You need to know up front that this eventually will become a shameless plea for GoFundMe donations, so get your credit and debit cards ready now. Then go to this link: https://gofund.me/c8778f10
Because I don’t know anyone in my circle of beloveds who needs or deserves a blessing more right now than my man Alan Whitt.
Sometimes it feels as if I’ve known Whitt — I don’t recall ever calling him Alan — all my life. I’m certain I’ve known him almost all of my professional life.
He joined the staff of the Grand Rapids Press in West Michigan shortly after I was hired there in the mid-70s, taking my place as the paper’s “cub reporter” and shattering my uniqueness of being the only Black male journalist on the staff. (But I liked being unique!) Then when I moved on up to the Motor City and took my job as rock music critic and eventually TV columnist at the Detroit News, Whitt followed me there, too, pursuing his passion as deputy sports editor. We didn’t see each other as much as we did in GR, working in different departments on separate floors, but it was somehow cool and comforting just knowing we were still in the same building.
Whitt went on to far greater heights, winning Emmys with ESPN’s SportsCenter and launching his own successful travel business, Allure Quest Travel Experience, LLC, specializing in luxury cruises and romantic vacations. (Stroke of genius, if you ask me.) His achievements have come as no surprise to me, since it seems like Whitt has always been following behind me, then trying to one-up me.
And usually succeeding.
So when he found out he needed an organ transplant, it wasn’t enough for Whitt to just have a kidney transplant, like I did 11 years ago tomorrow, Nov. 18. Oh NO! Not him. He had to have a kidney transplant AND a heart transplant — at the same time!
When I heard the news, memories of all the uncertainty, the fear, the depression and the anger over feeling my body was betraying me immediately came flooding back. Then I imagined doubling down on all those emotions, knowing my heart was circling the drain, too.
“If I hadn’t received a new heart I would have been dead in a year,” Whitt acknowledged during one of our several conversations since suffering his initial heart attack in December 2019. “That’s just the reality. I’ve got a long, long, long, long road to go. Like the rest of my life.”
Whitt says he started having heart problems as far back as 2009, but the betrayal became complete while he was in a movie theater in Nashville, where he lives with his wife Gloria, watching Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with his son-in-law, Marcus. “I could feel it coming,” he recalls. “I texted Gloria and she told me to get to the emergency room immediately.
“I got up to walk out behind the seats and I just passed out. My son-in-law had to call 911, and they came and took me to the hospital. The doctors decided I needed a pacemaker and a defibrillator, so they put them in my chest.”
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| Alan and Gloria, on his 70th birthday. |
The rest of his life, which I pray will be long, happy and healthy, will never be the same. Whitt was hospitalized for a month, followed by three months of isolation and a seemingly endless string of doctor’s appointments. “Until February of this year,” he says, “no one had ever even mentioned the word ‘transplant’ to me.”
Then came the wait and worry to find a matching donor. Whitt has not been told the identity of the deceased person whose organs he received, although he does know both heart and kidney came from the same person. The old reporter in him sussed out that his donor was male, young, possibly an athlete or at least in very good physical shape, and may not have died by natural causes.
But at least the dude’s heart and kidneys survived intact, and in this case that’s all that matters.
Whitt estimates he has had upwards of 10 surgeries over the past four years in Nashville’s Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital network, which he says helped heal his soul as well as his body.
“It’s a Christian hospital, which I really love,” he says. “While the doctors and nurse practitioners were working on me, another nurse would be holding my hand and praying, and they don’t mind. I love this hospital. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.”
After his successful transplant double-double, Whitt endured three 45-minute rehab sessions every day for weeks. He had to use a rollator to get around until he could work up enough strength to graduate to his father’s walking stick. He’ll be taking handfuls of new drugs, including a strict regimen of anti-rejection pills twice a day, exactly 12 hours apart, for the rest of his days. And at least for now, he is undergoing a heart biopsy once a month to make sure there are no signs of rejection or abnormalities.
And if that weren’t enough, Whitt and Gloria have been living like nomads with no permanent address, staying in a hotel for more than two years. Why, you may ask? Because a tree crashed through the roof of their house during a violent storm and destroyed their living areas, leaving it to insurance and contractors to wage war over the repairs.
You ever heard of the Perils of Pauline? Well, this real-life soap opera could be called the Woes of Whitt.
Gloria and Whitt had to remain apart for weeks, as he needed to remain in isolation while she really needed to work in order to keep some income flowing in. His daughter, Alanne, came in from Ohio to help care for him. And, as you probably could guess, as soon as Alanne left his side in isolation she contracted COVID. (She’s fine now.)
Oh…my…gracious.
Whitt can’t possibly work, at least not for the foreseeable future. And with all the expenses connected with his medical care and just everyday living, the couple’s bottom line could use a serious transplant of cash.
That’s where you come in.
Through it all, Whitt says, “I tell you, man, I know that I’m blessed. I’m feeling stronger every day. This isn’t anything that I did. This is God taking care of me. Because everything had to be perfect. If there was one glitch it could have screwed the whole thing up.”
Alan Whitt is one of the most decent, talented and worthy dudes I’ve ever known. He’s definitely the only Ohio State Buckeye I’ve ever liked. He knows how blessed he is to still be with us; now he needs us to give him a little help.
There is a GoFundMe account established in his name, including updates on his condition. Here again is the link: https://gofund.me/c8778f10
Won’t you please consider giving as much as you can, especially present and former members of the Detroit media and anyone who has worked alongside him over his career?
As always, I would never ask you to do anything I hadn’t already done myself.
Get healthy quick, Whitt. The cruise ships miss you.
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