Medicine: Sudden Setback

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Schroeder weathers a stroke

Just two weeks after the implant of his artificial heart, William Schroeder was hoping to get out of the hospital in Louisville in time for Christmas. "My criteria for success is what I got right now," he confidently told two reporters standing near his bed. "I only had about 40 days to live. With this new heart I feel I have ten years." But last Thursday evening, as Schroeder sat in a chair eating dinner, his wife Margaret became alarmed when he abruptly froze and then fell unconscious. He had suffered what doctors at Humana Hospital Audubon called a "small but severe stroke."

According to Dr. Allan Lansing, medical director of the hospital's heart institute, the stroke may have been the result of the constriction of cerebral blood vessels, possibly weakened by Schroeder's diabetes. Another possibility: an artery to his brain may conceivably have become blocked by a clot that formed on a valve in Schroeder's mechanical heart. By week's end, according to Lansing, Schroeder had made a "brilliant" recovery.

The stroke occurred just one day after the world's most famous heart patient took a phone call from President Reagan, who rang up to wish him well. Seizing his chance, Schroeder told the President, "I've got a Social Security problem." Reagan asked Schroeder to repeat himself. "O.K.," said the patient. "I filed March of 1984 for Social Security, and I'm just getting a runaround. I'm not getting anything at all." Promised the President: "I'll get on it right away." Two Social Security officials appeared at Schroeder's bedside the next day and handed him a check for five months' back payments. Said Schroeder, evidently pleased by the quick service: "They're right on the ball."