Still going strong

The infections were growing worse. The lethargy was intensifying. His body was growing more bloated, his skin was turning gray and the telltale odor of ammonia was building.

It was at some point during that debilitating spiral, toward the end of a nearly three-decade fight with liver disease, that Washington Redskins strength and conditioning coach John Hastings accepted death.

Hastings appeared muscular and physically fit. But inside his liver was being ravaged by auto-immune hepatitis (AIH). The end was near.

“I came to terms … with death,” Hastings said. “I don’t want to sound too morbid, but you just come to terms with it. I put it all in God’s hands. ‘If that’s the road You want to take me, then that’s fine.’ I just basically prayed that my family was fine with it and that they would be fine.”

The 11th hour came in May 2004. Hastings went to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to see about getting dual-listed (listed at more than one facility) for a liver transplant. Tests revealed the disease had advanced at an alarming rate. He was told he had just months to live.

Within weeks, Hastings’ six-year stint on “the list” ended, and he received a new liver. Today, 40 years old but feeling 20, he is back to torturing Redskins players with his notoriously intense workouts and innovative — some would say “crazy” — training techniques. It is impossible to detect the effects of his ordeal.

“You know, we haven’t really talked about it,” said Redskins H-back Chris Cooley, one of the few players courageous enough to work out exclusively with Hastings. “Mostly I just hear other coaches in there like, ‘Slow down.’ He’s like, ‘I’m fine.’ So it hasn’t been a big deal.”

Maybe not to most folks around Redskin Park. But Dr. Paulo Fontes, co-director of Pittsburgh’s renowned liver transplant program, said Hastings was a “walking bomb.” The doctor now champions Hastings as an illustration of just how full life can be for liver-transplant recipients.

“When families see somebody like him, he [can say], ‘This is real. I got my transplant. Now I’m able to do all these things,’ ” Fontes said. “They listen.”

A lucky appendectomyw

Hastings’ saga began when he was 13 or 14 and living in Lancaster, Pa. He felt abnormally tired and went to see a doctor. The initial diagnosis was mononucleosis, but the symptoms persisted, and Hastings eventually was sent to Bethesda’s National Institutes of Health.

There doctors discovered AIH, a disease of uncertain cause (Hastings thinks he might have been exposed to something as a child) in which the body’s immune system attacks organs it should protect. His liver and colon were under siege.

AIH develops slowly over time, and drugs permit sufferers to live for years with manageable symptoms. But suppressing the immune system hampers the body’s natural defenses, and infections become a major problem.

“That’s really what we were living with [for years],” said Hastings’ wife, Lori. “It was just always a fear of getting some kind of infection — every time he got cut. He was in and out of hospitals a lot.”

Nonetheless, the longtime physical trainer seemed to be in great shape — such good shape, in fact, that his condition was largely masked.

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