Tillman tells how transplant saved his daughter
Charles Tillman didn't miss a single preseason game for the Bears, but he had a good reason why he missed so many team meetings and practices this summer.
His 6-month-old daughter, Tiana, was fighting for her life at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Friday, though, the Tillman family was able to take their daughter home with assurances from doctors that she has recovered from the heart transplant she received earlier this month.
For Tiana, the ordeal lasted three months as doctors discovered she suffered from cardiomyopathy, which enlarged her her heart and kept it from beating properly.
On July 29, six days into training camp, Tiana Tillman became the first person in Illinois to benefit from the use of a device called the Berlin Heart, a small pump located outside the body but connected to the heart. The device is run by a laptop computer and works by helping the right ventricle of the heart pump blood to the lungs, and the left ventricle to pump blood to the body.
It works as a bridge to a transplant and allows those awaiting transplants more time until an organ becomes available.
"By her being on that Berlin Heart, it saved her life," Tillman said. "It bought us more time."
Tiana had an enlarged, weakened heart that was beating over 200 times a minute when she was airlifted to the hospital in May while the Bears were going through off-season workouts.
The Bears gave the sixth-year veteran plenty of leeway with practice.
"I told Charles if he felt like coming to practice, come to practice, but take care of his family and go from there," Bears coach Lovie Smith said. "We're just glad that it seems like it's going to have a happy ending.
In addition to explaining his excused absences, Tillman called the news conference Friday to publicize the Berlin Heart, and emphasize the need for organ donation.
"I think probably the toughest thing that I had to battle with, and I still battle with it now, is that I knew in order for my daughter to live, another kid had to die," Tillman said.
Tillman, who has two daughters with his wife Jackie, operates "The Cornerstone Foundation," which pledges support to improve the lives of critically and chronically ill children throughout the Chicago area. Among its endeavors is granting sports-related wishes to children and their families, providing a special champagne brunch to honor mothers of critcally ill children, and establishing a "Charles' Locker" program in which computers, DVD players, game systems, cameras and other electronic devices are shared with families undergoing treatment and recovery.
Tillman, who was honored in 2007 by the Bears with the Walter Payton Man of the Year award for his charitable work, has pledge to donate two lockers to patients at Children's Memorial Hospital this fall, and two more to other hospitals next year.
For more information on cardiomyopathy, organ donations or The Cornerstone Foundation, visit www.charlestillman.org.