Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Lee Adams spent a big part of his youth playing baseball and basketball in Penn Hills. More recently, he became an instructor in youth organizations near his Mt. Lebanon home, primarily for his kids.

"I love sports," Adams said. "It teaches you life's lessons." But in 1997, Adams was stunned with the diagnosis of a severe liver condition known as primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), the cause of which is unknown.

PSC primarily affects the bile ducts inside and outside the liver, causing inflammation, which leads to scarring and hardening, or cirrhosis.

Adams, then 40, was told by doctors that if he didn't undergo successful transplant surgery, his life expectancy would be seven to 10 years.

"I had the exact same condition as (former Hall of Fame running back) Walter Payton," Adams said. "I thought, 'Here is a man with a chiseled body who did the things that he did on the field, and he didn't make it. How am I going to survive?' "

It took some time, but Adams finally found a donor, and he found new life.

On Monday, under a hot sun at Carnegie Mellon University, Adams, now 51, stood in the shade of a tent near one end of the school's football field.

"Let's just stay right here for now," he said with a huff and a puff between events at the National Kidney Foundation-sponsored U.S. Transplant Games.

The four-day event concludes today with competition in bowling, cycling, golf, tennis and volleyball at sites in and around the city. The closing ceremonies are at 8 p.m. at Petersen Events Center on the Pitt campus.

Adams, who works through the Center for Organ Recovery and Education as a motivational speaker, has hosted a local public affairs TV talk show over past 13 years. The program originates in the South Hills.

Among his recent guests are Allegheny County chief executive Dan Onorato and Steelers president Art Rooney II.

He also plans to get a guest appearance from Dr. Thomas Starzl, who has been a researcher at Pitt since 1981. Starzi is considered the leading expert on organ transplants, having performed the first human liver transplants in 1963 at the University of Colorado.

As Adams glanced toward the starting line shortly before his scheduled appearance in a relay, he reflected on the silver medal he had won in the 50-59 age group of the 5K event on Sunday on the North Shore near Heinz Field.

Yesterday he also won a pair of gold medals in the 400- and 800-meter runs and a bronze medal in the 200 meters.

"I was an athlete," Adams said. "I even played baseball for a year-and-a-half at Edinboro (University). I'm lucky to be alive now."

Adams said he plans to dedicate his medal to the family of Richard Verduine of Chicago, whose liver he received during a Dec. 3, 2004, operation at UPMC Montefiore.

Verduine died of a brain aneurysm, and Adams said Verduine's wife decided to donate her husband's organs.

"She saved a number of lives by making that decision, because they donated his kidneys, his eyes and his liver," Adams said. "I wrote her several letters before she finally replied. I wanted to thank her, and I wanted to do it in person by visiting her.

"When we got to their house, there were (a lot of) people there from her family, and they got to see what he did. He kept on giving. I walked in with her husband's liver in me. I felt guilty, because I was alive and he had died."

It was yet another emotional moment for Adams, who is competing in his first U.S. Transplant Games.

"Eighteen people die a day waiting for an organ," he said. "The doctors that perform these transplants are the real heroes. Them and those in the military. They save people's lives. People want to get Derek Jeter's autograph, and A-Rod's, but they're not the real stars."

Dave Mackall can be reached at dmackall@tribweb.com or 412-380-5617.