Tom Lawrence maintains workouts with artificial heart

By MEGAN WILKINSON

mwilkinson@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

It’s rare for Tom Lawrence

to skip his daily visit to the North Champion Street YMCA in Youngstown. The 59-year-old Boardman resident has been working out there on a regular basis for about 37 years. He walks, rides a bike, lifts light weights and does 150 sit-ups and push-ups.

Lawrence’s family said he’s kept the same regimen for a long time. This past year, what really kept him going hides under his workout shirt: an artificial heart.

Lawrence has a heart disease called cardiomyopathy, a disease that affects the heart muscles.

“His heart muscle is not as strong as a normal heart is,” said Melissa Williams, a nurse practitioner at the Cleveland Clinic. “His heart is big, but the muscle is weak. It’s not able to pump his blood sufficiently to the rest of his body like most people.”

Unlike most heart disease patients, Lawrence said he thinks his problems stem from five skull fractures he received 20 years ago at the hands of a burglar.

“I was up in Brier Hill at work for the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority in 1994 just walking into a building on Stansbury Drive when a burglar hit me five times in the head,” Lawrence said.

“My head swelled up to the size of a basketball.”

That injury changed his life, he said.

“His face was totally bruised from the incident,” said Bev Lawrence, his sister-in-law, of Girard.

“There were a lot of head-related problems immediately after the incident.”

Bev Lawrence, 63, said family and friends noticed small changes, such as minor memory lapses, headaches and vertigo.

She said he also developed fibromyalgia, a disorder characterized by extensive chronic pain and sleep problems, as a result of the 1994 incident.

“Doctors told me the injury to my head was so severe they almost didn’t know what to do,” Lawrence said. “They were surprised my brain managed to rewire itself from a lot of the damage.”

Yet just when he thought he was “in the clear,” Lawrence said he started to notice heart problems about 10 years ago.

It wasn’t until this past January that things got severe.

“My heart was just constantly racing,” Lawrence said.

Lawrence was sent to Cleveland Clinic.

Williams said doctors check heart disease patients for their “ejection fraction.” She said a normal heart ejection fraction should be at 50 to 60 percent. Lawrence’s heart ejection fraction was 10 percent, which is usually fatal. She said most people with a 10 percent heart ejection fraction are immobile.

But what was strange was that Lawrence said he still felt OK to walk, move and eat at that rate.

During a visit in January, doctors gave Lawrence his artificial heart. The doctors call it a “left ventricular assist device” or LVAD. The LVAD is a mechanical device that connects from outside the body to the heart to make sure it pumps blood through the body.

Bev Lawrence, who used to work with pacemakers with Ohio Heart before retiring, said the LVAD is often used as a bridge for patients waiting for a heart transplant.

She said others will use the LVAD the rest of their lives to stay alive.

“You’d never suspect his problems are as severe as they are,” Bev Lawrence said. “He is able to do things most people who need a transplant can’t do. He loves life, too. Maybe once in a while he’ll get sad about it, but usually he has no bitterness. He continues to carry on, laugh and joke.”

Lawrence is on the waiting list with Cleveland Clinic to receive a heart transplant. Until then, he said it is up to the LVAD to pump his blood.

Lawrence said he has no idea why he survived five skull fractures and severe heart problems. But he said his family, friends and LVAD are what keep him going. He said he tries to encourage other people waiting to get a heart transplant.

“When I talk to others on the wait list, they are usually happy to learn that you can live a pretty much normal life,” he said.