A CT woman needed a heart transplant. A food clinic improved her health and gave her a new life.

Hartford Courant – Wednesday, November 6, 2024
By Sean Krofssik

Dennese Romero’s life changed forever in the blink of an eye in 2015.

The Hartford resident was watching a basketball game and suddenly she passed out.

“When I woke up, I was in the hospital and that was the only thing I remember,” Romero said.

Eventually, the 65-year-old Hartford resident learned the problem was her heart. Her mitral valve was flopping, and she was retaining water.

“Instead of my heart pumping blood throughout my body it was pumping into my lungs and other places where it wasn’t supposed to,” Romero said.

Over the next nine years, she underwent three heart surgeries. One of her stints in the hospital lasted nearly a full year.

Eventually, she was told a heart transplant was necessary. However, because Romero then weighed nearly 300 pounds, she didn’t qualify for a transplant.

“It was a journey I don’t wish on my worst enemy,” Romero said. “I went through tests, and they took Polaroids of my heart and the left side of my heart as working too hard to compensate for my right. My valve was doing so well, and it had already expired. They tried diuretics, but I was 300 pounds. I needed a transplant but because of my weight I couldn’t go on the list for a new heart.”

Dr. Joseph Radojevic, her cardiologist at Hartford HealthCare, suggested that she speak with David Juros, the founder of the hospital’s Food4Health Clinic. The clinic is a free service that provides food-insecure patients and caregivers with greater access to nutritious foods and guidance on meal preparation tailored for diet-related illnesses, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Romero took the program seriously and approached it like her life depended on it. She changed her diet and lifestyle and shed more than 100 pounds.

Following the drastic weight loss, Romero was eligible for a transplant, but Radojevic had even better news. Because there was less stress on her heart and she was moving around so well, the doctor said a heart transplant was unnecessary at this time.

It was a bright day after many dark ones over the last nine years.

“I was in the hospital for a long time,” Romero said. “I couldn’t come home. I was determined not to be in bed. I wouldn’t stay in bed, so I moved into the recliner. I felt I wasn’t going to give up. I was determined to get out of the hospital.”

The struggle

Being healthy for her family was a big motivator for Romero. She is a longtime Hartford resident who is originally from Brooklyn, New York. All of her large family is in Connecticut. She is a widow with three children, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. She also has a grandchild and great-grandchild on the way.

“I’m surrounded by kids, grandkids and great-grandkids,” Romero said. “This is something I needed to do for them. I needed to be able to run after those kids. I’m like a family daycare leader. All of the holidays and parties are at my house.”

While in the hospital, Romero said she walked around and felt like “the fat lady in the circus. I had a miniature shopping cart that children use, and I put machines that were connected to me in there and I would walk around the floor. I couldn’t just stay in the room. It was depressing.”

She was diagnosed with Atrial fibrillation, and among her heart surgeries, she had a repaired heart valve, a replaced heart valve and a pacemaker put in.

“It was touch and go during my hospital stays,” she said. “They would send me home and I would be right back in the hospital. I had my own room waiting for me. There was a lot of trial and error to see what works. I had my own bed, and I was already registered and I was taken right into the room every time I had an emergency. I was a frequent flier.”

Romero said every morning she hated the scale.

“I knew it was up to me to lose the weight. I researched everything that was being done to me,” she said. “You have to do that to have a better understanding of yourself and what your body is going through.”

‘The barrier’

Radojevic said he first met Romero more than three years ago in June 2021. In March, Radojevic suggested Romero speak with the hospital’s Food4Health program.

“Weight was the main barrier for the heart transplant,” Radojevic said. “We tried everything medical to make her feel better, but we focused on weight loss because that was the barrier to her transplant.”

Romero and Juros hit it off right away. Juros created Food4Health in 2022 to help get fresh produce into the hands of patients like Romero with chronic diet-related diseases.

The Food4Health Program changed Romero’s path. She learned how to take salt out of her diet and introduced her to vegetables, grown on the roof of the hospital, that she never knew existed.

“I had to relearn how to eat and how to cook to maintain my health and they helped me so much,” Romero said.

The Food4Health Clinic offers fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthy items for patients who have received a prescription from a Hartford Hospital physician. “The staff will review your prescription with you and help you shop for the food your doctor has recommended,” according to the Hartford HealthCare website.

The food garden is on top of the Conklin Building on the Hartford HealthCare campus.

Romero and Juros would meet every week and discuss what foods she likes and doesn’t like. Romero was given freshly grown produce that was grown on the roof of the hospital. She was also given a Food4Health brochure, and it was up to her to use the information or not.

Romero took it to heart. She lives in the same house in Hartford as her son and his family and said the whole family changed how they ate because of the influences of Juros.

“They spoiled us with so many vegetables and I was eating so many new things,” she said. “I found out I loved squash and there are so many different kinds of squash.”

Romero said she is half Puerto Rican and half Italian so her diet for the bulk of her life was pasta and fried foods. She learned alternative and healthful ways to cook the food she loves. She learned to read labels, what foods to avoid and what ingredients she can use to cook.

“It helped me change the way I see food,” Romero said. “They helped me. They opened my mind to different things. Now I make my own salad dressings and BBQ sauce. You don’t need to use salt. There are so many other spices out there. I was given the knowledge I needed.”

Romero said Food4Health is her home away from home.

“I love Food4Health, and I love and thank God for my doctors,” Romero said. “Because of them, I’m the beautiful person that I am today. It took a long time to get me here. Dr. Rad is my guy. He’s the one that set me up for this. He would call me and give me support. To me, this is my home. Every time I come here. this is my home.”

Life-changing program

The Food4Health program started in 2019 as a grocery store voucher program for patients who needed help to afford access to healthy food.

Dave Fichandler, vice president of administration for Hartford Hospital, called it a “great first step,” but in 2022, he reconnected with Juros, a Food as Medicine consultant, and they decided they needed to try something new.

“We needed to meet people where they are and we needed to do it in a way that will focus on health and education. We weren’t a food distributor although we did partner with a food share,” Fichandler said.

Juros worked for a national non-profit for five years and 12 years overall in the same line of work.

“I was able to draw on the good, the bad and the ugly all over the country,” Juros said. “I want to make this program easy, clear, respectful and dignified for the patients so they want to come here.”

Food4Health opened on May 4, 2022, and started a rooftop farm above two buildings of Hartford HealthCare. Both are 3,000 to 4,000 square feet. Fichandler said there have been more than 10,000 people coming through the doors of the office and more than 800 families have been served in the last 3 1/2 years.

Fichandler said he’s happy to help produce healthy food for patients who need it the most. He said the gardens are funded through philanthropic gifts.

“Last year our farm produced 1,000 pounds of vegetables,” Fichandler said. “We’ve had food from our garden to the patients within as quick as two hours.”

The second rooftop farm opened earlier this year, and Fichandler said many of the hospital employees volunteer in harvesting the garden.

Fichandler said he would love to grow on all 57 buildings.

“We are working on adding more rooftop farms. We have 55 more to go,” he said. “We are also thinking about a greenhouse property adjacent to the property that would allow us to grow 12 months a year.”

He said the cost is about $54 every time a patient comes in, on average.

“We have distributed over a half of a million pounds of free food, produce, frozen and lean proteins and olive oil,” Fichandler said. “We have support that comes with it. We have a tremendous number of recipes that we can teach them, and they can replicate. We are doing it in a way that is healthy and supportive.”

Patients are referred to the program through their doctors and are eligible to be on board for a year. Juros and his staff and 10 volunteers educate the patients about healthy eating.

“It’s education but it’s also fun,” Juros said. “We are helping people with critical health conditions, but we make it fun. Food is a natural connector. … Patients love food from the gardens, and my goal in life is to get people to eat lots and lots of vegetables. Our vegetables don’t taste like anything you get in the store. They are so good and full of nutrients.”

“It takes a lot of effort on the patient’s part,” he said. “We are giving access and affordability to expensive food, but they have to do the work themselves. … Patients always tell me they feel like a new person and have their old body back. It takes commitment.”

The program sees 70-80 patients a week. Juros said about 15% of his patients have never knowingly had a vegetable in their lives.

“We are here for the patients we are taking the journey along with them,” Juros said. “We made suggestions, and we hope it resonates with them. We take time to train our volunteers and staff. Dennese felt at home here, and that’s what we want to hear.”

A healthy path

After the weight loss, Radojevic believed Romero no longer needed to be on the transplant list, although she is qualified for consideration.

“After the weight loss, she felt better and better,” Radojevic said. “A lot of the reasons she was sent to me in the first place improved quite a bit. We rearranged her meds. As time went by, a heart transplant was still being considered but it was no longer needed. She was walking her dog. She was caring for her grandchildren with no limitations.

“It’s not common that we have patients lose this kind of weight,” he added. “The medications alone don’t always do the trick. Dennese has combined the medications with the change of diet. … This shows the power of this program. … The goal is to maintain where she is for as long as possible.”

Romero is down from a peak of 298 pounds to her current weight of 180.

“I did everything they told me to do and gradually the weight went down,” she said. “Each week I would lose more and more, and my blood pressure and other numbers improved.”

“It wasn’t 100 pounds in one shot,” Radojevic added. “We celebrated her victories throughout.”

Now Romero can pick up and play with all of the children in her family and be active. Romero said she was able to go on paddle boats this summer for the first time in a long time.

“I am a preschool teacher at the house and I’m teaching the ABCs,” she added. “I do a lot with my family. I take them places. I love going to museums and jazz concerts. My life is centered around my family.”

Radojevic said Romero’s story could help others.

“Meds are important, but we can overlook the basic things we can do,” Radojevic said. “We have to give people access to healthy foods and how you can incorporate that in your life. Habits, culture and background are factors. It starts with access and understanding. We shouldn’t give up on an opportunity to educate on healthy eating and lifestyle changes.

“With the epidemic of obesity this represents a potential opportunity,” he added. “A lot of people don’t realize what they are eating is affecting their health.”

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