Into the heart, a medical odyssey

Walt and Kaye Lillehei pose for a photo at the doctor's 80th birthday party

Epilogue

Autumn's colors were fading in Minneapolis the weekend of Oct. 23, 1998. Further north in Minnesota, where Gregory Glidden had lain buried for 44 years, the leaves were mostly gone from the trees. Soon, winter would sweep down from Canada, burying the Plains in snow. Soon, summer would be a memory.

But it was warm that Saturday, when Walt Lillehei's family and friends gathered at a black-tie dinner to pay him tribute. The Father of Open-Heart Surgery had just turned 80.

Many of the old boys were there: Herb Warden and Morley Cohen, who'd shepherded cross-circulation to success; Dick DeWall, the most glimmering of diamonds in the rough; Norm Shumway, the inventor of heart transplantation and Walt's one-time student. Several former patients came, too, including Pamela Schmidt Stacherski, the little ``Queen of Hearts'' in 1954, now 49 years old and in perfect health.

Lillehei's health was not what it had been. He hadn't fully recovered from prostate cancer and he tired easily. His neck bent to the right, a recent effect of the surgery he had had for his earlier cancer, lymphosarcoma, back in 1950. The ghost of his doctor, boss, and mentor, Owen Wangensteen, was near.

But what was Walt Lillehei, if not a survivor? ``Old age is not for sissies,'' he'd taken to saying, with a smile.

Champagne flowed and dignitaries toasted Lillehei. Said one: ``As the author Tom Wolfe would say, he's the guy with the right stuff.'' Former Vice President Walter Mondale gave the keynote speech, in which he thanked Walt for the ``millions of lives'' that Walt and his advances — and Walt's many trainees and their trainees — had saved. No one could ever calculate the exact figure, of course, but millions did not seem an exaggeration.

The week before, the Nobel prize for medicine had been awarded. This was an honor for which Lillehei had often been nominated, and yet again it had eluded him. Some speculated that his conviction for tax fraud had kept him from the prize, but Lillehei wasn't convinced; many good people, he'd once said, went unrecognized by the Nobel academy. In any event, he'd said, ``I never lose any sleep.''

Lillehei had reclaimed his reputation. He was in demand for lectures, in the United States and abroad, and the University of Minnesota had finally reappointed him professor. His place in history was secure.

Helped up by one of his sons, Lillehei took the podium after former Vice President Mondale had finished. He spoke of his breakthrough operations on little Gregory Glidden and Pamela Schmidt; of his first tetralogy of Fallot; of DeWall's oxygenator. He spoke from memory, and sometimes his memory took a second or two. He leaned on the dais for support. He was, after all, 80.

But there was still power in his words, in the story of all the hearts that he had touched.

Anyone who looked into his eyes saw it. The essence of Walt Lillehei was still vital, like summer sunshine.