moments

SUZY FARBMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Love, Devotion & Tenacity

A new lung lets Loretta and Sy Ziegelman celebrate their 60th anniversary and beyond.

G

enerations of Detroit women 
revere Dr. Sy Ziegelman, an 
OB/GYN for more 40 years. 
Along with active careers, Sy and 
Loretta, a retired social worker, raised 
three children. They led, Sy says, “ful-
filling and exciting lives.” 
In November 2008, this fun-loving 
couple vacationed in St. Petersburg, 
Fla., and marched, costumed, in the 
Key West Fantasy Fest (along with 
thousands, many wearing only body 
paint).
“Marching in parades would soon 
become unthinkable,” Sy says. Two 
months later, Loretta developed trou-
ble breathing.
This began an ordeal of bouncing 
from one doctor to another, from 
Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak to 
Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit to 
University of Michigan Hospital in 
Ann Arbor. A frustrating and bewil-
dering experience for a husband whose 
life’
s work was in medicine. 
Loretta was eventually diagnosed 
with IPF, idiopathic pulmonary fibro-
sis — what Sy calls “a fancy name for a 
deadly disease.” Sy says as many people 
die from IPF as die from breast cancer 
each year. The only hope of surviving 
is to obtain a new lung.
So, Sy swung into action. As his 
wife deteriorated and developed other 
complications, he read all the journals, 
contacted professionals and checked 
his wife’
s blood counts and sent 
reports. “Being a physician helped me 
to navigate the minefield of medicine,” 
Sy says.
In March 2009, a lung biopsy con-
firmed the diagnosis.
Though IPF is a fatal disease, Sy 
says, “No one uses those words. They 
say there is no recognized treatment as 
opposed to the fact the disease is fatal. 
I refused to accept it.”
The next months were a succession 
of transfusions, iron infusions and 
pulmonary rehab. “Every minute was 
devoted to some medical issue,” Sy 
says. “There was no end to the hurdles. 

For six days, I saw my beloved wife 
unconscious in the ICU on a ventila-
tor. Would she live or die?”
That crisis necessitated Loretta 
spending several weeks in the hospital 
and many hours in rehab. Still, she 
made it past that hurdle as well.
“
And then it was like someone turned 
a switch,” Sy says. “The simplest activity 
required oxygen.” Realizing his wife 
needed him full time, Sy retired from 
his medical practice. He recalled a 
Yiddish proverb his father taught him: 
“You can’
t dance at two weddings with 
one rear end.”
One of their twin grandsons, Evan, 
then 10, made a DVD about his 
Gramma, his “most admired person.” 
Ultimately, the video would be shared 
with the lung transplant team at the 
Cleveland Clinic. Nurses, doctors and 
PAs watched it, Sy reports, “all teary-
eyed seeing the disease and his grand-
mother through Evan’
s eyes.”
U-M refused to consider a transplant. 
At 70, they said, Loretta was too old. 

Sy’
s senior associate and mentor Dr. 
Mort Lazar, 96, advised him to take 
Loretta to Cleveland’
s Cleveland Clinic. 
There the transplant process began. 
Physical exams, blood tests, X-rays, 
CT scans, social workers, psychiatrist, 
financial counselors, cardiac catheter-
ization, endoscopy, pulmonary function 
tests and medical records. “You don’
t 
get an organ transplant without turning 
over every pebble. Some I didn’
t even 
know existed,” he says. 
By Thanksgiving 2009, Loretta’
s 
breathing became more labored. “We 
were consumed with the preliminaries 
leading to winning the ‘
lung lottery,’
” 
Sy recalls. The paperwork was endless. 
Loretta’
s myriad of test results would be 
programmed in a computer that would 
produce a score. “The challenge is to 
survive until the score puts you at the 
top of the list.”
That December, Sy says, he and 
Loretta were sitting in their bedroom 
watching TV
. “I was really watching 
Loretta, as I did every day. Did she have 

enough oxygen? How could I help her? 
The phone rang. We screamed and we 
cried. She was listed!”
But time dragged on. Loretta’
s oxygen 
needs grew. The Ziegelmans packed a 
bag in their car, kept the gas tank full. 
If the call came, they’
d have to race to 
Cleveland. 
They drove back and forth to 
Cleveland for testing. Loretta’
s lungs 
worsened. She was raised to No. 1 on 
the transplant list. After many weeks, a 
call came, and they sped to Cleveland. 
The lung wasn’
t healthy enough. “We 
had no concept that a dry run happens 
at least 30 percent of the time,” Sy says. 
Back to waiting. 
“When would we get the call? The 
winter was snowy. Would we make 
it to Cleveland in time?” Four snow 
tires on his front-wheel drive Avalon 
were his insurance. “Would Loretta’
s 
lungs hold out until we got the call. 
I forgot how to sleep as I listened to 
each breath she was still able to take.” 
Several weeks later, another call. 
Another race to Cleveland. Another 
lung that wasn’
t OK.
They drove home in silence, 
“exhausted and without hope. When 
hope vanishes in the transplant race, 
the race is lost. The challenge was to 
get through the day and the next and 
the next until it was Loretta’
s turn. We 
had to believe,” he says. 
On April 9, 2010, they met with the 
director of the transplant group in 
Cleveland. The doctor was “kind and 
honest.” Loretta’
s need was “critical.”
They drove home again in silence. 
“The silence of acknowledgement that 
life as a couple would end if Loretta 
didn’
t get her call,” Sy says. 
At 4:30 a.m. the next morning, 
the phone rang. There was a lung. 
“I sobbed uncontrollably,” Sy says. 
“Would the third time be a charm? I 
had to believe or I’
d die of a broken 
heart.”
After the surgery, Dr. Ken McCurry, 
Loretta’
s surgeon, reported Loretta had 
received a right lung transplant and he 

Sy and Loretta Ziegelman 

36 July 25 • 2019
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