Hope for the future

Hare has had three heart attacks, one in 1993, a second in 1996 (when his heart stopped for 18 seconds) and the most-recent in August of 2012.

For people like Hare, with attack-damaged heart tissue, it might seem there are no medical options left.

But researchers at Mayo Clinic in Rochester have undertaken urgent efforts to change that.

The research study Hare joined is placebo-controlled.That means some study participants will get their own stem cells back and others will get a substitute. Researchers will be able to compared patients receiving the treatment with those receiving nothing.

The goal is to determine if stem cells derived from their own bodies can repair damaged heart muscle and whether that treatment produces better patient outcomes than standard therapy.

"They take bone marrow out of your hips, both hips, and then they send it to a lab and then it comes back," Hare said. "And this time they injected it into the vessel where I had my last heart attack."

The process of donating the marrow so stem cells could be separated out by a company in New Jersey, he said, was free of trauma.

"That was nothing," he said.

He takes a positive-mental-attitude approach to the concept that he may or may not have received an infusion of his own stem cells to heal his heart.

"Even if I didn't have the real stem cells, it hopefully would help somebody else," he said.

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Hope for the future