Spring had not quite arrived in Philadelphia on March 9, 1987, when two LaSalle College High School teachers went out for an afternoon jog. Joe Radvansky and Tony Viggiano had jogged many times together, and today was nothing new — until two miles into the jog.

Radvansky started to feel pain in his chest, but he kept running. “There was pain radiating from every part of my body and I was having trouble breathing,” he said. “I finally had to stop.”

He sat down on the curb, and watched Viggiano disappear over the next hill unaware that he was no longer following him. “I was sitting on the curb feeling pressure, tightness, pain, and wondering what was going on.”

Only 38 years old, Radvansky never had any health problems. Married, with two kids, he taught math at LaSalle, coached the football team and refereed basketball for the school. On the side, he played tennis and jogged.

“I never smoked a cigarette, and if I had more than six beers in my whole life it was a lot,” he said. “The last thing I ever thought was that there was something wrong with my heart.”

There was.

After passing out in the street that day, he tried to dismiss the incident as a fluke, but that didn’t last long. He continued to feel bad and ended up in the hospital for tests. The doctors discovered that he had cardiomyopathy — an enlarged heart — and a leaking aortic valve.

“Talk about your world crashing down on you,” he said. “I thought I was as healthy as a hog.”

His life changed overnight, transformed from the routines of the classroom to a battery of medical tests, extended hospital stays, and finally, open heart surgery at Albert Einstein Medical Center in July, 1987.

“They replaced the leaking valve and put in a permanent pacemaker, but my heart was still enlarged,” Radvansky said. “That can’t be repaired. That’s when they knew I was going to need a heart transplant.”

Because it could be five years before the transplant was necessary, they sent him home to get back to his life.

This was the hardest time for his wife, Diane, she said: “When he was first diagnosed, I was a young mother with two little kids, ages 3 and 6. I always thought Joe was the strongest one, health-wise, and then this happened.”

After his surgery, she didn’t want him to do anything — play ball, coach, even go for a walk. “Then, one day, a nurse friend took me aside and said, ‘Look, you’ve got to let him live his life. Don’t make him into a cardiac cripple.’”

It was good advice. Nine years would pass before Joe began to slow down. But by August 1996, he was in complete cardiac failure and knew the time had come for a new heart.

In early September, Radvansky checked into the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he would spend the next three months of his life.

The first thing they did was put him on medicine to keep his heartbeat strong. “It’s administered intravenous[ly], so you have this IV [intravenous] cart with you everywhere you go. I called it my Christmas tree. There were about 15 to 20 of us waiting for hearts. The ages varied. I was 47 at the time. Some were younger — in their 30s —- some were older.”

The wait was grueling. “Sometimes, you’d get two hearts in one weekend, then youd wait weeks for another one. The waiting is very difficult because people are getting sicker by the day. Even though you’re under excellent care [and] nurses are there 24/7, my body was slowly deteriorating. There’s no question about it.”

Identifying, recovering and transporting organs in the Philadelphia area is the work of the Gift of Life Donor Program, one of 58 non-profit, organ-procurement organizations in the country that are designated by the federal government to serve specific geographic regions.

“We serve the eastern half of Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Delaware,” said John Green, Director of Community Relations for Gift of Life. The program handles more than 50,000 calls a year from 150 hospitals in the region, identifying potential donors and coordinating the recovery and transportation of organs. The organs are matched with one individual out of the 4,500 people in the area who are waiting for an organ at any given time.
“Eighty percent of the organs recovered in our region stay in our region,” Green said.

Three people on Radvansky’s floor died during their wait for a heart and two others did not survive their transplants.

Still, Radvansky, a member of Corpus Christi parish, said he never despaired.

“There were times when I prayed that all this would pass, but I can’t say I ever feared dying,” he said. “I wanted to be physically ready to accept my heart if I was lucky enough to get one, but, spiritually, if I died, I wanted to be ready to go to heaven.”

He made the best of things by forming a kind of club with the others on his floor. Thursday night was hoagie night, and they were allowed to go up to the psych ward to play ping-pong and pool.

“But we had to have our crash cart with us in case somebody went into cardiac arrest,” he said. “There we were — playing pool and ping pong with our Christmas trees.”

When someone finally got a heart, “It was such a joyous celebration,” Radvansky said. “We would all gather to wish them well. They did this for me, too, the night I got my heart.”

That moment arrived at 11:15 p.m. on Nov. 24, 1996.

A nurse came into his room and asked, “Are you ready?”

By 1 a.m., he was in the operating room.

“The window [of opportunity] for a heart is very short,” Radvansky said. “From the time they remove it from the donor to when they transplant it, you have maybe two or three hours.”

The next time he opened his eyes was 5 p.m. Nov. 25, and someone else’s heart was beating in his chest.

“Needless to say, there were a billion tubes and wires coming out of me,” he said. “My wife was there. She had been up all night. But the thing I remember most is being upset because the Eagles lost to the Cardinals that day.”

That was eight years ago. He’s back to teaching five classes a day, coaching freshman football, playing tennis, enjoying life — thanks to the unnamed person who gave him the gift of a new life.

“Somebody died and gave me their heart,” he said. “I grieve for the donor family. It was a great sacrifice on their part — to give up their loved one’s heart to save someone else’s life. I wouldn’t want my kids or my wife to go through this. But it was a beautiful experience, if I can use that expression.”

With tears in his eyes, Radvansky talked about the outpouring of love that has left a permanent mark on his heart: the LaSalle football team, which brought him a football signed by every team member; the still mysterious “Santa Claus” who left gifts for the whole family on his back steps one day.

“I’m so grateful to everyone — my family, everyone at LaSalle and Corpus Christi, the doctors and nurses — and especially my donor,” he said. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but it really was a gift of life, and I appreciate it every day.”

For more information about organ donation in this area, see www.donatelife-pa.org or www.donors1.org.
Contact Susan Brinkmann at fiat723@aol.com or (215) 965-4615