Tag: 2012

Mississippi Magazine
November / December 2012
View PDF of article here.

Sixteen-year-old Lilly Addy used to have a broken heart.

Not the traditional broken heart that so many young girls deal with at her age   Lilly’s broken heart wasn’t the result of a teenage heartthrob.  The sophomore at Newton High School was born with a congenital heart condition known as mild hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.  It is caused by a thickening of the heart muscle, which caused a blockage to the inside of her left ventricle and disrupted blood flow to her body.

Brookhaven pediatric cardiologist David Braden, MD, has monitored Lilly’s condition since infancy.  While she has had to avoid participating in sports and other physical activities to prevent putting too much stress on her heart, for the most part Lilly has been able to lead a normal life.  However, the reality that one day Lilly would have to undergo surgery has always loomed in the background.  This past summer, alarmed by the increasing level of pressure present in her heart and a possible aneurysm of her aortic root, Dr. Braden decided the Addys couldn’t wait any longer.

Up until two years ago, a pediatric cardiac patient in Mississippi – like Lilly – would have had to travel thousands of miles to receive the life-saving surgery they required, usually at a great cost and at the family’s expense.  The state’s only pediatric heart surgery program, which had been a part of the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), became inactive shortly after the untimely death of Dr. Bobby Heath in 2000.  In 2008, recognizing a desperate need to get the program running again, UMMC and Batson Children’s Hospital contracted with Richard Jonas, MD, of Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., to help bridge the gap.  Once a week, Dr. Jonas flew to Mississippi, operated on the less extensive cases at Batson Children’s Hospital, and sent patients with the most severe conditions back to D.C.  It was a beginning, but Mississippi officials and the staff of UMMC knew they would have to do more.

In 2010, Batson Children’s Hospital recruited pediatric heart surgeon Jorge Salazar, MD, from Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston to lead the rebuilding efforts.  Because it had been nearly 10 years since Mississippi offered this service, Dr. Salazar would have to rebuild the program from scratch.  It was a huge undertaking, but something Dr. Salazar felt led to do.

“It was the opportunity to make a difference,” Dr. Salazar said.  “There was a tremendous need and it was so obvious how much work there was to be done in terms of children who were previously not able to get care and had to go thousands of miles away or more to get care.”

Dr. Salazar began small, pulling together a handful of clinicians, nurses, doctors, and therapists.  They began treating less severe conditions and escalating to the most difficult cases.

“Pediatric heart surgery is really a multi-disciplinary effort.  It’s not just about surgery.  Surgery is just a component of it,” Dr. Salazar adds.  “It is also about the support staff working together to help in the recovery.”

By the end of their first year, the staff of the Children’s Heart Center had graduated to treating some of the most sophisticated cases.  That summer, Daniel DiBardino, MD, joined the team.  Dr. DiBardino studied at Harvard Medical School and previously served as chief resident of the congenital heart surgery program at C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor.  Through his extensive education, he is highly trained in a complicated surgical procedure known as the Norwood operation.  It is most commonly used to treat patients born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, also known as HLHS, a condition where an infant is born without the left side of their heart.  Not only is the procedure extremely delicate, but it typically must be performed within the first 7-14 days of life.

That includes patients like eight-month-old Kasey Terry from Columbus, Miss.  The day Kasey and his mother Tiffany were supposed to be discharged from the hospital, doctors discovered that the left side of Kasey’s heart was significantly smaller than the right.  Within two weeks, little Kasey was being wheeled into an operating room at the Children’s Heart Center for the first of three surgeries he would have to undergo.  The surgery went off without a hitch and after two weeks of recovery in the NICU, he was finally able to come home for the first time.

Had the Children’s Heart Center at Batson Children’s Hospital not existed, spending a month in a hospital thousands of miles away would have proved extremely difficult for Tiffany, who was not only recovering herself from childbirth, but also has a four-year-old daughter and a husband who was serving overseas at the time as part of the army national guard.

Tiffany says the staff at the Children’s Heart Center did their best to put her at ease.  “The staff was great,” she said.  “Everybody took the time to tell you exactly what was going on.  Even if they had to explain it fifty times, they let you know what to be prepared for.”  Kasey returned to the Children’s Heart Center in August for his second surgery.  Tiffany says he will have his final surgery somewhere between two and three years of age.

Lilly’s mother Michelle wholeheartedly agrees.  Lilly underwent surgery on August 22 to remove the muscle causing the blockage in her heart in addition to a valve sparing aortic root replacement to repair the aneurysm.  Her prognosis is good and the doctors say she should be able to lead a completely normal life with no limitations from now on.

“Lilly was in surgery from 6:30 that morning until 8:30 that night,” Michelle recalls.  “During that time someone called every hour to keep us updated on what was going on.  It was very comforting.  The entire team worked together like clockwork.”

In a little over two years, the Children’s Heart Center has performed over 700 operations, including four heart transplants.  What began as a handful of staff members and two beds in the corner of the pediatric ICU has now grown to a 16 bed pediatric cardiac ICU with a dedicated staff of doctors, nurses, and therapists.  They have also managed to beat the national average for patient survival.

“We are performing as well as some of the best children’s hospitals in the country.  And I cannot tell you how remarkable that is given the setting we started in,” Dr. DiBardino said.  “It has been a little overwhelming at times, but it has been worth it.  To be in a position where you are not just helping the patients you are operating on and their families, but really the whole state because we are offering something that they have never had before and that’s sustainable.”

Adds Dr. Salazar, “I believe this program will be the most important thing that I do.  Not only in achieving excellent outcomes, but bringing that same high standard to Mississippi and for Mississippi to be able to take care of its own in a way that’s equal to the very best programs in the country.  I feel really lucky to be a part of that.”

Mississippi Magazine
September / October 2012
View PDF of original article.

Cancer.

It’s one of the most dreaded words in our language. It’s that uninvited guest that everyone hopes will never make an appearance in their family. Country singer and television and radio personality Paul Ott Carruth and his family unfortunately know cancer all too well. Their story began in 1982, when Paul’s wife Alberta was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the age of 42. After an 18-month battle, Alberta passed away, leaving behind Paul and their three children—Paul Jr., Carla, and Bert.

Carla Carruth Tigner was in college when she lost her mother. Since then, she remained vigilant in keeping up with her healthcare. When Carla reached her early 40s, she began experiencing some health problems. Because of her family history of ovarian cancer, Carla and her doctors decided a hysterectomy was the best course of prevention. The same week Carla was scheduled to have the hysterectomy, she discovered a lump in her right breast during a self-exam.

A mammogram showed no sign of the lump in Carla’s right breast. However, it did detect an anomaly in her left breast. A subsequent ultrasound determined the anomaly to be pre-calcification. Carla’s doctor’s decided to recheck her breasts in six months and proceeded with the hysterectomy.

Looking back on those events, Carla now wishes she had gotten a second opinion. Six months later, the lump in Carla’s right breast had grown. Twenty-one years after her mother received her diagnosis of ovarian cancer, Carla was told she had breast cancer. “I was the exact same age, and it was the exact same month that my mother received her diagnosis,” Carla reveals. “I remember I was so nervous about telling my father. He had already lost a wife to cancer and now I had to tell him that his daughter had cancer.”

It was determined that Carla’s tumor was estrogen-fed, meaning that the hormone replacement therapy she underwent immediately after her hysterectomy had allowed the tumor to grow. “I cannot stress enough how important it is for people to be a champion for their own healthcare,” she says. “Doctors are human, and they make mistakes. I should have insisted that my doctor conduct a breast exam and have the lump biopsied.” Carla underwent a bilateral mastectomy followed by aggressive chemotherapy. One year later, she received the news that she was cancer-free.

However, cancer would come knocking on the Carruths’ door again, only not in a way that anybody ever expected. A year after Carla’s recovery, while she and her father were recording an episode of Paul’s weekly television and radio show, Listen to the Eagle, he noticed a tender spot in his left breast. “Carla elbowed me in the chest and I commented that it had hurt,” Paul shares. “Carla joked with me about it. She said, ‘Oh Daddy, you don’t have breast cancer!’ and I said, ‘You better believe I don’t!’ I had never heard of a man getting breast cancer.”

Still, the tenderness concerned Paul’s wife Lynda enough that she strongly urged him to make an appointment with his doctor two days later. Unlike Carla, a mammogram revealed that a lump was indeed present in Paul’s breast. Even though Paul’s doctor wasn’t worried about it, he decided to remove the lump and have it tested just the same. “My doctor told me that he had biopsied around 100 men in my situation, and all the results had come back benign,” adds Paul.

However, as soon as Paul came out from anesthesia, his doctor shared with him that preliminary lab tests showed the lump was in fact cancerous. It was sent off for additional testing, and a week later the results were in. “My doctor said, ‘I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that it’s cancer,” Paul reveals. “‘The good news is that the tumor is dead.’ The medical term is ‘necrotic,’ meaning that somehow the blood supply to the tumor was cut off and it died. But I have another name for it—divine intervention.”

Paul had the breast removed and opted not to undergo any further treatment.  Lynda, Paul’s wife of 28 years, saw him through the surgery and the subsequent recovery.  “I would not have made it through this without her great loving care,” Paul says.  “My entire family – all my kids and 13 grandchildren – calls her the MVP of the bunch.”  Today, both Paul and Carla remain cancer-free.

It should come as no surprise that their tale of father-daughter breast cancer survival has attracted not only local but national media attention. In 2007, Stephanie Bell Flynt, healthcare reporter with Jackson’s NBC-affiliate WLBT, ran a series of stories on the pair and submitted the series to The Today Show. Paul, Carla, and Carla’s son were flown to New York City and given the chance to tell their story to Today Show host Matt Lauer on national television. “The day we taped the show was the same day that [Today Show host] Hoda Kotb returned to work after undergoing treatment for her breast cancer,” Carla says. “The entire show was dedicated to breast cancer and awareness.”

Paul and Carla were also given the rare opportunity to share their story in a music video for country music singer Martina McBride’s “I’m Gonna Love You Through It.” Because of the song’s lyrics, which tell of a woman’s fight with breast cancer, producers opted to include testimonials from actual breast cancer survivors throughout the video. While on the set of the video, Carla and Paul met hundreds of other breast-cancer survivors, including Good Morning America (GMA) host and Mississippi native Robin Roberts, who publicly shared her own battle with breast cancer in 2007. Roberts later premiered the emotional video during an episode of GMA.

“Daddy and I didn’t know if we would even make the video or not,” says Carla. “But as I sat there watching the video and seeing Robin get so emotional from it, I was just bawling by the end. It was amazing and so moving to see. There were literally hundreds of people there the day of the shoot, and it was mind-blowing to see so many people touched by the disease.”

Today, both Paul and Carla are active public speakers for breast-cancer awareness. Paul urges men to be proactive about their health. While the American Cancer Society estimates that only 1 percent of breast cancer diagnoses are in men, men are needlessly dying from the disease because they aren’t aware of it or are too embarrassed to get checked out. “When I was on the Today Show, Matt Lauer asked me if having breast cancer was considered less masculine,” says Paul. “I told him it’s a matter of living or dying. It doesn’t matter where the disease is located, cancer is cancer.”

Adds Paul, “There is a lot of awareness about breast cancer in women, but not a lot about breast cancer in men. Scientists have come a long way with treatment, so more women are surviving. But men are dying.”

Carla shares her story in hopes that she can not only create more awareness but also provide hope to other breast-cancer patients and their caregivers. “So many people who have had cancer don’t want to talk about it because they think either no one wants to hear about it or it is just too painful and emotional for them to share,” Carla says. “However, it is so important to share your story because you never know who you could help or provide hope and inspiration to.”

Adds Carla, “Having breast cancer was never something I would have asked for, but I wouldn’t give the experience back. It has changed me as a person and has allowed God to use me for the better.”

Mississippi Magazine
July/August 2012

Mississippians pride themselves on being avid outdoorsmen, fishermen, even football players.  Likely you know a local golf enthusiast and maybe your next door neighbor runs the occasional marathon.  What you may not know, is that tucked away behind the tall pines and magnolia trees is a little known culture of avid croquet players.

Mention the word croquet at your next social gathering and likely you will conjure up images that run the gamut – everything from childhood memories of playing the game in a suburban backyard, Victorian-era scenes depicted in a favorite movie, to the fairy tale version written about in Alice in Wonderland.  The game itself has been around for centuries, believed to have originated in 17th-century France from a game known as palle-maille.  It was introduced to Ireland and England in the 1850’s before arriving in America sometime in the 1860’s.

Believe it or not, croquet was not always a game for the elegant and well-mannered.  In the 1890’s, Boston clergy lobbied to have the game banned because it brought about a great deal of drinking, gambling, and other behavior considered unbecoming.  The opposition nearly threatened the popularity of croquet in American until it resurfaced in the 1920’s.  By the 1950’s and 60’s, nearly every household was playing a version of the game in backyards across the country.

Traditional American six wicket croquet became solidified within the American culture in 1977 when croquet champion Jack Osborn brought together five clubs to form the United States Croquet Association (USCA).  Their first order of business was to establish a clear-cut set of rules – known as American rules croquet – that are still used today.  The basic concept behind six wicket croquet is simple.  There are two sides – blue and black balls versus the red and yellow balls.

Teams can be played by two single players or in pairs.  The object is to maneuver the balls through a course of six arches, called wickets, and finally into a stake.  The first team to do so wins the game.   While that may seem easy enough, the game combines the physical skills used in billiards and golf with the strategic planning of always thinking one step ahead of your opponent found in a game of chess.  Truly understanding and mastering the game requires practice and study.

Croquet is a game that has always been rich with tradition and the croquet clubs across Mississippi are no exception.  One tradition that has been passed on through the years is the requirement that players wear all white.  There is speculation as to how this rule got started – some say it’s because the sport is usually played in hot weather and the white fabric reflects heat.  Others say it does not distract from the game and looks more elegant.

“It’s tradition,” says Jackson businessman Mike McRee, who was first introduced to the game in 1988 when longtime friend Grady Jolly presented him with a croquet set as a gift.  Jolly had just recently returned from a trip to California, where he played croquet with famous winemaker Robert Mondavi at the Meadowood Club in Napa Valley.  At first McRee was baffled.  He was accustomed to the poorly-constructed sets used for backyard games.  The set given to him by his friend was high quality.

“The set was too nice to play croquet in a pasture,” McRee recalled.  “I decided if we were going to do this, we needed to do it right.”

Tournament croquet is played on a lawn cropped to 1/8 – 1/4-inch high, similar to a golf course.  McRee’s first stop was the local library, where he checked out several books on building a golf green.  Before long, he had bulldozed a plot of land he owned in Pocahontas, MS, and within six months of building the court over 15 couples were showing up to play on a regular basis.

McRee has built several croquet courts since, his most recent in 2005 when he established the Highlands Mallet Club in Flora.  The group of about 15-20 couples meet every Sunday afternoon.   A bracket is created to establish partners and games usually kick off around three o’clock.

Ed and Hillis Becker have been members of Highlands Mallet Club for four years.  They were introduced to the game by Ed’s father Jim, who has been an avid player and a longtime member of the club.

“It is a very enjoyable way to spend a Sunday afternoon,” said Hillis.  “There is usually a different crowd every week.  We have a great mix of people, both male and female, of all ages.”

The season traditionally kicks off in the spring and concludes in October with the annual Member/Guest Tournament.  Members are asked to bring a guest to the weekend-long event, which kicks off with a seated dinner at a member’s house.  Team assignments are made.  Each team is made up of one male and one female player and novices are paired with more seasoned players.  The tournament continues throughout the weekend with teams advancing to the quarter and semifinals.  The winners of the tournament receive the coveted Jim Becker trophy, named in honor of Ed’s father.

The weekend concludes with “high tea,” an elegant spread served right before the championship tournament.  A typical menu includes a variety of finger sandwiches including tomato, cucumber mint, and chicken salad sandwiches; fresh vegetable pate; French almond macaroons; petit fours; scones with lemon curd; chocolate dipped strawberries; and hot and iced tea and champagne.

When asked what advice he would give to someone interested in taking up the sport, Ed Becker suggests starting off by reading as much information available about the game.  “Croquet is one of the few sports where men and women can compete on an equal level, there is no upper hand,” he says.  “It’s a fun game that can be played quickly and really deserves more attention.”

Croquet Clubs in Mississippi:

Highlands Mallet Club
Jackson, MS
(601) 949-3103

Long Beach Yacht Club
Long Beach, MS
(228) 868-8279

Pocahontas Mallet Club
Jackson, MS
(601) 955-3353