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| Renowned Plastic Surgeon Visits GR |
Go Back |
By Kathy Longcore
May 19, 2003
Copyright 2003 The Grand Rapids Press. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
WYOMING -- Today, Lori Hoogewind is a happy and healthy wife and mother.
But three years ago, she was a woman whose life was threatened by a 200-pound
tumor that quickly grew within her, absorbing her blood and nutrients like a
giant, parasitic sponge.
The tumor, caused by a disorder called neurofibromatosis, left Hoogewind
unable to walk without help and always feeling exhausted.
The doctors who examined her were amazed by the tumor's size but afraid to
risk operating on it -- except for Dr. McKay McKinnon.
In an operation that took 18 hours and garnered worldwide attention, the
reconstructive surgeon from Chicago removed the tumor, figuring that his patient
would die otherwise.
Hoogewind, a 43-year-old Wyoming resident, said she could not have made it
through the ordeal without her faith in God. Her husband, Gary, 46, considers
her recovery a miracle.
"Dr. McKinnon is a wonderful person, but I did have the Lord on my side,
too," she said. "I was in a lot of people's prayers."
Neurofibromatosis, called NF for short, is a progressive disorder of the
nervous system that causes disfiguring tumors to form on nerves throughout the
body.
Most surgeons don't want to risk removing the growths, said Rosemary
Anderson, who coordinates the NF Clinic at Spectrum Health's Blodgett Campus. She
said McKinnon, who is to give a lecture about the disease Thursday evening at the
East Grand Rapids hospital, is an exception.
"They tell patients, 'We can't do anything' or 'It will just grow back.' But
Dr. McKinnon offers hope," Anderson said.
Lori Hoogewind has lived her entire life with NF but her problems with the
giant tumor started shortly after she and her husband adopted their daughter
Nina, who now is 7.
Part of a tumor on Hoogewind's right side became malignant. Doctors in Ann
Arbor removed the cancerous portion in January 1999 and treated the rest with
radiation therapy.
No one knows exactly what caused the explosive growth of the residual tumor
but Hoogewind's doctors believe that the radiation treatments may have had the
same affect as fertilizer on a plant. The tumor grew to 200 pounds within six
months of her last treatment.
With doctors refusing to operate, social workers suggested that Hoogewind
start a journal for her daughter, who was then 3 years old.
"They were teaching me to die. They said to write things I would like to say
to her when she was 16, and when she got married," Hoogewind said. "I
started the journals but it was like giving up, so I stopped."
In late 1999, she went to the University of Chicago Hospital to see McKinnon,
who initially gave Hoogewind a 50-50 chance of surviving the surgery.
After examining her more closely, he lowered her odds to 1 in 10.
"Lori Hoogewind was dying, and I think she wanted any chance she could have,"
McKinnon said in an episode of the Discovery Channel's "Super Surgery"
program.
After undergoing surgery that left 40 percent of her body with an open wound,
Hoogewind endured six weeks of skin grafts, first from cadavers and then from
her own legs. She needed intense physical therapy to get her muscle strength
back. Through it all, Hoogewind never complained, McKinnon said.
Her life today is wonderful.
"We are just real blessed," she said. |
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