The year Santa received the greatest gift of all.
As a professional Santa Claus, Jim Trubey’s greatest joy was in spreading Christmas cheer. So it’s only fitting that, over the course of a single year, Jim would receive not one, but three life-saving gifts himself.
In January of 2014, Jim arrived at Erlanger’s emergency department with excruciating abdominal pain. Erlanger physicians quickly diagnosed Jim with not one but three distinct problems: a ruptured appendix, four blocked arteries in his heart, and a mass on his right kidney. Surgeries to remove his appendix and perform a quadruple heart bypass were soon performed with great outcomes. However, soon afterward, Jim received some dreaded news. The mass on his kidney was malignant.
“To me, it sounded like a death sentence, that there was no hope,” remembers Jim. But at this low moment in his life, Jim was reassured by urologic surgeon Dr. Amar Singh: “Where I come from, there is a cure.”
Seven months after his quadruple bypass and appendix surgeries, Dr. Singh and his team removed the tumor from Jim’s kidney. Using his world-renowned skills with the da Vinci surgical robot, Dr. Singh was able to remove the cancer while sparing Jim’s kidney. This not only shortened Jim’s recovery time, it also improved his outcome and prognosis. Santa Jim was now officially a cancer survivor.
“Robotic surgery was the key to Mr. Trubey’s positive outcome,” explains Dr. Singh. “Our team was able to perform the delicate kidney-sparing operation which removed the cancer while preventing the need for dialysis or a future organ transplant.”
Within days of his kidney-sparing surgery, Jim was home with his wife, planning future Santa Claus appearances that upcoming winter.
Today, this remarkable Santa lookalike continues to bring smiles and the Christmas spirit to children of all ages. And this year, for the first time, Santa Jim will visit Erlanger patients and staff on Christmas Day as a way to show his appreciation.
“It’s time for me to give back to Erlanger what they gave to me… my life,” says Santa Jim.