Gondo’s aching heart

By Ron Kantowski

Friday, April 11, 2008 | 2 a.m.

When we last left Glen Gondrezick, the UNLV basketball hall-of-famer was headed for Los Angeles to await a heart transplant. Other than that, he had nothing to complain about.

Now he does.

Last weekend he was sent home without the new heart he so desperately needs to stay alive.

Wednesday night, his mom died in Colorado.

How much more heartache, be it physical or emotional, can one man take?

Gondo had been waiting in that damn hospital bed for 17 days. Every now and then he’d get up and look out the window at the air-conditioning unit, wondering when Bullwinkle the Moose, or one of his descendants, might meet a premature demise.

At 6-foot-7 and 250 pounds, Gondo needs somebody as big as a moose to die, so he can live. Your body can’t just accept any heart. It needs a near perfect match.

Even if a donor can be found, Gondo knows, he’s not out of the woods. People in his condition are like Grizzly Adams. They’re never out of the woods. He knows that. He accepts that. Besides, like he says, what choice does he have?

He takes 27 pills a day and is hooked to an IV. Drip, drip, drip. That’s the sound that keeps him alive. But he doesn’t complain. Until they sent him home without a heart. Then he complained a little.

His bill for 17 days was $185,000. When it comes to a heart transplant, the waiting is the hardest part. Not to mention very expensive. Gondo said it’s too late to move to Canada, where they have socialized health care. Besides, they think March Madness up there is watching the Maple Leafs miss the Stanley Cup playoffs. He could never live in Canada.

So when the guy from his insurance company told him to collect his things, he collected his things. That made him mad. Maybe if he had more money, he’d have a new heart by now. That’s what he was thinking.

But by the time he got home, he wasn’t that upset anymore. It was partly been because he was still at the top of the donor list. And partly because Thursday was his son Travis’ 12th birthday, and now Gondo was going to get to celebrate it with him.

He sounded good on the phone Monday.

Gondo and I have spoken often since he left for Los Angeles. He always sounds good. And positive. Well, except for that first time. He sounded terrible that first time, but that was because he just had two teeth pulled (you can’t have a cavity when you’re awaiting a new heart, because those can spread infection) and had a tube the size of a garden hose going down his throat, to handle a daily dosage of medicine that could drop a rhino and maybe even Keith Richards in his tracks.

He did not sound good when he left a message on my cell phone Wednesday. It had nothing to do with choking on a garden hose, or his medication.

It had everything to do with his mom, Eunice, dying.

She was 90 years old and had raised 13 children. She loved watching her sons play basketball and knitting afghans. Sometimes, at the same time.

Gondo remembers this one weekend when his brother, Grant, was in Fort Collins with the Pepperdine basketball team and the Nuggets, with whom he was playing, were home and one of Gondo’s boys was playing a high school basketball game the next night. Gondo said his mom went to all three games, and you should have seen those knitting needles spin.

His mother had been sick for a while, Gondo said. That’s the biggest reason he decided to wait so long before going public about his condition. He didn’t want his mom to worry. He wasn’t sure she could take it in her condition, which was as tenuous as his.

On Wednesday, one of his siblings held the phone to his mother’s ear so Glen could tell her he loved her one last time.

Now, he can’t decide whether he should go to her funeral. He’s not supposed to leave the house in his condition. And if he does, he’d have to take himself off the donor list. Then what would happen if an organ donor with a big heart should die?

Normally, this is the place where I would say that if you care about Gondo, and life has been kinder to you than it has to him, then you should contact the Bank of Nevada or America and contribute to funds set up there for his medical expenses.

But at this point it might be better to ask that you remember him in your prayers.

Even if nobody seems to be listening.