But that all changed about four years ago when the 43-year-old father of two suddenly began losing weight, having migraines and trouble breathing, and experiencing debilitating bouts of major fatigue. He said he even became too weak to lift up his young children.

“I didn’t know what was wrong with me,” Raden said. “I saw my primary care doctor, an infectious disease specialist, a pulmonologist and a gastroenterologist. My liver enzymes were off the chart, suggesting liver damage,  and one of the many CT scans I had revealed nodules all over my lungs. One doctor was convinced I had tuberculosis.”

But Raden says despite those physicians’ best intentions, no one had the answer or understood why he was getting sicker.

“I didn’t know if I was dying. I didn’t know if I needed to prepare a will and an estate for these little kids and my wife. It was brutal,” Raden said. “One day I finally ended up at Cedars-Sinai’s Emergency Department after having severe breathing problems. I was seen by Dr. Akhavan and that changed everything.”

A Complex Disease

Bobak Akhavan, MD, is a pulmonologist and director of Pulmonary Sarcoidosis in the Sarcoidosis Program at Cedars-Sinai.

“Unfortunately, Jake’s experience reflects a common challenge for patients with sarcoidosis,” Akhavan said. “It’s a rare and often misunderstood inflammatory disease that can affect multiple organs, most often the lungs, and can mimic other conditions.”

Sarcoidosis occurs when the immune system mistakenly forms clusters of inflammatory cells—called granulomas—in healthy tissue. These clusters can cause lasting damage and affect the lungs, heart, liver, brain and other organs.

“I often hear from patients convinced they have advanced cancer because there was no clear explanation for all of their symptoms,” Akhavan said. “The fear and worry that come with not knowing where to turn can be as much of a burden as feeling so unwell.”

Under normal circumstances, the body fights some kinds of infections by forming granulomas, said Elizabeth Frame, MD, one of Raden’s Cedars-Sinai physicians and director of the Sarcoidosis Clinic in the Division of Rheumatology.

"However, in sarcoidosis, those granulomas start forming healthy tissues, where there is no infection, and the resulting inflammation damages the affected organs,” Frame said.

Approximately 200,000 people in the U.S. are living with sarcoidosis, according to the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research. While the rare disease can range from mild to severe—and in rare cases may require organ transplantation—specialized care can significantly improve outcomes.

Cedars-Sinai is a founding member of the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research Global Sarcoidosis Clinic Alliance (FSR-GSCA), which is committed to finding a cure and offering evidence-based, patient-centric care for those living with sarcoidosis

Treatment Plan: It Takes a Village

At Cedars-Sinai, specialists across pulmonology, rheumatology, cardiology, neurology and other fields work together to evaluate patients with sarcoidosis, ensuring that all organs are assessed and treated.

“Because Jake’s case was complex and involved multiple organs, our specialists worked together closely—reviewing his tests and sharing their perspectives in real time—to confirm the diagnosis and create a treatment plan,” Akhavan said.

The multidisciplinary, evidence-based, approach to diagnosing and treating this rare disease is among the reasons Cedars-Sinai is designated a Center of Excellence in Rare Neuroimmune Disorders, including neurosarcoidosis, as well as recognized as a "Sarcoidosis Clinic of Excellence" by the World Association of Sarcoidosis and Other Granulomatous Disorders (WASOG).

“Most of the diseases that rheumatologists take care of affect multiple organs,” Frame said. “We’re accustomed to organizing lots of disparate information and integrating it into a complete picture so everyone can get a comprehensive understanding of the patient as a whole.”

The Road to Recovery

With a diagnosis and treatment plan in hand, Raden received high-dose steroids and other therapies aimed at reducing inflammation and preventing further organ damage. Within weeks, his strength began to return. Lung function and blood tests, as well as CT scans, confirmed Raden’s condition was improving.

“The art of treating sarcoidosis has to do with finding the doses and combinations of medicines that are best for a specific patient,” Frame said. “The goal of treatment is always to help a patient live the healthiest, fullest, happiest life possible.”

Today, Raden is in remission and back to the life he feared he might lose.

“I can breathe again and I have energy,” Raden said. “I can exercise, I run around with my kids, and I can be of real help to my wife. Work is good. It’s not an exaggeration to say that finding these experts and this special sarcoidosis program saved my life.”

Read More on Stories and Insights: When Superfoods and Inflammatory Diseases Are a Recipe for Trouble

That’s what she’s been doing since she was 22, when she was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, a rare disease that causes the heart muscle to weaken and, eventually, stop pumping blood.

After college graduation, Epps-Manuel began her career in special education. She grew up with a brother with special needs, and Epps-Manuel believed she had found her calling. But one day in 2010, during her first job as a teaching assistant, she came home feeling like she had just run a marathon. She couldn’t catch her breath. An emergency physician discovered her heart was enlarged, and the next day, a cardiologist diagnosed Epps-Manuel with dilated cardiomyopathy.

Just three years earlier, the former intramural college volleyball player had given birth to a healthy boy, and she had never had health issues. No one in her family was known to have a heart condition.

Epps-Manuel’s type of dilated cardiomyopathy is idiopathic, meaning the cause is unknown.

“It was very hard mentally,” she said. “I started having issues with palpitations and had to start wearing an external defibrillator. It was just one thing after another.”

To give herself more flexibility, Epps-Manuel left her elementary school job, moved in with her parents and started a ministry and service center for people with cognitive disabilities.

A few years after she was diagnosed, surgeons at Baylor University Medical Center in Texas implanted a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) to help Epps-Manuel’s heart pump blood. Less than two years later, she received a second LVAD after the first one caused a major blood clot in the cannula of the device’s pump.

In December 2014, Epps-Manuel received a long-awaited heart transplant in Texas, which was followed by difficulties. Medications she took to keep her body from rejecting her new heart so severely injured a kidney that she had to undergo a kidney transplant in 2022. Ten years after the heart transplant, her heart also started to fail. That’s when her Texas doctors referred her to the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai. Tyler Gunn, MD, assistant professor of Cardiac Surgery, led the team of physicians, nurses and operating room staff who performed the transplant.

“When I first met Destany in April 2024 she was very sick, but she was physically fit and had a lot of life ahead of her,” Gunn said.

Epps-Manuel’s case pushed the limits of what surgeons can do.

“With each additional redo surgery, different parts of the heart, tissues and bone fuse together and it becomes much more technically challenging to operate,” Gunn said. “These surgical considerations are why centers from across the nation refer their most difficult cases to Cedars-Sinai.”

Although Epps-Manuel has spent much of her adult life facing life-or-death situations, waiting for her second heart transplant made her feel especially hopeless. She credits the support program led by Rebecca Hedrick, MD, director of Consultation Liaison Services in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, with helping her through her sickest period. The program taught her coping tactics such meditation and helped her use virtual reality to calm her mind. 

“You have to feel your feelings, but you can't stay there,” she said. “You have to have a mindset to fight.”

Epps-Manuel’s second heart transplant took place in October 2024 during a nine-hour operation at the Smidt Heart Institute. A life-support machine called cardiopulmonary bypass temporarily did the work of Epps-Manuel’s heart and lungs. It took surgeons two hours to carefully dissect the bands of scar tissue around the old heart and remove it, a process that typically takes 30 minutes.

Another challenge the Smidt Heart Institute faced was that Epps-Manuel had developed antibodies to the first transplant, so there was a high risk that any future donor heart would be quickly rejected.

Jon Kobashigawa, MD, director of the Heart Transplant Program at Cedars-Sinai and a world expert in preventing and treating organ rejection, managed Epps-Manuel’s care pre- and post- transplant. He created an aggressive immunotherapy plan to stop her body from rejecting the new heart.

Epps-Manuel and her mother lived in Los Angeles for months while she waited for her transplant and recovered afterward. She missed being able to tour colleges with her son, but she is now healthy enough to travel back and forth between her home in Cedar Hill, Texas, and Cedars-Sinai, where she continues to receive desensitization therapy for donor antibodies. She’s excited to volunteer with her ministry again and watch her son compete in senior-year football and track.

“Destany has an incredible, upbeat attitude, which contributes to her recovery,” Kobashigawa said. “She is a joy to care for and continues to inspire our collective team.”

Read more on the Cedars-Sinai Blog--Heart Disease: When to Get a Second Opinion

“I’ve always said, we’re like one coat of paint,” Thomas said. “Even our parents often couldn’t tell who was who when talking to us on the phone.”

Now, the sisters share more than just their DNA—they share a kidney. They also share an uncommon transplant experience, said Irene Kim, MD, the Esther and Mark Schulman Chair in Surgery and Transplantation Medicine and director of the Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Transplant Center.

“It’s a rare event to transplant a patient with a genetically identical organ because it requires having an identical twin,” Kim said. “This is only the second time in my career that this has happened.”

The twins’ transplant story began in October 2021, when Thomas was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer that affects plasma cells. The disease caused her to go into kidney failure and damaged the C1 vertebra in her spine, putting her in a neck brace for more than six months. The next few years included a litany of medical procedures for Thomas, including chemotherapy, neck surgery and even a bone marrow transplant. Her twin was by her side every step of the way.

While Thomas’ cancer is now in remission, her kidney function never returned to normal. A transplant was the next step to keep her from requiring IV fluids or dialysis for the rest of her life. Rodman didn’t hesitate to volunteer to donate one of her own kidneys.

“We never even had to have a conversation about it,” Rodman said. “I knew I couldn’t go on with my life with my sister not being able to have a better quality of life. It was just the right thing to do.”

There were concerns, however, that the immunosuppressant medications typically required for transplant patients to keep their body from rejecting a transplanted organ could cause a recurrence of Thomas’ multiple myeloma. But through testing, Thomas and Rodman learned they were a match across all markers and were more than 99% identical, meaning Thomas could avoid the antirejection drugs that could have caused her cancer to return.  

“Transplantation requires immunosuppression to trick our immune systems into believing that the organ we’re transplanting is not foreign so that our body’s natural immune defense doesn’t attack or reject it, and that immunosuppression can have a lot of side effects of its own,” Kim said. “That we can avoid immunosuppression altogether for Linda by transplanting a kidney that is genetically identical to hers is really exciting and remarkable.”

Kim explained this is an uncommon occurrence in the transplant world not only because demographically, there are just fewer identical twins, but also because doctors must consider the reason a transplant is required. If a transplant is necessary due to a genetic predisposition for kidney disease, giving up a kidney could put the donor at risk down the line. In Thomas’ case, her multiple myeloma was nongenetic.

“Living donor transplants are always an emotional event filled with stress and gratitude, but the bond Linda and Karen share as identical twin sisters is palpable,” Kim said. “It was just such an honor from a transplant surgeon’s perspective to be part of that.”

The pair underwent successful kidney donation and transplant procedures at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in mid-October. The transplanted kidney began working immediately and Thomas was able to have her dialysis port removed shortly after surgery because it was no longer needed.

Thomas and Rodman spent the remainder of the month and most of November recovering together in Los Angeles so they could be close to the hospital for their many follow-up appointments. As they regained their strength following surgery, they often would spend afternoons visiting local beaches to walk together on the sand.

“The beach is our happy place,” Rodman said.

“I’m just so grateful to have been able to go through this with my sister. If it had been the other way around, it would have absolutely been the same,” Thomas said. “I would do anything for my sister.”

As they look to the future, they’re excited for more big milestones with their families. Rodman recently learned she’ll be a first-time grandmother next spring. They also look forward to more camping trips to the beach and the opportunity to travel.

“We’re only 56 years old,” Rodman said. “We have places to go. We have things to do. We have more life to live.”

Read more from Cedars-Sinai Discoveries Magazine—OR Talk: Triple Organ Transplant

The phone rang 30 minutes later.  

“When I picked up the phone, I thought it would be family or friends calling to wish us a happy new year,” Schulz said. “Instead, it was someone from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai saying they had a heart match for me and asking how soon I could get there.”

Those early moments of 2024 catapulted a chaotic yet beautiful series of events that led to Schulz’s new heart—which was implanted on Jan. 1.

Schulz first sought help at Cedars-Sinai in October 2019. The congestive heart failure he had been diagnosed with several years earlier had become advanced and his heart was giving out.

“At that point, I was so sick that the first hospital I went to said they couldn’t treat me, and they were telling my wife to contact family to say goodbye,” Schulz said. “Thankfully, my wife wouldn’t accept that as an answer and told them to call other hospitals. Several others also rejected me, but eventually, Cedars-Sinai said yes.”

“When Mr. Schulz arrived at Cedars-Sinai, he was critically ill,” said Dominic Emerson, MD, associate surgical director of Heart Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support in the Smidt Heart Institute. “We needed to stabilize him quickly to save his life.”

The first course of treatment for Schulz was extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO—an often lifesaving treatment where blood is pumped outside of a patient’s body to a portable heart-lung machine, giving the patient’s own organs a rest.

After a period on ECMO, Schulz was stable enough for Emerson and team to surgically place a left ventricular assist device, also known as an LVAD. An LVAD is a mechanical device implanted inside the chest that helps the heart pump oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body. For Schulz, it would serve as a bridge to transplant, said Lawrence Czer, MD, medical director of the Heart Transplant Program in the Smidt Heart Institute.

“LVAD placement is a major open-heart surgery, and some patients experience a prolonged recovery, but Mr. Schulz was a model patient following the procedure,” Czer said. “He followed all our recovery instructions including walking, watching his nutrition, keeping detailed records, and coming to clinic weekly at first. As a result, he recovered quite well with no complications.”

Several months later, in August 2020, Schulz was placed on the heart transplant list—and the wait began.

“This was early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was a really difficult time for my family and especially for my three children,” Schulz said.

While he did well with his LVAD, Schulz said he still felt limited. “My youngest son, who was 6 at the time, wanted me to play with him, and I just wasn’t physically able to do as much as we both wanted.”

But the New Year’s Day phone call changed everything. He arrived at Cedars-Sinai with his family a few hours later, ready to receive the medical center’s first transplanted heart of 2024. Emerson was the transplant surgeon on call when Schulz came into the hospital for his procedure.

“Because we can’t predict when a donor match will be available and when transplants will happen, as surgeons, we don’t always get the opportunity to perform transplants on patients we’ve previously worked with,” Emerson said. “But it’s fantastic when we do. It’s very rewarding to be part of the patient’s entire care arc.”

Schulz said even some of the same nurses who helped him through his recovery in 2019 cared for him following his transplant.

“I am so grateful to the team at Cedars-Sinai for the care I received during both of my experiences,” Schulz said. “The compassion they showed not only to myself, but to my wife and my family, was excellent.”

Now a few months post-transplant, Schulz says he is feeling great. When asked if he made any New Year’s resolutions for himself when he received his new heart, he said he is looking forward to more family trips with his wife and their three kids. Schulz is also excited to feel strong enough to play soccer with his youngest son, Sebastian—something he hasn’t been able to do for many years.

April is Donate Life Month, which promotes awareness about organ, eye and tissue donation and honors those who gave the gift of life. As he experiences this new lease on life, Schulz also shares his gratitude to his donor and the donor’s family.

“I understand this is an incredible gift I’ve been given, and it wouldn’t have been possible without my donor and their family,” Schulz said. “It’s not something I will take for granted. I’m grateful every day.”

Read more from Cedars-Sinai Discoveries Magazine: Heartfelt Support

What would you like patients to know about the Patient Experience Team?

I would love our patients to hear how seriously we take their experience at Cedars-Sinai. We're known for outstanding clinical quality. People come here because sometimes, no one else can take care of them, and this is where they heal and get better. But equally important to us is that they feel loved and cared for, and that they know that we really do take patient experience as a critical part of our mission and our everyday work. 

How does your team engage with patients? 

We are extremely encouraging of patients and their families to be part of the experience in a few ways. First, we hope they share their feedback with us by filling out surveys and sending us comments. There are opportunities to join Patient Experience committees, either in person or virtually via online panels, to give us their thoughts and feedback. We have a great website that we encourage patients and families to visit as well. 

What is the key takeaway you receive from patients? 

We get incredibly positive feedback. Most patients leave our doors feeling very satisfied with the care that they've gotten. However, there are always opportunities for improvement. One area that is frequently mentioned is the need to bring the care team together—doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers involved in the patient’s care—so the patient feels that their care is coordinated. That is an area we are working on improving.  

How are you working to improve access and flow in the hospital and in the Emergency Department?

Cedars-Sinai’s Emergency Department, like many around the country and, in particular, in California and Los Angeles, struggles with high patient demand. Every day, we have a long list of people who want to come get care, and we do our best to accommodate that. We have expanded our Emergency Department waiting room and added new treatment spaces inside as well. More importantly, we're also trying to make sure patients are kept very informed about their care: what's coming next, who their care team is, and next steps. Both in the Emergency Department and throughout the medical center, we treat many, many patients—sometimes more patients than we have room for. We are getting creative in finding clinically appropriate spots to house patients without impacting their care or their experience. 

You recently won an award for your patient experience work.  

We're very proud of our award, the Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence Award. Press Ganey is a healthcare company known for developing and distributing patient satisfaction surveys, and the award is given to organizations that are in the top 1% in the entire country. The award signifies our work in creating an outstanding experience for our patients with their physicians in the clinic spaces.  

How can patients and families join the Patient Experience Team? 

Our patients can get involved in many ways. We always encourage them to fill out our surveys and reach out to us if they have any additional concerns or compliments that they want to share. In addition, we have some great patient and family adviser programs, in-person and virtual. Patients really do have a wide spectrum of ways that they can contribute back to the organization. Cedars-Sinai is critically dedicated to making sure that the patient experience is top of mind in everything we do. Whether it's a new process, a new building, a new workflow, patient experience is core to our mission, making sure that anyone who comes into our facilities is treated with just the utmost respect and the utmost dignity.       

Read more on the Cedars-Sinai Blog: Lifelong Journey—A Scleroderma Patient and Her Doctor

After the doctor delivered the news that she had invasive lobular carcinoma, a type of breast cancer, O’Brien didn’t even want to know the stage or type of cancer she was up against. “I didn’t want to give it any power,” she said.

O’Brien’s oncologist attributes that to her bounce-back nature and resolve to turn lemons into lemonade.

“Rebecca was like no one else,” said Arash Asher, MD, director of the Cancer Rehabilitation and Survivorship Program—part of the Patient and Family Support Program at Cedars-Sinai’s Samuel Oschin Cancer Center. “She had a laugh so boisterous, it was hard not to laugh with her,” he added. “As I got to know her, it seemed that her humor was a big part of her reason for living.”

Monica Mita, MD, associate director for Breast Medical Oncology at Cedars-Sinai, agreed. Mita also treated O’Brien and says her willingness to expose her vulnerabilities with humor and emotion, even in front of an audience, is admirable.

“This is her calling,” Mita said, “and it’s the first time I have had a patient creating a show based on their health challenges and victories.”

Following surgery to remove a cancerous mass, O’Brien began six rounds of intensive chemotherapy, seven weeks of radiation treatments and a year of infusion treatments. Without the use of a car or loved ones living nearby, O’Brien rode the bus alone to the hospital. Each day brought new encounters with strangers. To pass time and keep her emotions from swinging to negative thoughts, O’Brien jotted down the impromptu conversations on a notepad. Fellowship with her newfound bus buddies became a silver lining during a difficult time. On the commute from Los Angeles’ bustling Fairfax District to the Cedars-Sinai campus, O’Brien launched her most inspired work.

She was determined to push past fear and depression. On mentally and physically taxing treatment days, she people-watched and fish-gazed—the hospital waiting area had a giant fish tank at the time, that served as a soothing distraction for patients.

“I didn’t know I was writing this show,” O’Brien said. “I was just keeping myself in the present moment instead of worrying. I wrote to entertain myself, not knowing those stories would ultimately entertain others.”

Staying in the moment was something O’Brien learned while participating in an improv program at Cedars-Sinai, designed by Emmy-nominated writer, comedian and breast cancer survivor Shelly Gossman, a Second City alum whose credits include Saturday Night Live.

The end results: A poignant and hilarious one-woman show aptly titled, “Getting There!” Last June, O'Brien's breakout production beat out 150 competitors to earn Best Solo Performance at the 2023 Hollywood Fringe Festival, as well as a coveted platinum medal for her stellar work. LA Magazine said, “'Getting There!' is a gem!” 

Now, O’Brien is raising money to restage the show inside L.A.’s Hudson Theatres. After paying for the theatre rental, as well as small stipends to the cast and crew, proceeds will go to the Cancer Rehabilitation and Survivorship Program led by Asher.

The program provides support to cancer patients, including classes on exercise, nutrition, cooking and art.

“My chief goal with developing these programs was to relieve some of the suffering and distress that our cancer survivorship community experiences,” said Asher. He added, “to have challenges like fatigue, chemo brain, neuropathy, insomnia and anxiety detract from roles with their families and communities compounds the problem—we want to do everything in our power to enable our patients to live their best life possible.”

O’Brien is still creating, working on a memoir about growing up in Tennessee. She hopes that she can help other cancer survivors navigate their cancer journeys.

To learn how you can support Rebecca O’Brien’s one-woman show, “Getting There!,” please email rebeccaobrien2u@yahoo.com.

Read more from the Cedars-Sinai Blog: What’s My Breast Cancer Risk?

But today, Sams walks side by side with his son, Valance “Vee” Sams Jr. He’s exercising again, eating healthy, and focused on rebuilding his strength, thanks to a triple organ transplant at Cedars-Sinai.

“I’m feeling good, great, awesome,” he said. “It’s night and day.”

After a successful 20-hour surgery this spring, Sams is one of just 46 people in the U.S. to receive a heart, liver and kidney transplant since the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the government agency that tracks organ transplants, started tracking in 1987.

“Going through the UNOS database, I can see that prior to Mr. Sams, there were only 45 of these triple organ transplants,” said Tyler Gunn, MD, director of the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Program and Sams’ heart surgeon. “Since then, the average has been only about 1.5 of these surgeries per year in the U.S., more frequently within the last five years as providers and surgeons get more comfortable with the operations and technology.”

Sams’ journey began when the sarcoidosis diagnosis necessitated multiple visits each week to his doctors to monitor his condition, drain built-up fluids from his body, and administer dialysis treatments.

“If the heart's not working, it can cause something called congestive hepatopathy in the liver, where the liver just starts not to work very well, and can cause chronic and permanent damage of the liver, and then it can also cause stress on the kidneys as well,” said Irene Kim, MD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Transplant Center and the Esther and Mark Schulman Chair in Surgery and Transplantation Medicine.

In order to make it to all of his medical appointments and keep up with his health, Sams was forced to quit film school, a deeply devastating decision.

His son, Vee, then a teenager, took on the role of nurse, counting out medications and helping his father prepare meals that would keep his health on track.

“I was basically his personal nurse,” Sams Jr. said. “I made sure everything was OK, he wasn’t missing appointments. I made sure his medicines [were] OK, you know, changing his bags for dialysis at the house.”

Sams Sr. gets emotional when talking about how much of a help his son was.

“Since the beginning, he’s been like my nurse, my best friend, my brother,” Sams Sr. said.

Early this year, Sams Sr.’s health took a turn for the worse–he was hospitalized because, despite keeping up with his treatments, his heart, liver and kidneys were failing.

After a two-month hospital stay, Sams received news of a new hope–a matching heart, liver and kidney were available for transplantation.

Sams’ surgeons, Gunn, Nicholas Nissen, MD, and Justin Steggerda, MD, worked together with their teams of up to 15 other providers at a time, in a 20-hour-long operation to transplant the organs. The highly orchestrated procedure required close coordination.

“The coordination starts long before we even get to the operating room,” said Steggerda, Sams’ kidney surgeon. “It starts with our program coordinators and our respected nursing staff, who make sure that a donated organ is acceptable, identify the best time to do the procurement, and organize the logistics of getting all the teams there to get the organs and bring them back safely.”

During multi-organ transplants, surgeons operate based on allowable ischemic time–the amount of time each organ can tolerate being outside the body. Based on this, the heart transplant must happen first, followed by the liver and finally the kidney.

“The first step is the heart transplant, which is actually done in the same technical fashion that a single heart transplant is done: median sternotomy, cardiopulmonary bypass, removal of the old heart, suturing in the new donor heart, then coming off the bypass circuit,” said Gunn. “At that point, it changes. We leave the heart and the chest open, allowing the liver team to do their anastomosis [making connections] as well. And then ultimately the kidney is transplanted, followed by the closure of the chest.”

Nissen, surgical director of the Liver Transplant Program and Sams’ liver surgeon, said that multi-organ transplants like this exemplify transplant teams’ ability to work together under pressure.

“There's probably no better case in surgery or in medicine that exemplifies the concept of teamwork like a multi-organ transplant, because literally every team member has to work with every other team member for this to go right,” Nissen said. “The anesthesiologists work with the surgeons, the surgeons work with the technicians, and there are three different teams that are making this happen, so for this to be successful, it takes an absolutely coordinated effort. And it's the ultimate example of medical teamwork.”

According to transplant center Director Kim, not all medical centers in the U.S. offer organ transplants, and even among those that do, not many offer even dual organ transplants, let alone triple organ transplants.

“At Cedars-Sinai, we are one of the world’s leaders in dual organ transplants,” she said. “While no transplant center is doing triple organ transplants very routinely, our expertise in dual organ transplant management gives us an advantage when performing these complex, multi-organ procedures.”

His doctors say that, with Sams’ careful adherence to his medications and determination to rebuild strength, he should make a full recovery. He’s already back to doing some of the things he loves most–like coaching youth baseball. And much to Sams Sr.’s delight, son Vee is enrolled in film school, inspired by his father.

“The little things are so important,” Sams said. “We take advantage of a lot of little things, but now I know that those little things are where it’s at.”

Sams said he hasn’t yet met the family of the organ donor who saved his life, but if he does get the chance, he’ll tell them how grateful he is.

“I want them to know that I’m very appreciative, and that I’m going to do the best that I can to do a lot of good things,” Sams said. “His memory is still going, through me, and I’m going to do my best to honor it.”

Read more on the Cedars-Sinai Blog: 7 Myths About Organ Donation

Valdez’s dance through life was interrupted by a cancer diagnosis, but it was the struggle to move on after recovery that ended his career and threatened his life. Wellness, Resilience and Survivorship programming, a part of the Patient and Family Support Program at Cedars-Sinai Cancer, as well as care from director of Cancer Rehabilitation and Survivorship Arash Asher, MD, gave him his life back.

“I can say with certainty that I would not be here today if it weren’t for this program and Dr. Asher,” Valdez said. “His passion for his work, his wisdom, his impeccable bedside manner … through it all, Dr. Asher has been right there by my side.”

On a Friday night in late spring 2012, Valdez was on his way out the door for a night of dancing when the subtle lower back pain he had been experiencing for months suddenly became nearly debilitating. Kidney stones, he thought. His mom had them before. They would pass soon.

His partner disagreed and told Valdez he needed to get to the hospital right away.

“I thought he was being dramatic,” Valdez said. “But I gave in, and we went to the Emergency Department at Cedars-Sinai. They did a lot of tests and three days later we found out what was wrong.”

The diagnosis was lymphoma—a blood cancer that affects the lymphatic system. Valdez was 28 years old.

He had just landed a big promotion at work, getting him one step closer to his goal of becoming a vice president at his company and retiring early. He had advanced quickly, from working the front desk for Starwood Hotels & Resorts properties to becoming its youngest director of revenue management. Valdez was proud of his successes. He hadn’t been able to go to college and especially relished any opportunity to learn something new.

“I felt like all my career goals were completely upended when I got cancer,” he said.

That first year after diagnosis, Valdez underwent chemotherapy, followed by a transplant using his own healthy blood stem cells to replace damaged cells, a recurrence of lymphoma, and a bone marrow transplant. It was a long and arduous year.

Valdez’s healthcare team recommended that he participate in Wellness, Resilience and Survivorship programming through the Cedars-Sinai Cancer Patient and Family Support Program. Classes and coaching help cancer survivors navigate life after diagnosis, focusing on body, mind and soul rehabilitation. A holistic team of cancer rehabilitation physicians, nurse practitioners, exercise physiologists, art therapists, neuropsychologists, social workers and dietitians empowers patients as they adjust to a “new normal” and provides a community of people who have been through a similar experience.

Valdez declined.

Getting back to work was his sole focus. He had big ambitions and little time to waste.

But he would soon realize that it was too much, too soon.

Roadblocks on the Path to Healing

The eventual end of Valdez’s longtime relationship, the mental and emotional turmoil of cancer and the physical toll of aggressive treatment that led to loss of mobility all added up.

Before long, Valdez was sleeping in his car between work meetings and struggling to keep up with the pace. He developed an opiate addiction. He had to leave his job and go on permanent disability. He sank into a deep depression and rarely left home. With no income, he became homeless. He attempted suicide.

“It was a dark time,” he said. “I knew I couldn’t continue down that path.”

It was time to check out the support options his Cedars-Sinai care team had recommended.

Through the programming, which also included the Cancer Exercise Recovery Program, Valdez found stability, community and compassion. He also found an advocate in Asher.

Getting On With Life

“Some people want to sweep their cancer experience under the rug and get on with life,” Asher said. “For others, it’s too big to sweep under the rug. Many people say that they feel lost after treatment ends. The warrior phase is over, the boxing gloves have come off, and they’re unsure of what to do next.”

That’s where the rehabilitation programming comes in. Educational programs, physical rehabilitation, and classes in yoga, qigong, meditation, art and nutrition are just a few of the offerings.

To avoid overwhelming patients with too many options, Asher and team listen to what patients most need in their recovery process, and then tailor specific offerings that may be most beneficial.

“If they are struggling with emotional distress, we may offer an art therapy or mindfulness program, or make a referral to a specialized clinician who can help,” he said. “If they’re physically debilitated or need to regain strength, we offer our exercise program.”

Scott Irwin, MD, PhD, director of the Patient and Family Support Program at Cedars-Sinai Cancer, said it is gratifying to know that patients like Valdez find immense benefit from the program.

“One goal is to offer as many of our existing programs as possible throughout all the Cedars-Sinai Cancer  care sites,” Irwin said. “In the longer term, Dr. Asher hopes to adapt some of the programs for distribution nationwide. They can offer so much to patients recovering from cancer; we want to share them much more broadly.”

Fulfillment Amplified

Through the rehabilitation programming, Valdez found renewed strength and mobility, as well as emotional and mental support. He also found a new career aspiration—he’s launched his own tote bag company and plans to use the profits to fund mental health programs for youth and programs for cancer survivors.

“I haven’t felt this fulfilled in over 10 years, and I owe it all to Dr. Asher and the cancer rehabilitation program at Cedars-Sinai,” he said.

He is interested in exploring more of the themes of cancer survivorship. While he is grateful for improved survival rates for many cancers, he’d like to see more emphasis on helping people navigate post-cancer life.

Mostly, though, he wants patients with cancer to remember that it’s OK to not feel OK sometimes.

“It may not be easy, and you may want to give up,” he said. “But try to keep pushing a little further. Remember that you’re an incredible person, and you may just surprise yourself as you embrace your new normal.”

Read more on the Cedars-Sinai Blog: Surviving Cancer and Cooking for Health