Patient Stories - Turning back time
Penny White
Following leading-edge heart procedure and unexpected bout with cancer, Penny White feels 30 years younger.
Awakened by a series of soft-spoken voices whizzing back and forth, Penny White, 70, slowly opened her eyes to see who was in her room. White was remerging from anesthesia after undergoing a procedure to remove a cancerous tumor in her left lung and still was attempting to gain her bearings. What she discovered brought her an immediate sense of warmth and comfort.
“When I opened my eyes, I saw eight people standing in a semicircle at the foot of my bed talking among themselves,” the Westwood resident recalls. “It felt to me like a rainbow at my feet, made up of people who took care of me and saw me through this really difficult time in my life. It was a great feeling.”
The “rainbow” was strung together by Providence Saint John’s Health Center clinicians, led by internationally renowned thoracic surgeon Robert McKenna, M.D., and the discussion centered around White’s care plan following a successful video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) — a minimally invasive and leading-edge type of thoracic surgery to remove parts of the diseased lung.
The lobectomy had been a success and, because of the earlier persistence and diligence of her cardiologist, Steven Levine, M.D., White was on the mend for the second time in a span of less than a month.
Just two weeks earlier, she had undergone another state-of-the-art procedure: a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). During her workup, White’s care team discovered the cancer.
“I’m extremely lucky they found the cancer when they did because they were able to completely remove the tumor,” says White, who was able to avoid chemotherapy and radiation. “It was incredible how the two teams coordinated my care, allowing me to do the VATS only a couple weeks after the TAVR, which I know is hard to do. I felt like I was their only patient.”
Performed by Peter Pelikan, M.D., Providence Saint John’s medical director of its cardiac catheterization laboratory, the TAVR went just as well for White, who says she “somehow knew it was successful” the minute she woke up. TAVR is a procedure that replaces a thickened aortic valve that can’t fully open (aortic valve stenosis) with a manufactured valve to restore adequate blood flow to the body.
“The TAVR was urgently coordinated because of her symptoms and the need to remove the malignant lesion,” nurse practitioner Alysa-Marie Sia says. “It’s hard enough to deal with aortic valve stenosis let alone knowing you have cancer, so we did everything we could to ease her way and make sure she received timely treatment.”
While White lauded her care for both procedures, her diagnosis was anything but easy — a journey that started 10 years ago at another area hospital and required multiple second opinions before finding her cardiologist, Dr. Levine.
“When I was 60, I had open-heart surgery elsewhere to replace a congenitally defective aortic valve with a new, manufactured valve. It was not a good experience. I contracted a life-threatening bacterial infection called endocarditis, which is one of the risks of open-heart surgery. That new valve could have lasted 15 years, but it gave out in 10, probably due to damage from the infection.
“When I came back to them at 70 with a repeat of the same symptoms — radiating chest pain and shortness of breath — they couldn’t find anything wrong and dismissed what I was saying.”
For six months, White was unable to visit her daughter, son-in-law and much-adored, 1-year-old grandson in Denver due to her worsening condition. Desperate to find an answer, White turned to her internist of 35 years, Dr. Ronald Sue, who connected her with cardiologist Dr. Levine. Following weeks of tests, Dr. Levine diagnosed her with severe aortic stenosis.
“I am so grateful to all of my doctors, especially Dr. Levine, who always listened to me, never gave up, and made me feel included in my care,” White says. “For 25 years, I taught a course called “Doctoring” to UCLA Medical students. I utilized my training and experience as a hospital social worker to teach them how to develop rapport with patients and to communicate effectively with empathy and understanding — everything the health care professionals at Saint John’s do extremely well.”
Thanks to the minimally invasive approaches of the TAVR and the VATS, White’s recovery did not take long. Six weeks after her VATS, she boarded a plane for the Mile High City to reunite with her family.
“My daughter is having another baby boy this fall,” she says, “and thanks to everyone involved in my care, I get to be a very hands-on grandmother for both of them and see them grow up.
“Both Dr. Pelikan and Dr. McKenna say I’m going to live to be 100. Dr. Levine says I’m going to dance at my grandchildren’s weddings,” she says as she laughs. “It’s miraculous how it all played out.”
