Bench trial: DeKalb County judge reflects on heart transplant

DeKALB – About a year ago, DeKalb County Judge Bradley Waller found himself in a strange place.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the former Northern Illinois University basketball player, who’d run several miles and biked at least 20 miles a day over the first 56 years of his life, could barely push the pedals on his stationary bike. He was sick as a dog. It took him about a minute to scale the 11 steps from his basement to the ground floor.

The place got stranger, and more literal. He ended up on a heart transplant waiting list at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago where, with a balloon pump in his body, helping his heart push blood, he walked a few miles around the unit each day.

“My goal was to get in the best physical shape possible to endure a pretty intense surgery," Waller said.

He waited 80 days for a match – which hinges on many factors, including both blood and body type.

"As I learned in the transplant world, you don't want to be 6-3, 6-4," he said in his chambers Friday, smiling. "My surgeon told me if I didn't have a new heart in a year, I wouldn't be here."

He said while he kept working to get stronger, he put matters in God’s hands.

"I told him, 'If you want to bring me home, I'm ready, but I'd like to stick around a little longer,'" he said. "I wanted to be with my family. I like being a judge and being a positive impact in my community. But I don't control that. The one thing I could control, though, was how I was going to handle the situation."

God seemingly delivered for Waller, who turns 57 today, his wife, Jackie, and his children, Kyle, 30, of Chicago, Emily, 26, of DeKalb, and Grace, also 26, of Wheaton.

"I'll never forget where we were, what time it was: It was May 30 at 5 o'clock, and I was in the room with my whole family when Dr. Anderson walked in and said, 'We have a heart.' “ he said. “That was incredible."

Starting over

You don’t just get a new heart and resume running. Waller remembers the first time he awoke with his new ticker.

“My goal was to stand for 10 seconds," he said. "Well, I made it 20. Then I made it 30. I tend to have a very Type A personality. I’m driven. I like to compete. In this case, I was competing against myself. How much can I do – without being stupid?"

By the end of July, he was walking 15 miles a day along the Chicago lakefront. Now, he’s back to running 5 miles a day. He’s careful when he points out where he is in terms of fitness, six months out, usually takes at least two years.

“I’m not bragging,” he said.

What he’s doing is pointing out the importance of accepting an obstacle, addressing it and then pushing through pain to live your best life.

"You've got to be willing to push through pain," he said. "Your heart's a muscle, and I just looked at it the way I looked at being an athlete, that I'd do as much as my body allowed me to do."

Then he deflects credit. He points to the mental toughness, the sheer strength of Christopher Canaday, the 18-year-old DeKalb High School senior whose surprise homecoming party Waller attended Dec. 5. Canaday is finally home after a long wait for a heart transplant, the latest adversity the young man has faced with, most of the time, a smile.

"I'm more pleased Christopher is doing as well as he's doing," Waller said. "I'm sympathetic to what he's going through. I'm a grown man who's lived a pretty full life, and he's an 18-year-old kid who's had 50 surgeries in 18 years."

Waller’s inspirations

Of course, Waller always has been competitive. He’d have to be to have racked up 787 career points as a Huskie. He also was named Academic All-Conference three years in a row, from 1982 to 1985, as well as a scholar-athlete during the 1984-85 season.

But his faith and his family drove his recovery. He said it was cathartic to reflect on the 21 rounds of chemotherapy his daughter, Grace, endured, the way bone cancer took 6 inches of her femur and her knee.

“Seeing your child suffer, that was very, very difficult, and without our faith, that would have been a much worse situation," he said.

On the other end of the spectrum, he had a joyful event to rehab for. While his daughter-in-law, Lindsay, said it would be just fine if he officiated hers and Kyle’s wedding at the hospital, the father of the groom couldn’t let that be the case.

He married them July 20, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

"Being able to pull that off, I was very pleased," he said.

Red flags

In hindsight, Waller admits there were signs warning him of a potential life-and-death situation. He said since he was a teenager, he’d feel his heart skip beats. The technical diagnosis is premature ventricular contractions, and he said it got to the point where he’d feel 30 or 40 of those skips a minute.

“I’d never known life without it," he said. "I'd be running down the court, and I'd feel my heart skip – but it didn't prohibit me from doing anything."

About 14 years ago, he passed out while playing in a men’s league at the Plano YMCA.

"I got up and played the second half," he said. "I was still running 10Ks and, by all intents and purposes, living a normal life."

Now his is one of 50 heart transplants Northwestern Medicine celebrated Monday, the number breaking a 23-year-old single-year record in the state, media relations manager Kim Waterman said.

“I’d like to thank our patients and their families for trusting us to take care of your families during their greatest moments of need,” Duc Pham, the surgical director for the Center of Heart Failure at Northwestern Memorial Hospital said during a news conference Monday morning at the hospital. “The doctor-patient relationship is unique enough as it is, but to trust us to save your life by giving you a new heart takes it to a different level.”

Waterman said Tuesday morning that the number of transplants has already gone up to 54, 24 hours after the conference.

Waller is happy to say he's fortunate, but he’s also cognizant about enjoying every moment he’s lucky to have. When he runs, he listens closely to the world around him.

"No music – I don't put anything in my ears,” he said. "I love listening to the birds, and this time of the year while all the geese are still around, I want to be in the moment.

"I can't even put into words how thankful I am.”