If this were an ordinary year, Steve Faber would be making plans to work this weekend as a volunteer in the sandwich tent during Hog Days. Instead, the Kewanee City Councilman is recuperating after a double lung transplant in a Chicago hospital earlier this summer.
We don’t realize how much some people do for the community until they can’t. For years Faber has worked with two groups to wrap sandwiches for the hungry Hog Festival crowd, but this weekend he won’t be there Sunday when volunteers for the Friends of the Animals, an organization dear to his heart, works a shift. Or will he be there on Monday, when he would normally be helping another organization he’s involved with, the Prairie Chicken Arts Festival, staff the sandwich assembly line.
Faber missed the arts festival for the first time last month due to his hospitalization. The list of things Faber volunteers his time for in the community is too long to mention here, but, needless to say, his presence has been missed since last December when it became apparent that his lungs were giving out.
One of his favorite activities is helping Santa visit local schools, nursing homes and children’s parties each holiday season. Last December the condition of his lungs had worsened to the point where he required supplemental oxygen around the clock and was getting around on a battery-powered scooter. He found someone to replace him for his annual visit to the Toulon Health Center on Dec. 22 when he didn’t feel he could make it. When he learned that his substitute had cancelled, Faber put on his red suit and went anyway, knowing how much the residents would miss seeing Santa.
The next day he was in the hospital and the long journey, which included stays at OSF St. Luke’s Medical Center in Kewanee, OSF St. Mary Medical Center in Galesburg, Kewanee Care Nursing Home, and eventually to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago, home of one of the leading organ transplant programs in the nation, began.
After extensive testing it was learned that COPD, emphysema, and pulmonary fibrosis had left one of Faber’s lungs dead and the other at only 20 percent capacity and declining, When it was determined that Faber was eligible for a rare double lung transplant, he was placed on the national donor list at 9 p.m. on Thursday, July 13.
Advances in medicine have reduced the waiting time for organ transplants significantly and doctors hoped to have new lungs for Faber within 30 days, and none too soon as his condition was worsening by the day. Thankfully for Faber, the wait wasn’t long. At 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 15, a set of lungs became available in Florida, sadly, from a 35-year-old non-smoking male who had died in a traffic accident.
Doctors flew immediately from Chicago to Florida in a whirlwind round trip, returning that evening. After hours of preparation and surgery, the old lungs were out and the new ones in. At 3 a.m. Sunday, the doctor told Steve’s wife, Peggy that “everything looks great,” and that Steve “took right to” his new lungs.
Faber has now been moved from the ICU at Northwestern, across the street to the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab Physical Rehabilitation Center where physical therapists are working to build up his strength, helping him walk again, gain weight and get back on his feet. The therapy lasts from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. six days a week. His ability to breathe on his own has been restored and he is now selecting items of real food from a menu for each meal.
“His voice is a little raspy but he is doing well in rehab,” said his sister Terri Wolfe who, along with Peggy, can now talk to him on the phone. The ordeal was complicated from the start since Peggy has Multiple Sclerosis which affects her speech, cognitive ability, and limits use of her right side from the arm down. She and Terri, who lives next-door, have become partners in managing Steve’s care over the past months.
A caregiver comes in twice a week to help Peggy with household chores, but “she still does more than she should,” said Terri. Peggy can still drive short distances but the 3-1/2-hour trip to Chicago and back is out of the question so friends have been pitching in to help with transportation.
Many of those friends have also volunteered to take the training for the special care Steve will need when he transfers from the rehab facility to a condo on the 54th floor of a building three blocks away which leases exclusively to recovering transplant patients where he will reside while his recovery continues toward a hopeful return to his Kewanee home by early November.
A team of Kewanee friends will take turns for week-long stays with Steve to assist with his care, Each volunteer had to undergo special training in order to provide the necessary care. Recovery from a double lung transplant is slow and must be monitored to make sure the host is accepting their new organs.
Medicare and insurance have covered most of the hospital cost, but rent on the condo, along with living and travel expenses will be out-of-pocket with a number of fundraisers planned to help the Faber’s pay the cost.
In a telephone conversation with Steve his advice to Hog Days celebrants this weekend is to “keep it friendly.” He said the thing he has missed the most during his time away has been the twice-monthly city council meetings which he is now able to watch live on Facebook, but is always thinking of a question, suggestion, or helpful piece of advice he would bring up if he were there.
If you would like to send a card or letter to Steve, his current address is:
Steve Faber
Shirley Ryan AbilityLab
Room 2017
355 East Erie Street
Chicago, Ill. 60611
