NEW HEART MAGICALLY GIVES MAN NEW LIFE

Lancaster practices for hours to perfect his magic tricks, like balancing a pen with one finger.

Since his heart transplant, Lancaster has had time to enjoy life. One of his favorite things to do is play his banjo while his wife crochets.

Bob Lancaster has been given a second chance at life.

Lancaster of Jackson was the recipient of a heart transplant in 1992 and says if he had not gotten one, he would be dead by now.

"You can't really put into words what that means," Lancaster said. "I couldn't walk to the mailbox and back and now I'm walking on a treadmill every day."

And Lancaster wants to show that his heart is in the right place by giving something back. Since Lancaster can't donate his heart, Lancaster now donates his time -- to promote tissue and organ donation.

Lancaster and his wife, Dorothy, spend much of their free time performing magic shows for area organizations. He says he uses this platform to tell his story which he hopes will encourage people to donate their own organs after they die.

April 21-27 is National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week and Lancaster hopes his story can convince others to donate their vital organs when they no longer need them.

Lancaster says the biggest way people can do something now is by discussing their wishes while they are still alive.

"Families should talk about it and let each other know what they want done," Lancaster said. "Because it's the families who make the final decision."

Lancaster repeats the story a doctor told him that illustrates his point perfectly:

Recently, a man died and the doctor asked the man's family if his organs could be donated. They told the doctor that they had never discussed it with him so were unsure of his wishes and therefore couldn't donate.

"If they had only talked about it ..." Lancaster said, shaking his head.

He also is involved in the Mid-America Transplant Service for Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois. This organization's sole purpose is to promote organ and tissue organ donor awareness.

One way they do that is through an annual walk for organ and tissue donor awareness. This year the walk will be held in Cape Girardeau on April 24 at 6 p.m.

"We hope this gets us some recognition and will help to get people thinking about organ donation," Lancaster said.

Looking at Lancaster today, he seems in the utmost of health. But that hasn't always been the case.

In April 1982 Lancaster had a mild heart attack that put him on medication for 10 years. He felt OK afterward and was doing well, unaware that his heart was deteriorating all the while.

He was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a condition which hardens the lining of the heart and reduces its pumping power. A normal heart has about a 60 percent pumping power capacity.

Lancaster's got down to nine percent.

"I was just barely alive," Lancaster says. "I found out the only way I would survive was to have a heart transplant."

Most people are placed on a heart transplant waiting list when their heart gets lower than 20 percent.

He said he was devastated. He contacted his doctor and asked how he should go about getting on a heart transplant list. The doctor contacted St. Louis University hospital, who then contacted Lancaster.

They asked him to come and see their head cardiologist, who, after running some tests, told Lancaster that he was definitely a candidate for a heart transplant and promptly put him on the list.

The "list" is, in reality, a computer of names of those waiting for a heart transplant from across the nation. The heart has to be matched to its prospective donor, with height, weight and overall health being contributing factors.

Lancaster was lucky. He only had to wait seven months.

But something strange happened on the night before Lancaster got the call telling him a heart was available.

"Some people won't believe this, but we went to bed that night and I told my wife I was going to get my heart tomorrow," Lancaster said.

"I told him to go to sleep," Lancaster's wife, Dorothy, said.

Lancaster said he just knew that the time had come. And he was right.

At a little after midnight the phone rang and the Lancasters were told a heart would be ready in several hours if they could come to St. Louis for the operation.

Of course they went and the operation was a success and Lancaster says he feels perfectly fine with his new heart.

While they weren't supposed to know about the previous owner of the heart, they did find out that the 22-year-old man had been killed in a drive-by shooting in St. Louis and his family had opted to donate his vital organs.

In fact, five of his vital organs went to helping others who needed them.

While Lancaster feels that donating vital organs is the obvious thing to do, he doesn't try to push it onto people. He says he realizes it's an "individual decision."

But he does admit he hopes his testimony will help make up undecided minds.

"Just look at me," he said. "I would be dead if it wasn't for someone's family donating their loved one's organs.

"I'll always be grateful for that."