Stirring stories from 2005

He was the first to be treated for cancer with an experimental gene drug.
Almost six months after receiving a second dose of gene therapy, Harvey Harris is living the good life in his new home in Florida, where he fishes, works on his art, and spends time with his grandchildren.
Harris broke new ground in July when he became the first patient in a clinical trial at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania to get two doses of an experimental gene drug.
Harris, 62, of Gibbsboro, Camden County, has mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer of the lining of his chest, caused by a lifetime of working with asbestos. He was diagnosed in February 2004 and has already survived longer than most people with the disease.
His doctor, pulmonologist Daniel Sterman, said tests show that the second dose of the gene drug may have worked to rev up Harris' immune system to attack the tumor in his chest.
Harris has more tests to come, but for now, he focuses on enjoying each day as it comes.
"I try to keep a happy face, a smile on my face," Harris said. "I do what I want to do for myself. I'm being a little selfish because I think I deserve it."
- Susan FitzGeraldJames Pyrih
A Cool-Cap spared him serious injury at birth.
James Pyrih is 7 months old and doing all the normal baby things: crawling, babbling, and pulling himself up on the sofa to stand.
His parents, Theresa and Mark, are amazed.
James had no heartbeat at birth, and it took doctors and nurses about 15 minutes to resuscitate him. He was rushed to the intensive-care nursery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he was outfitted with a tiny plastic cap filled with cold water.
By using the Cool-Cap to lower the temperature of James' brain, doctors hoped to prevent damage stemming from the lack of oxygen and perhaps spare him a lifetime of disability.
"He's more than we ever hoped for," said Theresa Pyrih, of Holland, Bucks County. James' five siblings "think he's wonderful and they love him like crazy."
James passed his latest checkup with flying colors.
"His neuromotor exam and his developmental exam were both on target for his age," said Shobhana Desai, a Jefferson neonatologist.
Theresa Pyrih credits the Cool-Cap for her son's good fortune. She also credits prayer.
"That has a lot to do with this as well," she said.
- Susan FitzGeraldDrs. Manju and
E. Balasubramanian
They continue to help tsunami victims in India.
It was almost exactly a year ago that Drs. Manju and E. "Bala" Balasubramanian brought their stethoscopes and sterile instruments to small towns along India's eastern coast, hoping to help tsunami victims.
They spent about a month doing everything from replacing hips to soothing throats made sore by swallowing seawater.
Now they are traveling anew. The couple, both 53, went back to India last month, and headed to their hometown of Chennai. They also planned to revisit Keechankuppam, where 600
children lost one or both parents.
"We don't know what we'll find," Manju said before departing. "I guess we'll see where we're needed."
The last year has been filled with work - orthopedic surgery at Temple University Hospital for Bala, and pathology for Manju at Hahnemann University Hospital. They have had little opportunity to volunteer at their Hindu temple in Montgomeryville, or enjoy quiet time together, but the hectic pace suits them.
When they retire, they hope to spend several months- a year volunteering at another hospital in southern India, and the rest of the year in Philadelphia.
"It'll take a little more time to find a way to do more," Bala said.
- Dawn FallikGregory Andre
A severely burned Haitian boy finds surgery and love in America.
For Gregory Andre, 2005 was an amazing year. He had a couple of plastic surgeries, a lot of physical therapy, and as much love as he could contain from the family that hopes to adopt him. That would be Heather and Glen Maeding of Nazareth, Pa., and their sons Luke and Logan.
Heather, a nurse practitioner who has volunteered at Haitian medical clinics, learned about Gregory from workers at an orphanage near Port-au-Prince after he was abandoned in early 2004. She brought him home that November on a medical visa, so he could get treatment for the unexplained third-degree burns and scars that covered his hands and forearms, feet, face and head.
Inquirer readers have donated about $15,000 for his medical expenses so far.
Maeding said that Gregory's adoption - and that of a second child from the orphanage - may come through this month. "We are anxiously waiting," she said.
Gregory, 4, who still needs some smaller plastic surgeries, has become fluent in English, finished potty-training, enrolled in preschool, and started riding a "big-boy bike" with training wheels.
"He's grown up so much!" Meading said.
- Virginia A. SmithZach Carson
He goes the distance on alternative fuel.
After driving cross-country in an old bus that runs on vegetable oil, what does Zach Carson do for an encore?
He hooks up with 14 other alternative-fuel bus owners and drives back east.
Carson, 23, reached California on Aug. 27, nearly two months after leaving his parents' home in Merion.
The return trip, dubbed the Sustainable Living Roadshow (www.cleanfuelcaravan.org), is planned for this fall.
On the way out to California, Carson filled his converted shuttle bus with used cooking oil, mostly from Chinese restaurants.
He interviewed renewable energy advocates along the way and held public outreach sessions. Childhood pal Todd Henkin filmed the whole thing for a documentary.
Carson's Veg-E-Bus broke down twice: for three weeks in Colorado, and a week and a half in Montana. But it wasn't the fault of the system he installed to run the engine on vegetable oil. Other parts on the used bus simply wore out.
Next month, Carson plans to go to West Africa to promote biofuels and tour with a musical group from Ghana.
For now, he is converting buses to run on vegetable oil, living in Sonoma County, Calif., on an abandoned plot of land whose residents call it the Veggie Land Ranch. It's "a vagabond hostel for the renewable energy
fanatic," Carson says.
- Tom Avril
Shana Reif
A double lung transplant let her live "to the fullest."
Twenty-one months after undergoing a double lung transplant, cystic fibrosis patient Shana Reif, 31, has a more normal, active life than when every breath was a struggle. But the Bensalem resident and her family are acutely aware that her health remains fragile.
She has had persistent medical problems related to a stent, or mesh tube, placed in her main airway to keep it open. Even so, the last year has included baby-sitting for her toddler nephew, volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center, and a trip to Maine.
In October, she felt "like Cinderella at the ball" as she and husband Kurt attended the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's annual gala dinner, where she was a guest speaker.
Just five weeks after that joyous event, she nearly died of a sudden, overwhelming case of pneumonia. She spent a week on a ventilator, her prognosis as grim as the night of her transplant in 2004, when her new lungs temporarily failed.
As usual, Shana defied the odds, making a remarkable recovery. In the coming year, she and her University of Pennsylvania physicians face a dilemma about whether to remove the stent. It keeps clogging, endangering her new lungs, yet removing it would be a delicate, difficult surgery.
"You just have to live every day to the fullest," she said last week.
- Marie McCulloughDavid Wolovitz
A cancer breakthrough saved and refocused him.
"I feel good and I feel happy to be here," said David Wolovitz, 57, an ex-salesman whose life has been saved by one of cancer's few miracle drugs.
Five years ago, Wolovitz, of Glen Mills, Delaware County, learned he had a type of leukemia called chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Treatments with an immune-boosting drug weren't working and were making him sicker than his cancer; he decided to end them. He also ruled out a bone marrow transplant as a remote hope that would make him feel worse still.
Without treatment, CML patients typically die within three to five years. Wolovitz began preparing for the end.
Then, a medical breakthrough: An experimental Novartis drug called Gleevec that had put a majority of CML patients in remission won rapid government approval. Wolovitz took his first pills in May 2001; within six months, he had no signs of leukemia.
The drug saved his life - and changed it, too. Wolovitz left his job and became a volunteer for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. "You've got to feel productive somehow," he said.
Last June, he had a scare when a blood test came back positive for CML, but fortunately, follow-up tests were negative.
When not doing volunteer work, he and wife Lainie enjoy traveling and spending time with their two grandchildren, including a girl born six months ago.
"Every morning when I take my Gleevec pill I honestly thank my doctors in my mind, [and] the people who created this drug," Wolovitz said.