trips to transplant hospitals in Cleveland and San Francisco.
"During those years, she was active in her church," Cole said. "She wanted to start an orphanage, but was physically unable to do that. So she did a lot of praying, and tripled her financial giving to those in need."
Elliott spoke often -- to friends and family -- about her dream of seeing her son receive his college diploma, acutely aware that it was a pursuit he'd postponed to save her life. When Elliott's health began to precipitously decline last spring, Cole decided to give it one more try, enrolling at IU.
With his health and self-confidence fully restored, he breezed through his classes. He expects to graduate Dec. 19 with a bachelor's degree in biology.
"I had always wanted to be a research scientist, but had a lot of obstacles that sidetracked me the past few years," he said. "Now those obstacles seem like tiny speed bumps that I'm flying over with no trouble at all."
Cole, now 29, hopes to eventually enter graduate school and study molecular and cellular biology.
"My dream is to do AIDS research," he said. "We still don't know much about this virus, and it's crippling the entire continent of Africa and a large part of Asia and the United States. I want to go right at this beast and take it down."
'She understood'
Four days before she died, Elliott was at home in a semi-conscious state. Her frail, doll-like body was lying in bed. She was too weak to speak, and had not opened her eyes for weeks.
But Cole had something to show her -- a photo of himself in his IU cap and gown. He knelt at her bedside and placed it in front of her face.
"Look Mom," he said. "That's me. I'm gonna graduate."
Slowly, she opened her eyes and gazed at the photo of her son, standing proudly in a black gown with a red sash and white tassel.
To his dismay, Cole was not sure if she understood the significance of what she was seeing.
"I was very sad," Cole said. "I thought maybe she would die without knowing."
But the next day, Pete Elliott was at her side when he asked, "Eva, do you remember seeing the picture of Nick in his graduation clothes?"
She smiled weakly and whispered, "I'm glad."
Those were the last words she ever spoke.
"She understood," Pete said. "And it brought her great solace. Nick graduating was the last thing she wanted to see before she left this Earth."
Guest column
Here's an idea for fixing US health care system
By Martin C. Spechler
November 5, 2009
This guest column was written by Bloomington resident Martin C. Spechler, professor of economics at IUPUI.
Everyone knows that our health care system is broken and increasingly expensive.
How would economists like me fix it?
Most of us like our insurance, but fewer and fewer employers are offering it. If you lose your job, you're in trouble because individual coverage is expensive or unavailable if you have a preexisting condition. Private insurers spend a lot of our time and money negotiating with doctors and hospitals to avoid paying our bills. Medicaid supposedly covers the poor, but it's getting more expensive to run for the states.
So 50 million Americans have no reliable coverage. Some 50,000 die each year from illnesses that could have been successfully treated. By the time the uninsured go to the emergency room, it may be too late, and treatment costs more there. In my view, that's wrong. What's more, private insurance does little to promote healthier living.
Many other industrialized countries do better -- shown by longer life expectancy and fewer infant deaths, at lower per patient cost. That's because they're better organized, though our American doctors and hospitals are the best in the world. True, but some of them are so good that they spend much more money, use more expensive tests and achieve no better results.
To keep costs down, we need competition among providers and insurance companies. This is the tried-and-true method to promote efficiency in the American economy. Competitors have to keep costs down and quality up, or they lose customers.
Regrettably, Republican and Democratic administrations have neglected the government's role in ensuring competition by antitrust and other legal regulations. Mutual and nonprofit insurers have been allowed to go private, and private insurance companies allowed to merge and thus dominate regional markets.
In response, hospitals and medical groupings have joined together to negotiate with these insurance giants. The result is a wide variety of costs and coverages and sometimes uncertainty that patients can get decent coverage at reasonable cost. The solution must be interstate and interregional competition and states setting standard reimbursement rates for all providers, as they do in Maryland. And the antitrust exemption for insurance companies must be cancelled.
New entrants, possibly nonprofit medical groups operating with salaried personnel working in teams, should be encouraged, as they are at the famous Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Reform of malpractice lawsuits will encourage obstetricians and other vulnerable physicians to stay at work.
A public option would provide needed competition in areas where there are few private insurance companies operating. Such options already exist for federal employees, who are offered a list of plans with different provisions and rates. If adequately funded, the public option would attract many previously uninsured because it would pool risks for a large number of people, including those too sick, unemployed or poor to afford private plans.
Basic health insurance should be mandatory, as auto insurance is, but premiums limited to 15 percent of one's income. Yes, private insurance companies would continue to "cherry-pick" their customers, but employers and individuals would be able to bargain for lower rates.
Some companies would find it practical to offer a range of plans, including some more extensive to include elective surgeries. But only treatments shown to be effective need be approved by either the public or private payers. Plans could not be cancelled because of claims and would be renewable, like life insurance. On admission to a hospital, elderly patients would be asked to file a living will expressing their desires to limit futile and expensive interventions at the end of life.
Regulated competition would, I believe, keep health care costs affordable for years to come.
Business school faculty to forecast economy
November 5, 2009, last update: 11/4 @ 11:49 pm
Faculty at Indiana University's school of business will present national, state and local economic forecasts for 2010 two times today.
Kelley School of Business faculty will give an opening presentation at 7:30 a.m. at the Columbia Club, 121 Monument Circle, in downtown Indianapolis. A public Q&A session will follow the moderated discussion.
The 2010 Business Outlook Panel then comes to Bloomington for an 11:30 a.m. presentation in the Memorial Union's Alumni Hall. The cost for Bloomington Chamber of Commerce members and active Rotarians is $16. Others can register for $25.
Today's talks will be followed by similar presentations in other cities across the state.
Nine swine flu deaths push state's total to 19
Associated Press
November 5, 2009
State health officials say nine Indiana residents died last week from swine flu, a surge that's nearly doubled the state's swine flu fatalities to 19 since June.
Health officials say hospitalization rates for influenza and pneumonia have risen 41 percent over the past three weeks as the current swine flu outbreak continues.
Even though last week was by far the deadliest week for swine flu in Indiana, health officials see some signs that the illness is easing in the state.
The state's weekly swine flu report says emergency rooms saw a slight dip in influenza activity last week. And only nine Indiana schools reported absentee rates higher than 20 percent, while university health centers saw a decrease in swine flu cases.
