Most readers are familiar with the "real Princess Diana." This book is about a courageous woman, Diane Cummings, who was the first person with the Tetralogy of Fallot (a congenital heart defect) to be operated upon by Dr. Willis J. Potts in 1946. He was the pioneer surgeon who developed an operation for this syndrome in infants who at the time were deemed too young to have the operation. Diane went on to lead a full life while subsequently undergoing four more open-heart operations done by leaders in the field For this to have happened, she survived four episodes of subacute bacterial endocarditis due to unusual bacteria. She was fortunate to be treated by a series of doctors who have been and still are the pioneers in the treatment of congenital heart disease. The doctors were: Dr. Willis J. Potts of Children's Hospital in Chicago, the originator of the Potts' operation; the father and son team of Drs. James and John Kirklin who were at the University of Alabama Heart Center; and Dr. Joseph Dearani of the Mayo Clinic. She was a true inspiration during the remaining forty-five years of her life. She died in January 2007, having lived a full life for 62 years. This made her one of the longest survivors on record of Potts' original operation. This is her story.

The Other Princess Diane

A Story of Valiant Perseverance Against Medical OddsBy Burton A. Waisbren, Sr.

Trafford Publishing

Copyright © 2010 Burton A. Waisbren, Sr., M.D., FACP
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4269-2504-7

Contents

DEDICATION.........................................................................................................................................................vAUTHOR'S ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...........................................................................................................................................vPROLOGUE...........................................................................................................................................................ixINTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................................xiCHAPTER ONE - Dr. Potts' First Operation for the Tetralogy of Fallot, 1946.........................................................................................1CHAPTER TWO - First Bout of Staphylococcal Endocarditis Treated in Milwaukee, 1962.................................................................................7CHAPTER THREE - Second and Third Bouts of Bacterial Endocarditis - Streptococcal Viridians and Penicillin Resistant Staphylococcal.................................9CHAPTER FOUR - Fourth Bout of Endocarditis Due to a Gram Positive Bacilli that was Treated at an Air Base in Colorado, 1970........................................15CHAPTER FIVE - Second and Third Open Heart Operations Performed by Dr. John Kirklin at the Alabama Medical School Cardiac Center 1971 and 1975.....................17CHAPTER SIX - Fourth open heart operation performed by Dr. James Kirklin 1993 and a moment of truth................................................................33CHAPTER SEVEN -Events leading up to her fifth open heart procedure.................................................................................................41CHAPTER EIGHT - The Final Course...................................................................................................................................49CHAPTER NINE - Description of Diane written by Stephen Cummings, her husband.......................................................................................51INTRODUCTION TO APPENDIX...........................................................................................................................................53THE PLAYERS........................................................................................................................................................54CHRONOLOGICAL CORRESPONDENCE.......................................................................................................................................59CONTENTS OF THE APPENDIX...........................................................................................................................................60REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................................................87

Chapter One

Dr. Potts' First Operation for the Tetralogy of Fallot, 1946

Diane was born on December 10, 1943. It was apparent at birth that she had the congenital heart disease called the Tetralogy of Fallot (the blue baby syndrome) from the moment of her birth. Her parents lived in Waukesha, Wisconsin which is a small Wisconsin town about 30 miles west of Milwaukee. Her father was an energetic, loveable bear of a man who was involved in the brewery business in Waukesha. Her mother was a loving, warm woman who looked forward to being a "stay-at-home" mother. The parents were told from the beginning that at that time, blue babies rarely survived for more than a few years. Indeed that seemed to be the case since from the beginning, Diane failed to thrive. She could barely sit up and had periods of mild convulsions several times a day. Both parents were determined to do everything possible to help their tiny, nonthriving child but their efforts seemed to be in vain. However, Diane struggled on with constant loving attention from both parents.

When she was 18 months old, her mother heard at the bridge table that there was a doctor at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago who was trying to develop a surgical cure for blue babies. She told her husband about this and within that week, Diane, her mother, her father, and Dr. Martin Werra, her family doctor, went to see the doctor they had heard about. Dr. Potts was not at the Children's Hospital at the time but someone at the desk gave Dr. Potts' home address to her parents. The family then drove to the Potts' home where Dr. Potts was cutting his grass.

What follows is an article that Dr. Potts wrote in the Reader's Digest in November of 1964. This article will give the reader some idea regarding the type of man Dr. Potts was. It was entitled, We Gave Diane Back Her Life, by Willis J. Potts, M.D.

At first meeting, Andrew and Jane Schnell of Waukesha, Wisconsin, seemed unexceptional people. He was a businessman in his early 30's, prematurely gray; she, warm and outgoing, but with the subdued tension inevitable in a mother consulting one more in a long string of doctors, about a sick child.

And Diane, their daughter, was sick, mortally sick. She was twenty-one months old and weighed only 18 pounds: a frail, longish child, all bones, and her whole body blue as watered grape juice. She was unable to sit up without support. Any excitement or exertion - even laughing, or crying, or eating too fast - sent her off into unconsciousness because the heart deformity she was born with kept sufficient oxygen from reaching her brain.

Over the bridge table, of all places, her parents had heard that two doctors at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago were developing a new operation for the smallest and frailest of "blue babies". The Schnells had driven all the way from Waukesha on September 9, 1946, and I took Diane in without an appointment to see Dr. Stanley Gibson, our famed children's cardiologist. He brought them to the two experimenters: my colleague, Dr. Sidney Smith, and myself. And now Mrs. Schnell's eyes were pleading, Do you think you can do anything for our daughter?"

Even while Dr. Gibson and I were examining her, the little girl fainted dead away. We hurriedly ordered an emergency oxygen tent, but Mrs. Schnell quietly reassured us, "It's all right. She'll come out of it. This happens five or six times a day."

Diane did come around promptly, and Dr. Gibson and I breathed easier. It was the only occasion in my whole medical experience when the mother of a desperately sick child reassured me.

Mrs. Schnell came back to the point. "Now about this operation ..." I told them what I could do. "Yes, Dr. Smith and I were developing an operation for just such children as Diane. But so far we've done it only on dogs. We think it should work with a child, but we can't really be sure."

"Dogs? Just on dogs?" Mrs. Schnell asked. She hesitated, and for a long moment she and her husband merely looked at each other. Then she said, "The only other answer we've had from medical science is to take Diane home and make her life as happy as possible, because it's going to be a short one. We'd like to ask you, won't you try the operation on Diane?"

We admitted the child to the hospital for further examinations. Dr. Gibson, my co-worker and I...