Phillip Hanks: A 5 Organ Transplant Success Story
Every transplant recipient has an incredible life story. The multiple hospitalizations, difficult conversations, family worries and financial hardship are just some of the bumps on the road.
Phillip Hanks of Joliet knows the territory and recently shared his story via the May 6 OTS meeting on Zoom.
Phillip wants to give inspiration and hope to anyone who needs it, especially prospective transplant recipients. He has become an ambassador for transplantation, working with Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White’s office to visit high school classes and other groups. He has been interviewed by media outlets multiple times and perhaps a documentary is in the future.
One aspect of his work as a transplantation speaker is to show people who are of different races and ethnicities that TRANSPLANTATION WORKS. The Illinois Secretary of State “Life Goes On” director, Connie Boatman, said, “’Phil has been so incredibly instrumental and inspiring to the program. Our mission is to strengthen the Illinois organ and tissue donor registry through outreach and registration initiatives and one of the ways we are able to do that is partnering with individuals, organizations, faith-based institutions, learning institutions. . .we have coordinators go out and lead the charge and serve as advocates to help us with that mission. Phil hit the floor running. It’s been incredible to have him on board. . .many minorities believe that organ and tissue donation doesn’t work, or they have questions about it and we’re constantly working to debunk those myths. He’s a prime example that organ and tissue donation does save lives and it doesn’t matter your race, ethnicity or gender.’”
Phil grew up on the South Side of Chicago, raised by a single mother. He showed promise as a basketball player, but he left the area when he was 15 to care for a relative in Tennessee. Later he earned his GED and studied at Olive-Harvey College. He worked in information technology, often putting in 12-hour days.
But in 2005 he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and in 2007, he received another shock—he had Hepatitis C, likely caused by a re-sterilized needle from a tattoo. He needed a liver transplant. He underwent transplant surgery in November 2007, but complications led to his being placed into an induced coma; doctors had to massage his heart to keep him going. When he recovered, a lot of scar tissue on the liver remained. But the good news was that he and his fiancé Tiva could get married, and soon another daughter was born to join five other children in their blended family.
Trouble came back in 2019. The family was visiting relatives in Texas and Phil was shooting hoops when an intense, searing pain jolted his arm. It increased in intensity over the weeks and Phil treated it by “popping ibuprofen like candy.” When the family returned to Chicago, Tiva immediately took Phil to the emergency room, where he was diagnosed with liver failure again. Diabetes had harmed other organs as well, and he was in fourth-stage kidney failure. However, Phil maintained a positive outlook. He and Tiva kept looking for programs that could help him, even though second liver transplants are rare.
Eventually they found Dr Richard Mangus at Indiana University Health in Indianapolis. Dr Mangus thought that “Phillip had gone out of his way to take care of himself. He exercised, ate well. He looked quite robust” and was a good candidate for surgery.
This was to be a very unusual type of transplant surgery, a “multivisceral” surgery involving five organs:
liver, kidney, pancreas, stomach and intestines. Dr Mangus said that the vein involved with blood flow to Phillip’s liver was blocked by scar tissue. Removing the organs as a unit and replacing them as a unit was ‘conceptually simpler’ than replacing each one individually. However, kidney failure added to the surgery’s risk. Nevertheless, in late April 2021, just a few days after his 50th birthday, Phillip underwent two consecutive surgeries, one for seven-plus hours and the second for over four hours. This time he recovered more quickly from the transplantation process. In fact, he soon was sitting up and could leave the ICU. His breathing tubes removed, he could walk around the hospital the day after his transplant, Tiva said.
Though he spent weeks in the hospital for monitoring, Phillip started exercising and began adding weight back to his 6 foot, 3-inch frame. Dr Mangus said, “’He did remarkably well because he was in such good shape. The surgery went smoothly, and we got excellent organs. I think all that helps.”
And Phil is moving forward with the goal of helping others, as Chicago Tribune reporter Darcel Rockett wrote: “He wants people to glean inspiration and faith from his story. He says, “I think attitude and frame of mind has a lot to do with recovery. . .the mind is a powerful tool. I try my best to stay positive because if you get negative, you can get defeated.’ Hanks is taking chaplaincy classes online too, in hopes of taking his message of positivity to as many platforms as possible—public speaking, a possible documentary or a book.” He began work with the Illinois Secretary of State’s Life Goes On program in 2022.
There is a lot more information about Phil’s transplantation journey online, via Twitter (@phillip_hanks) and Facebook (facebook.com/phillipohanks). We at OTS are glad that Phillip joined us and shared his story during the May 6 Zoom meeting!
Other sources for this article include: Darcel Rockett’s Chicago Tribune columns 8/23/21 and 4/27/22; Denise M. Baran-Unland, www.shawlocal.com; and T.J. Banes of the Indiana University Health newsletter 7/21/21 (tfender1@iuhealth.org).