Yes it \u00a0is really me, Rick Stivers. I have been quiet over many years due to distance and the last eight years a medical odyssey that resulted in a heart transplant at U of Mich. on 3-30-06. I had developed an enlarged heart probably due to a virus of some kind. About four years ago, I had an ICD (defibrillator\/pacemaker) implanted (with thoracic surgery using a DaVinci machine), and was put on the waiting list for a transplant. After about 15 appropriate defib firings, I underwent 20 hours of surgery to implant an LVAD (Left Ventricle Assist Device) on 7-28-05 which did the pumping for my heart. The LVAD required 24\/7 care, daily surgical dressing change and I could not drive or shower. After about 10 more firings, numerous ambulance and chopper rides, I received my 21 year old new heart. The surgery was only 16 hours and a short hospital stay of 19 days as compared to two and two and half months for the\u00a0previous surgeries at U of M. I REALLY hate wolverines! In spite of all this, my three kids have all completed college and in or completed grad school, and I feel good now except for\u00a0the 50 lb. wait gain and the damn steroids. I spend a lot of my time at my place on Torch\u00a0Lake, but I am now prohibited from getting in the cleanest lake in MI because of my immunosuppression. I would like to\u00a0stay in touch. Been retired from banking, securities and foreign exchange trading for 8 years due to the stress. I still stay in touch somewhat with Coops as I met\u00a0my wife at his wedding. I tried\u00a0e-mailing U-Trou but it did not\u00a0go through. -kai- Rick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yes it \u00a0is really me, Rick Stivers. I have been quiet over many years due to distance and the last eight years a medical odyssey that resulted in a heart transplant at U of Mich. on 3-30-06. I had developed an enlarged heart probably due to a virus of some kind. About four years ago, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,4],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni-news","category-theta-data","tag-february-2008-theta-data","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":892,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions\/892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}