A year after facing death, Rice English teacher Patti Pitts set to take on Jingle Bell Jog

By Todd Wills

RICE — Patti Pitts defeated kidney disease a decade ago, getting a transplant.

She fought off pancreatitis days before Christmas last year, nearly losing her life.

It might not seem like much, but she’ll take on the Jungle Bell Jog in Corsicana on Dec. 5.

That’s a year to the day after her husband Jim, a coach at Rice High School, rushed her to a New Braunfels hospital with what they thought was stomach problems or appendicitis.

What Patti faced the next three months was much more than that. She lost 70 pounds. She had several scares. She was in intensive care several times at Methodist Dallas Medical Center.

“It was horrible,” Patti said. “I don’t remember a lot.”

Several of her students — Patti is an English teacher and ESL teacher at Rice — thought she was going to die. There were times Jim wasn’t sure if she would make it.

“There were at least four times when I got really scared,” Jim said. “The first night we were in New Braunfels. There was a time on Jan. 2 (in Dallas). One morning she had so much fluid on her lungs that they rushed her down. A liter and a half of fluid. I was pretty scared then.

“And then when she went in for surgery because our surgeon had just lost a young patient.”

And now her she is, almost a year later, ready to prove how far she’s come. Patti will run in the Jingle Bell Jog to much fanfare at Rice High School.

“It’s amazing,” Jim said.

The whole story is amazing.

Patti’s story goes way back. She had a kidney transplant on Dec. 16 1999, a story reported on by Deanna Brown in Daily Sun. Her brother, Robert Bray, an assistant principal at Corsicana High School, donated the kidney. Patti’s father, Bob, was going to give her a kidney, but when he was tested, he was found to have three main arteries blocked. The fact he was tested as a kidney donor saved his life.

A decade later her life was at stake again. While at a tennis coaches convention near New Braunfels, Patti got violently ill. She spent six days in the hospital in New Braunfels, including her birthday (Dec. 10). “That’s why I can’t remember my age,” said Patti, who is 43.

Jim still has pictures on his cell phone of Patti a few days after she went into the hospital.

“If you saw her that first day, you would wonder how she was still alive,” Jim said. “The transition from 24 hours was unreal.”

She was immediately placed on a insulin drip — her sugar level was 560 (normal sugar level are about 100).

Her triglycerides, the chemical form in which most fat exists in food as well as in the body, were 2,600 — they should be 150 or below.

“This was bad,” Patti said. “They weren’t sure if I was going to make it or not.

“But I did so they sent me home.”

Patti went back to her doctor in Dallas and they said she was doing OK. They sent her home, but she was back the next week. She was in the hospital for most of the next nine weeks at Methodist hospital.

She was diagnosed with pancreatitis, which is inflammation or infection of the pancreas. The pancreas, a gland located behind the stomach, releases the hormones insulin and glucagon and substances that help with digestion.

The main concern once she got to Methodist was losing her kidney. Patti went into Methodist on Dec. 16 and came out on Jan. 19. She was there for five weeks.

She came home for four weeks until Valentine’s Day. She complained about pain and went back into the hospital on a Saturday night. She had surgery on Monday, cleaning up her pancreas and removing her gall bladder. They found gall stones, which could have caused the pancreatitis.

She was in the hospital for two more weeks, went home to Blooming Grove for a week, then went back in the hospital for a week before finally getting to go home over spring break.

Her doctors never indicated at that time that her life was in jeopardy, but they told her later on that they didn’t know if she was going to survive.

“I never really thought I wasn’t going to make it,” Patti said. “When they were telling me later that they thought I might not make it, I said, ‘I would have tried a little harder.’ But I was trying pretty hard.”

Jim was with her every step of the way, sleeping on one of those uncomfortable chairs in her hospital room. He would go to work during the day and go back to Dallas at night.

Her parents were there. Her 23-year-old daughter Whitney Brown was a constant visitor. Friends like Aimee Kasprzyk.

Patti said the medicines she was taking for her kidney transplant “were messing up.” She also said good nutrition is important for kidney transplant recipients.

“I blame it on candy,” Patti said. “That World’s Famous Chocolate.”

Patti returned to school on Aug. 24, though she said she was still weak. She is feeling much better now, and ready to tackle another challenge.

Patti decided on the Jingle Bell Jog, but Jim wasn’t sure about it at first. She started out walking slow around the track at Rice.

“I couldn’t hardly even do that,” Patti said.

Then it started into jogging around the track, and when she found out the Jingle Bell Jog had a one-mile run, Jim signed off on it. Patti’s been training for it for about two months.

The clincher was the Jingle Bell Jog being on the one-year anniversary of the day Patti went into the hospital in New Braunfels.

“That was perfect,” Jim said.

“I said, ‘That’s what I want to do,’” Patti said.

She will be joined in the jog by a handful of students, Kasprzyk, friend Virginia Laird and Rice football coach David Currey. Close to 50 Rice students are expected to come out and cheer Patti on. When she talked about the support Tuesday, Patti started tearing up.

“It’s really good to know she’s better and she can do this now,” said Rice senior Brittany Castillo. “I’m going to encourage her and be there for her if she needs me.”

Kasprzyk, an English teacher and Patti’s partner on Rice’s One-Act Play, said she never had a doubt she would run with Patti.

“Because she’s my best friend,” Kasprzyk said. “That’s why I’m doing it.”

Patti joked that Jim will be there cheering her on. In all seriousness, the pride Jim has over his wife of 14 years doing the Jingle Bell Jog is more than evident.

“It’s amazing,” Jim said.

Patti said she’s nervous about Dec. 5, but she said the goal is to finish. The challenge will be jogging and walking on the roads.

“I’m scared,” she said. “But I’m doing it.”

But she’s keeping the faith, and why not?

“I give it all to God,” Patti said. “It’s a miracle.”

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