The highlight of Saturday afternoon's Hearts on Ice Hockey Challenge at the Ice Cube in Ann Arbor occurred when JoeAnne Bivins and her sisters sang the national anthem.
The 68-year-old Detroit resident has been alive for more than eight years thanks to an artificial heart pump she received at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center in 2005. Bivins has been supported longer than any patient in the U.S. by a single device.
"I feel honored that they asked me to sing the national anthem," said Bivens. "I'm not afraid of things like being in front of a crowd. Try it and get pleasure out of it. That's how I've always lived my life."
JoeAnne Bivens, (second from the left,) who received an artificial heart pump in 2005, sang the national anthem at the Hearts on Hockey Ice Challenge along with her sisters Yvette Glover (left) Kasandra Ward (second from right) and Wynonia Ward (right).
By Lisa Carolin | For AnnArbor.com
About 30 players participated in Saturday's game, many of whom are staff members from the Cardiovascular Center.
"The Blades are the surgery team, playing against the Pills, who are the medical side of the staff," explained Ruth Halben, a clinical social worker at the center, who helped to come up with the Ice Hockey Challenge fund-raiser 12 years ago.
"It's been a great fund-raiser and team builder for staff in the cardiac unit. One of our surgeons, Martin Spoor, died in the Survival Flight crash in 2007. He was a Canadian who loved skating, and his kids will be skating Saturday along with other kids after the hockey game."
The Hearts on Ice Hockey Challenge came about after a group of visiting training surgeons heard that Dr. Francis Pagani, surgical director of U-M's Adult Heart Transplant Program, director of the Center for Circulatory Support, and goalie Saturday for the Blades, played hockey.
Halben affectionately says: "He's a cardio thoracic surgeon because the NHL didn't pick him up."
Pagani's Blades team was clad in maize with blue trim, while the Pills wore blue with maize trim. The final score was Blades over the Pills 11-8 .
"The benefits of this game are twofold," said Jennifer Campbell, a clinical social worker at the Cardiovascular Center. "It's a fund-raiser for patient and family social programs like picnics, parties and support groups, and it helps build community among staff."
The players and the audience who cheered them on gave Bivens and her sisters a rousing round of applause.
Halben says that some patients, like Bivins, cannot be matched for a transplant and that the artificial heart pumps (VADs-ventricular assist devices) are for patients in end stage heart failure.
"Patients have to adapt their lifestyles around the pump, which are inside their bodies," said Halben. "They literally have a hole in their belly where the power line comes out where they have to change the batteries."
Bivins, who has been married for 50 years, and had two children, one of whom died during his first year from a heart problem, says that she accepts her challenges.
"Most days I feel pretty good," said Bivins. "If you want to survive, you can't feel down or sorry for yourself because there are so many others in worse shape than you are.
"If I can encourage others to have a mental outlook similar to mine, you can live on and on, and things won't be as tough because they're not."